Behind ‘The Box’

• By CARL DUBOIS
• Advocate sportswriter
• Published: May 11, 2008 - Page: 1A - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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In a kind of shorthand for baseball stadium names, Jacobs Field in Cleveland became known as “The Jake.” Candlestick Park in San Francisco was often called “The Stick.”

“The Joe” is a common term for Sewell-Thomas Stadium at the University of Alabama.

Alex Box Stadium, named for the former LSU baseball and football player killed in World War II, is typically called “The Box” or “Alex Box.”

To a few people, those names resonate in ways others can never fully grasp.

LSU is set to play the final regular-season game at Alex Box Stadium this afternoon — the last game, period, if the Tigers don’t host a postseason regional — before moving into a new ballpark in 2009.

The imminent closure of the old stadium stirs memories and emotions on the branches of the Box family tree.

Sam Box, 90, lives in a nursing home in Mobile, Ala., where on a wall hangs a rare photo of younger brother Alex, who died at war in North Africa on Feb. 19, 1943.

Two years later Sam named his firstborn son after Alex, who was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross before his death, and the Purple Heart after.

Sam often thinks about his brother’s unrealized potential.

“I always wondered what he’d be doing in life,” he said. “Would he be a coach? Would he be at LSU? I wonder. He’d be 87 now. There seems to be a good many people who know who he was and want to honor him.”

Simeon Alexander Box, 63, lives near Augusta, Ga. Like the uncle he never knew, he signs correspondence as S. Alex Box. Like his uncle, he goes by Alex Box.

“From the time I was old enough to understand who I was named after, I’ve considered it an honor to have his name,” he said. 
Whatever your name is, say it aloud. Add the word “stadium” at the end.

Now imagine being the namesake of a family member who died a hero before you were born — and a lifetime of hearing and reading Your Name Stadium.