We built it, they came, then they left

Here's a very good Les East feature on the long history of the minor league baseball franchise once known as the New Orleans Zephyrs and currently formerly known as the Baby Cakes.  Coincidentally, I found this in an old drawer the other day.



That wasn't "Opening night" or anything but it was from the inaugural season at what we used to call Zephyr Field.  It has been strange to read in the months since it was announced that the team would be moving to Wichita that the "state-of-the-art" baseball stadium on Airline that lured the team to New Orleans in the first place was now hopelessly out of date.  I'll admit that I have as much trouble getting out to that elbow of Metairie as Les says the folks there have coming into New Orleans.  I  actually saw more Zephyrs games during the four years they played at UNO than I did during the two decades they spent way out in Jefferson Parish.  So it's just not possible for me to remember the stadium out there as anything other than a shiny new luxury.

The stadium name was unofficially changed to “The Shrine on Airline,” a nickname given to the building by the team’s first public address announcer, Derrick Grubbs, when Zephyr Field opened. The stadium was a nice $20 million state-funded project that became a “shrine” when the local owners decided to pump in a few million dollars of their own money to upgrade it.

They read that a swimming pool was being planned for the Arizona Diamondbacks’ new stadium and they beat them to the punch by adding a pool and two hot tubs beyond the right-field wall. Then they planned a berm in center field that would naturally be called “The Levee.” They discovered that the original plans called for The Levee to be 10 feet lower than Monkey Hill, the spot in Audubon Zoo generally accepted as the highest point in South Louisiana. Once they realized how close they were to eclipsing Monkey Hill, Leger said, “we had another drink and said, ‘let’s go.’”

The stadium quickly became more than the home to a minor-league team. The stadium was the site of high school state championships and most recently LSU’s annual Wally Pontiff Jr. Classic, named in honor of the late Tigers star that grew up in Metairie. LSU and Tulane played before record crowds in an historic NCAA super regional in 2000 as the Green Wave’s best team ever beat Bertman’s final Tigers team for a spot in the College World Series.  The stadium was the site of the 1999 Triple-A All-Star Game, which set the tone for liberal expansion of the venue’s resume’ for big events.

Minor-league soccer had modest success and non-sporting events were held in the stadium as well. It was the site of a Presidential address by George W. Bush in April of 2001 and less than six months later a vigil in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The shrine routinely hosted post-game concerts and was even turned into a haunted house leading up to Halloween for a couple of falls.

So all types of people were drawn to the stadium for a variety of events.

“This is the entertainment focal point for Jefferson Parish,” Maestri said.

It had a dang swimming pool and everything, man.  But now it's garbage, apparently. Anyway there's a lot more Les's article.  Seems like it should get more circulation. The baseball team was only here for a quarter of a century.  Surely somebody noticed.