Omaha adjusting to new stadium

OMAHA, Neb. — Omaha simply wasn’t going to stand by idly and watch its child move away.

As the city’s contract with the College World Series was set to expire several years ago, so was the viability of Rosenblatt Stadium as the host facility.

To help keep Omaha’s biggest event right where it belonged, the city constructed TD Ameritrade Park, which opened in 2011 and has received rave reviews from players and coaches, locals and fans.

“This thing since 1950, they’ve been here for the College World Series, this is kind of Omaha’s child,” said Dave Keilitz, executive director of the American Baseball Coaches Association. “If you need an idea of the importance of this to Omaha, when you talk to college baseball players and coaches, they don’t say College World Series. They say they’re striving to get to Omaha, and everybody in baseball knows what that means ... That’s how big it is to the city of Omaha.”

Rosenblatt hosted the CWS for 50 years and captured the hearts of fans for its vibrant colors and personality. More than that, it was the camaraderie fans built with each other that made the old venue so special.

Kent Peterson has attended the CWS every year since 1986 and lived in Omaha for four years during the 1980s.

“The part about Rosenblatt was we sat by the same people for 25 years and they weren’t able transpose that to this new stadium,” he said. “We got split up. So you miss that and the same people tailgating, same people every year in the same seats and it got to be, it was a little sad to see that end.”

Peterson said Rosenblatt was difficult to get out of after games, and praised the new stadium’s concourse structure. He also noted that tailgating is easier because there are paved islands lined with trees throughout the main parking lot.

Rosenblatt, on the other hand, had islands that only accommodated four cars and were few and far between, Peterson said.

The fan experience might be different for better or worse, but TD Ameritrade Park has brought college baseball’s premiere event into the modern era of ballparks.

“When you look at the amenities of the locker rooms and the dugouts and the clubhouses and the hitting cages and the stadium itself, there’s no comparison (to Rosenblatt),” Keilitz said. “The tradition here will build just like you did in Rosenblatt. Traditions take time, but this is a great, great facility.”

The city of Omaha helped pay for the $131 million ballpark through a private-public partnership. That might seem unwise to some, considering its primary event lasts all of 10 days.

“The reason (being) that this tournament means so much to Omaha that they’re willing to build this basically for the College World Series,” Keilitz said. “And it’s worked great for the College World Series and I think it’s worked for the city of Omaha.”

The stadium is also used by Creighton’s baseball team and the United Football League’s Omaha Nighthawks and has hosted numerous concerts.

City officials might also believe that the stadium will pay for itself given how much the CWS boosts the local economy. When Peterson lived in Omaha, he worked in the hotel business and saw the event’s economic impact firsthand.

“We as ‘hoteliers’ used to bid on what teams we’d try to get at the hotel,” he said. “Back in the mid-80s, the strength of baseball was Stanford and LSU so you know you had a contingent staying for a long period of time.

“If you got one of the underdogs they’d check in and they were eliminated in a couple days and it wasn’t great for business, the hotel would go empty.”

Like Peterson, Shirley Urbach bonded with her fellow CWS fans over time. The 85-year-old is attending her 38th CWS.

“The friendship of the people — we met so many people in all those games that we went to from all over the county, and we come here and they’re all scattered all around,” Urbach said. “I’m just used to going to Rosenblatt and I think it was a great stadium.

“It was colorful, we had so many friends there. It was sad for me.”

But even a Rosenblatt-lifer like Urbach could not deny the attraction of 3-year-old TD Ameritrade Park.

“It really is a beautiful stadium,” she said. “But you know, I’m old and I’ve got my traditions — I really miss Rosenblatt. There for a while, I couldn’t even drive by Rosenblatt.”

With Rosenblatt gone, TD Ameritrade Park figures to one day become a legend in its own right. In 2008, the city extended its contract with the CWS through 2035.

Regardless of venue, it is important to remember that the CWS is about the players competing in it, Keilitz said.

“I think there probably were a lot of people (that) were skeptical coming in but I remember being here for the first game and being here every year for many of the games and when people walked in and looked around, and said ‘Wow,’” he said. “The biggest thing is when the players, when the teams come in and they see this. This is special, this is really special.”