My 10 Favorite Places in Omaha

For no particular reason, I thought it would be fun to run down my ten favorite places in Omaha over a few weeks or so.  Hopefully by the time I'm done, you'll check out a place you've never been to before, or chime in with your own thoughts on the places mentioned- and those ignored.  Before we get started, I laid down a couple of ground rules for myself to follow, and they're pretty easy- they can't directly involve shopping or eating/drinking- so that means the Old Market (for example) is out even though I enjoy that area.  They also have to be located in the actual Omaha Metro area- so Fontenelle Forest is out as well.  My reasons for loving these places has less to do with tangibles, and is all about those lovely intangibles.  Without further adieu, today we will start with number ten:

As a big baseball fan, I've surprised even myself by putting Rosenblatt so low on the list.  Maybe it's because I see more pros then cons to the new stadium, or maybe I just grew tired of the love-in that lasted through seemingly 50 last events at Rosenblatt.  I can't say for sure, but going through my ten places, I'm comfortable with Rosenblatt right here.

For every good experience I've had at Rosenblatt, it seems like I've had at least one bad one to match it.  Since we've heard endless talk about how great the places was (and it was), let's go negative for a little bit.  Let's see-



-I once was stuck in mud in someone's backyard after paying $5 to park there and then having to deal with the idiots at AAA to come tow us out  (the truck driver was great, the phone operator, not so much).  I should have known better than to park there, but my wife wore "cute" shoes and refused to walk any further than we already had to!

-My wife and I came across a man presumably having a heart attack in the parking lot- my wife did CPR while his three young children and wife stood around traumatized, and to this day we don't know what happened.  Awful experience, and I can't even imagine what his family was going through.  I still marvel at my wife taking charge of such an awful situation. 

-We were also once kicked out of a CWS game because my handicapped and wheelchair bound father-in-law was denied handicapped seating because two young punk kids were in the handicapped seats, and when I attempted to "reason" with the ushers they threw me out (only to be allowed back in when a supervisor realized how dumb this was). 

-The concourses were just awful in that thing.  Tom Shatel waxed poetic today about the concourses in TD Ameritrade, and for good reason- the halls in Rosenblatt were not unlike being in the trash compactor during the first Star Wars movie.  (By first, of course I mean A New Hope and not Phantom Menace.)  What was that awful smell we all discovered?!? 

-And lastly, who can forget the Huskers spitting the bit during their last CWS appearance, with the manager even calling for a sacrifice bunt with one out in the inning and a runner on first- in college baseball with ridiculously high slugging percentages and aluminum bats!!!   

That said, I still love the place and I don't think the CWS will ever quite be the same- but it will help if the fans in the left field and right field bleachers still arbitrarily hate each other's guts.  (How, may I ask, are we to expect any kind of Middle East peace if the fans in the bleachers can't get past their differences, separated only by the hitter's background?)

The zoo has some great plans for the place and I look forward to seeing them executed, but I think all of us will still wish we could have Rosenblatt pop back up for two weeks of the year in June.  But the NCAA spoke, we wisely listened, and going forward, I expect it to remain a great event- just a lot blander and more corporate.  Kind of like life itself if you let it.