I am a baseball fan. During the offseason, I count the days until pitchers and catchers report to spring training. I believe the triple may be the most exciting play in all of sports. Fenway and Wrigley are names never to be taken in vain. Eating a hot dog in the stands, arguing about the designated hitter, and filling my brain with obscure trivia and statistics all continue to be a part, dare I say important part, of my life.

Even with its urban origins, the very idea of going to a baseball game has long been a bucolic, escapist pastime. Its very nature means going to a large field – the ballpark – though its highest architectural levels can be marred by domes and artificial turf. As a kid, absent an organized diamond, my friends and I could always fashion a field from our natural surroundings or the backyard – “this pile of leaves is home plate, the pine tree is first base…”

What do you remember about the first professional game you went to? Of all the sights, sounds, and smells that you encountered, how about walking up the ramp from the concourse and seeing that big green field? That was the sanctuary of heroes, where legends roamed, and the grass where they tread was so green. I’m not arguing that the experience definitively instilled a conservation ethos in a young child’s mind, but it intuitively creates understanding around the need for open space.

"Just as baseball took a leading role in the development of relations between the races in the United States, with the appearance of Jackie Robinson for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947, so must it turn its attention, efforts, and influence to other important social issues. One of those issues, which is inextricably linked to all aspects of our game, is care for the environment."

-- Baseball Commissioner Allan H. (Bud) Selig, March 2008

Which brings us to Yankee Stadium, home of the 79th annual All-Star Game and the site of many of my own childhood games. As a respite for play in the midst of the built-up Bronx, it epitomizes green space, and it got even greener this, its last, season. Major League Baseball has partnered with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and Community Energy to green all the All-Star Week festivities, which includes powering Yankee Stadium with wind energy for the Home Run Derby and All-Star Game. CEI is offsetting all the electricity use from the Stadium, and the 5-day FanFest at the Javits Center, the “largest baseball fan event in the world”, with emission-free, renewable wind energy. More information about all the initiatives undertaken to give this game an environmental makeover is available on http://www.nrdc.org/enterprise/allstar.asp.

Root for your favorite all-star to hit a home run; it’s the only foreign object going into the air from Yankee Stadium on Tuesday night.

As always, we want to hear from you. So please write to us at CommunityEnergy@newwindenergy.com.