SPORTS
WHERE A
BASEBALL DIAMOND
MEETS THE SKY
Ira Rosen captures
some of baseball's
famous stadiums.
oor,
during a 1986 playoff game was
h of Shea Stadium
Ira Rosen's photograp
the first Stadium Views shot he produced.
MELINDA GREENBERG
Special to The Jewish News
w
hen Ira Rosen at-
tends a major league
baseball game, he
doesn't sit still long enough
to enjoy it. The photographer
is constantly moving, snap-
ping pictures of the stadium
and the field.
"I am trying to capture
the first time someone walks
out of the ramp at a ballpark
and sees the grass, the seats,
the sky," said Mr. Rosen,
who started a company call-
ed Stadium Views last Oc-
tober to produce and market
his photographs and posters
of some of baseball's most
famous arenas.
Until this spring, Mr.
Rosen, of Washington
Township, N.J., was a man-
ufacturer's representative
for a consumer electronics
company. But then Stadium
Views, which he started as a
hobby with his wife, Judy,
became a full-time job.
"I got the idea after blow-
ing up a shot I took in Shea
Stadium in 1986," Mr.
Rosen said of the photo-
graph taken during the third
game of the New York Mets
playoffs against the
Houston Astros. "My wife
and I had sold a lot of our
baseball memorabilia, and
we needed something to
cover the walls."
Mr. Rosen had his Shea
Stadium picture blown up to
a 20-inch by 30-inch print,
framed and hung on his
basement wall.
Taken as a "fan's keep-
46
FRIDAY, JUNE 7, 1991
The
second ballpark Ira
,
Rosen Photo
sake," the photograph cap-
tured a pitch on its way to
home plate, with Darryl
Strawberry, then a Met,
about to make a dramatic
backhanded catch.
The Rosens were so pleas-
ed with the results that they
produced more of the Shea
Stadium photographs and
sold them at a baseball
memorabilia show last fall.
While he has never taken
photography classes, the 37-
year-old Mr. Rosen is able to
capture the beauty of some
of baseball's most famous
stadiums
The empty bleachers in
the old Comiskey Park, now
in the process of being torn
down, gleam with the last
rays of sunlight before an
early evening game. Ivy-
covered walls frame Wrigley
Field in a ground level shot
taken from behind home
plate.
Despite his lack of formal
training, Mr. Rosen takes
memorable photographs of
stadiums.
"I have a good eye and a
s'";
‘ ;.
ah
New York's Yankee
Stadium.
Photos By Ira Rosen
.
Ira Rosen calls his photograph of Chicago's old Comiskey Park his most sen-
timental.
steady hand," said Mr.
Rosen, who works with a 35-
millimeter camera and a
wide angle lens. "When I
look through the view finder
and press the button, nice
things happen."
The next ballpark Mr.
Rosen photographed was
Yankee Stadium. Ironically,
it overlooks the old site of
the ballpark where, in 1962,
Mr. Rosen saw his first ma-
jor league baseball game.
The Polo Grounds, torn
"Baseball is a slow,
ethereal, statistical
game."
— Ira Rosen
down in 1964, was home to
the New York Giants foot-
ball team, and the first
stadium played in by Mr.
Rosen's favorite team, the
Mets.
"I spent nine years look-
ing for an old photograph of
the Polo Grounds," said Mr.
Rosen, who continues his
fruitless search for a picture
of the old Harlem ballpark.
"Unfortunately, I can't cap-
ture parks that were torn
down years ago."
That's one reason why he
plans to produce Stadium
Views of ballparks that will
soon be closing.
He was in Baltimore over the
Memorial Day weekend to
photograph Memorial Sta-
dium, which is closing its
doors after 37 seasons of ma-
jor league baseball.
Tiger Stadium in Detroit,
which may be replaced in the
near future, is also high on
Mr. Rosen's list of ballparks
to photograph.
Already in the series is a
photograph of the oldest
baseball park in the world —
Chicago's old Comiskey
Park. Mr. Rosen calls that
photo his "most sentimen-
tal."
With over 300 Stadium
Views sold already, Mr.
Rosen plans to travel to Cal-
ifornia and the Midwest to
add new ballparks to his
portfolio. He also intends to
photograph Belmont Race-
track in Elmont, N.Y., and
Louis Armstrong Stadium