John Erardi

jerardi@enquirer.com

Really, how hard would it have been?

To leave a portion of the outfield wall standing? Or retain one of the light towers on its original spot?

Or maybe keep a piece of the back wall of the Sun Deck/Moon Deck? My gosh, there's nothing on that spot now, nor has there ever been to my knowledge, since the wall came down.

Couldn't we have saved a piece of that back wall?

I speak of Crosley Field, of course, the venerated and venerable Reds' old ballpark at Findlay and Western on the West End that the great sports writer Robert Creamer (''Babe'') said was the most intimate ballpark in the major leagues in the 1950s.

I purposely wrote this story short so that it could be read over the course of listening two or three times to Frank Sinatra singing the highly evocative ''There Used to be a Ballpark Here.''

The melody and lyrics show why so many of us want to ''find'' the old ballparks after they're gone. We want to re-create the scene of some our fondest memories. Or, if we don't have memories, we want to imagine what it was like to have been there.

Now the children try to find it,

And they can't believe their eyes

'Cause the old team just isn't playing,

And the new team hardly tries

Even if you're too young to care about such things, think about your favorite Reds team. Maybe it's the one you're growing up with now, the one without its hitting star and fielding star, and yet smack-dab in the middle of a four-team pennant race.

You don't think you'll ever want to try to re-create that world?

Ask your parents or grandparents about that.

And there used to be a ballpark

Where the field was warm and green.

And the people played their crazy game

With a joy I'd never seen.

There was just something about Crosley Field.

People go ''looking'' for it in a way they don't go looking for Riverfront Stadium.

It had to be that intimacy of which Creamer wrote.

My friend Terry Moore, a Cincinnati native, wrote of this feeling in a wonderful column a few weeks back.

Moore attended games at Crosley Field in the late 1960s. He came back for a visit last month. With considerable difficultly, he eventually ''located'' the old ballpark, but he never really ''found'' it.

That needs to change.

This Saturday -- a few hours before the Reds begin their second game of the second half of what appears as though it might be a magical season – an effort will be made to re-discover old Crosley.

The Reds' Greg Rhodes and Chris Eckes will give tours of the Crosley site every half hour on the half hour, 11 a.m. through 2 p.m. Meet at Nehemiah Manufacturing Co., 1130 Findlay St.

I'll swing by and join some of the tours, maybe offer a few stories, and see if anything can be done to commemorate a building that is still on site that is visible on the recently discovered newsreel from the 1919 World Series, and discuss if there's a way to acknowledge the upslope of ground that was ''the terrace,'' the upslope of ground that served as the warning track to the left-field wall.

The tours are $30 for adult members of the Reds Hall of Fame, $35 for non-members ($15/$20 for students). Included in the ticket price is a Ted Kluszewski statue-collectible, voucher for tour of Great American Ball Park/admission to Reds Hall of Fame, hot dogs and soft drinks, and a meet-and-greet with Reds Hall of Famers Tommy Helms, Jim O'Toole and Leo Cardenas.

But the name of the game Saturday is re-discovering Crosley.

And the air was such a wonder

From the hot-dogs and the beer.

Yes, there used to be a ballpark right here

I've visited that area 15 or 20 times in the past 20 years, and I think it all comes down to one's imagination.

The imagination can often use a little nudge.

The smell of a hot dog on a grill can instantly transport me back to Archbold Stadium at Syracuse University, which might not seem like a big deal, but the stadium's been gone 35 years and the last time I was there I was 13.

I've had people say the same thing to me about popcorn and cigar smoke at Crosley Field.

''For me, it was a real sharp 'coal' smell,'' Buddy Bell once told me. ''It was right near the post office -- next to Crosley Field -- and was inside the ballpark, too. I guarantee you, if I smelled it today, I'd know that smell.''

Yes, there's nothing like the olfactory experience. But familiar landmarks, overlay maps and then-and-now photos can help, too.

The last time I was at the West End site, I noticed that right next to the loading dock of one of the warehouse buildings there was a small hill. It was under asphalt. But, clearly, it was ''the terrace.''

We're going to see if it's still there.

No, it's not as evocative as saving part of the Forbes Field wall as did the good folks of Pittsburgh, but the idea's the same: A landmark.

The area that was the playing surface at Redland Field/Crosley Field was originally a brickyard. York Street, which was beyond what would become the left-field wall, was higher than the brickyard; a slope of ground led down into the brickyard. The builders of Redland /Crosley kept the topography the same.

The terrace began 15 feet from the wall, and gradually sloped upward four feet in elevation to where it met the wall.

''Every time a ball was hit over your head at Crosley Field, it was a new experience,'' Frank Robinson once told me.

''You couldn't run up the terrace; you almost had to climb it. And when you got to the top of it, there was the brick wall. When you got up there and the ball was hit over your head, it would come off that wall like a missile. It was very, very tough on visiting outfielders. I remember Willie Mays winding up flat on his back.''

And the people watched in wonder

How they'd laugh and how they'd cheer!

And there used to be a ballpark right here.

The best example of then-and-now Enquirer photos are on pages 206-07 of a Crosley Field book Rhodes and I did a few years ago.

You can still ''see'' the ballpark in the ''now'' photo on page 207. The butt end of the old grandstand bumped up against the three-story building. Then, moving clockwise, you see the smokestack of the 1919 building in foul territory behind the left-field-line grandstand… Western Avenue that ran behind the center-field wall… the curved turnaround where the buses dropped off passengers (just behind what was the Sun Deck/Moon Deck)… and then Findlay Street that ran behind the right-field-line grandstand and main ticket building and back to the three-story building.

What throws you now is Dalton Street. It used to dead-end into Findlay midway behind the right-field-line grandstand. Now it extends all the way through along the same path base-runners took from first to second.

Here's another audio-visual aid: A 3D animation by The Enquirer's Mike Nyerges as part of a ''peek inside'' produced by Glenn Hartong and narrated by Rhodes and me:

Crosley Field is still there.

It's time to bring it back to life.

And the sky has got so cloudy

When it used to be so clear,

Yes, there used to be a ballpark right here.