You gotta beleive that Alex Box is one of the best places to every play a college baseball game. Now why would you want to tear it down and build another one, and put an ugly parking garage in the between Tiger Stadium and New Alex Box. Talk about traffic nightmare trying to leave a game when cars parked on multi-level garage trying to exit from two or three gates after the game. Anyone here ever parked at New Orleans Centre for a Saints game. Yeah, thats what I am talking about! And if you haven't, its because you already know you have to wait hours to get out. Let's start a petition to save the box! First Down! Go Tigers!
Actually, I am for a new stadium. I understand why we should keep the box...but I am going to love the new parking for school. LSU has the worst parking system. Generally, it takes a long time to get to your classes.
I'm with you on the parking system. By far bad, no doubt about it. But how does a more perimeter parking help? They need to have something in the middle of campus for students, like a parking garage near the Union. It wouldn't be any faster for people to park at Alex Box and walk, since it is so far out there anyways. First Down!
As a student I also agree about the parking. Its a bitch to park at the Bernie Moore and walk to Coates or Howe Russell. The parking is a joke. Its even worse for those who live on campus. My girlfriend can sometimes score a spot next to her dorm and sometimes has to park all the way at the rec. Its a joke.
You're right....from a fans standpoint, a venue like "The Box" is great for the sport. But from a players/recruits standpoint, teams like Miss State, Ole Miss, Arkansas, etc., with current renovations/new construction, provide a lot nicer fascilities to the situation we're in with Alex Box. "Tradition" only gets you so far when it comes to landing top-flight recruits year-in and year-out. The further away we get from our last National title, the less those traditional moments affect future recruits' opinions of coming here. I love the Box. I'm sad that I can't make any games--or haven't made any games (baseball) since I left Louisiana almost 5 years ago, but now is the perfect time to "strike while the iron is hot". We still have some relatively fresh historical achievements having made the CWS twice over the past couple seasons, but add state of the art fascilities COUPLED with our recent success, and we're more likely to assure ourselves of additional top 5 recruiting classes. ...just my opinion...
We have the oldest, smallest baseball stadium in the SEC. It is not on par with the other top programs in the country. The new baseball stadium will have more space for parking and a much nicer grandstand and locker facilities. We are not going to win 5 national championships in a single decade very often. It takes top facilities to compete in recruiting. It also takes top facilities to bring in fan dollars. Especially skybox and club seats, both of which the new stadium could have. LSU once played basketball in the Gym/Armory, then the Cow Palace, and then the PMAC. At some point the PMAC will have to be replaced, too. Even Tiger Stadium will come to the end of its life span in time. Alex Box is declining and needs to be replaced while it is still a respectable facility. The heritage will go to the new Alex Box stadium along with the team.
parking sucks and we should build a stadium worthy of such a great team that we have at LSU. MSU has a great baseball stadium, lets make ours better.
the Box is being torn down so that we can have parking spaces for football donors. You know how much money that would be? All those spaces. Bertman isn't worried about the direction of the program, since he did in fact hire Smoke Laval. And don't credit him with 2 CWS appearances, he did in fact take over the hands down #1 program in the country. anyone could have done that. We could just remodel the thing, it's all about the bucks tied into football. dont' say looks matters over tradition, Wrigley Field sells out all the time, and they just got lights not that long ago. If they build this new stadium, they're gonna lose on it.
You don't know one damn thing about it. Its part of the LSU Master Plan. You don't know one damn thing about LSU athletics either, obviously.
Bottom line is the Box was built in the 30's during the WPA days. It's undergone about as much renovating as can be done. Might as well spend the money on a new state-of-the-art ballpark than to keep investing money into the current Box. Like some others have said LSU is waaaay behind when it comes to its baseball facilities and IMO it should've been #1 for a while now. I love Alex Box too and the history that the venerable old stadium holds but it's time to improve. For LSU to continue the success that it has enjoyed in the last 15 years departmental wide the facilities had to be upgraded to be on par with other SEC schools. One thing I'll give Skip Bertman and TAF big time credit for is understanding the need is NOW for facilities improvements.
