I watched the documentary ‘Cobb Field: A Day at the Ballpark“ today on MLB Network. The theme of “if these walls could talk” is made even more literal, as the narrator is the “voice” of the park. It’s a cutesy way to make the field the star, and for the most part I’d say it works.
I love old ballparks, and didn’t know anything about the old stadium in Billings, Montana, named not for the first Cobb you think of in baseball circles, Ty, but for Robert H. Cobb, whose name has mostly endured from his namesake salad. But Cobb was also a baseball maven, owning the famed Hollywood Stars PCL team and hobnobbing with movie stars of the mid-20th century.
Cobb Field gives a quick history of the park and some of the great players who made their way through Billings over the years. Interviews with Jim Kaat, who played for Missoula when the Pioneer League was classified “C” and Gary Redus, who hit a whopping .462 in his only season in Billings in 1978 on the way to the Reds and behind-the-scenes looks at the clubhouse, press box and other antiquated areas help make the connection with the past.
The documentary also notes that the field was a throwback in every way — eschewing the many on-field gimmicks and promotions and loud, obtrusive music that are universal throughout the minors today. Cobb Field was demolished in 2007 to make way for a modern park on the same site, which from the condition of Cobb, which opened in 1948, looked necessary, nostalgia buffs and longtime Billings fans’ wishes notwithstanding.
Sounds like a place I would have like to have visited.
While Cobb Field talks to the players, coaches and attendants working at the field at the time of the filming and updates their respective statuses at the end, the filmmakers understand that the stadium is the star, and treat it appropriately.