Rand: Stadiums are rising right before our eyes

It's strange to think of ballparks, stadiums and arenas as abstract things because, in the most literal sense, they are concrete.

But their construction is such a strange thing. We spend so much time hashing out the details of their approval. Then there is a date far out in the distance when they are set to become a reality with actual games; for a long time before that, though, they just seem like holes in the ground.

Then magically, almost overnight, they start to look like places where sports could happen. I had that experience recently while looking out at the new Vikings stadium from the light rail even though I knew all the details that were hitting me.

Wait, the seasons at TCF Bank Stadium are already here? And this thing opens in less than two years.

The same thing happened in St. Paul at the site of the new Saints ballpark — CHS Field, it was announced Monday morning, though fans will certainly come up with a clever nickname.

For a long time, construction of a new ballpark in Lowertown was just a thing that was going to happen. But now that the Saints have played their final game at Midway Stadium and the outline of an actual ballpark with places to sit exists on the new site, the reality of a 2015 opening hit home.

In a strange way, these stadiums and ballparks mark the passage of time, reminding us of how things that seem far out in the future instead come bolting into the present faster than we might think as we churn out our daily lives.

Mike Veeck, the Saints' principal owner and president who nonetheless moves along more to the rhythm of a poet than an executive, had the same experience recently.

"It became real to me last week when we closed Midway and came for a tour. … Suddenly you saw the vision," he said. "It is an abstraction, and then all the sudden — the field goes in a month from now. It's just staggering to me."

Veeck, whose father Bill owned the White Sox, has deep Chicago roots. One of the most exciting parts of the new stadium, to him, is the urban setting and walkability he remembers from the ballparks of his youth.

"People are saying, 'it must be so bittersweet after 22 years [at Midway],' but it's equally exciting to be moving into new digs," Veeck said. "The world is like Bob Dylan said: 'He not busy being born is busy dying.'"

Indeed. It moves so fast that going from a hole in the ground to "Play ball" feels like the blink of an eye.

Michael Rand