Green Monster in This Case Is Lack of Cash

Boston’s Fenway Park and Detroit’s Tiger Stadium are the oldest ballparks in the majors, having officially opened on the same day, April 20, 1912. Fenway is also the smallest, with 33,871 seats.

Old and small, however, do not add up to major league profits.

The Red Sox want a bigger park, which has inspired an outpouring of opposition, nostalgia and, surprisingly, even support from some of Fenway’s most faithful.

The best-case scenario for the Red Sox has a new park opening in 2003, but Dan Shaughnessy, the Boston Globe columnist who wrote two books about Fenway, thinks it will take at least five more years.

“I’d like it to be forever, but I understand the reality,” Shaughnessy said. “We could all be dead by the time this is done.”

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Trivia time: In 1927, when Babe Ruth hit 60 home runs, he had more homers than any other team in the league.

How many home runs would Mark McGwire have needed last year to match that Ruthian statistic?

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Cruel: Peter Vecsey in the New York Post: “Patrick Ewing’s unavailability for the remainder of the playoffs tends to throw Jeff Van Gundy’s game plan into disarray.

“There may not be enough time to designate someone else who’s equally capable of missing the critical wide-open shot.”

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Anyone can apply: Lennox Lewis and Evander Holyfield will presumably meet sometime in November in a rematch of their controversial draw. Said Michael Ventre of MSNBC:

“Candidates interested in judging the fight must be inexperienced, show proof of financial instability and, if obstructed-view seats are unavailable, must be able to obstruct their own views.”

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Yawn! NASCAR veteran Kyle Petty is complaining that his sport is boring.

In an interview with the Knoxville (Tenn.) News-Sentinel, Petty said, “It’s a homogenized sport where everybody looks the same, does the same, talks the same, gives the same answers. The bigger it gets, it seems to lose a little bit of character.”

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Changing times: Pittsburgh Pirate rookie Warren Morris: “I’m playing against guys I’ve seen only in video games.”

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Dump daddy: Colby and Kyle Wren, the 8-year-old twin sons of Baltimore Oriole General Manager Frank Wren, came home from school recently stung by taunts that their dad was going to be fired.

“Don’t worry,” he told them. “If I get fired, that means I get to stay home and play with you every day.” The kids started jumping up and down, chanting, “Fired! Fired! Fired!”

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Symbolic: From comedy writer Jerry Perisho: “Utah Jazz forward Karl Malone has won the NBA’s most-valuable-player award. The little man on top of the trophy is knocking another guy’s teeth out with his elbows.”

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Trivia answer: 216.

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And finally: Ron Green of the Charlotte (N.C) Observer reports that golfer Jesper Parnevik and his wife, Mia, named their newborn daughter Pebble Peach.

Hmm, Pebble Peach Parnevik. Has a nice rhythm to it.