September 28, 2012: The Barclays Center Opens

September 28, 2012, 10 years ago: The Barclays Center opens, at the eastern edge of Downtown Brooklyn. It is bounded by Atlantic Avenue on the north, 6th Avenue on the east, Dean Street on the south, and Flatbush Avenue on the west. The official address is 620 Atlantic Avenue.

It is across from the Atlantic Terminal of the Long Island Rail Road, and the Atlantic Terminal Mall. It is thus accessible via the LIRR. For this reason, it was the site chosen by Walter O'Malley in 1954 for the new home of the Brooklyn Dodgers, a domed stadium he was calling the Brooklyn Sports Center. It never happened, because Robert Moses, who controlled several City and State agencies, and had to decide whether or not to give the order to clear the land necessary for the stadium, decided not to. This became O'Malley's excuse to take the Dodgers out of Brooklyn.

It is also accessible by Subway: The Atlantic Avenue-Barclays Center station on the 2, 3, 4, 5, B, D, N, Q, R, and W Trains; and the Bergen Street station on the 2, 3 and 4 Trains.

It was part of the Atlantic Yards project, built by real estate developer Bruce Ratner, who had bought the NBA's New Jersey Nets in 2004, at the height of their success: A 3rd straight Atlantic Division title, and the 2 previous Eastern Conference titles. He said he would build an arena at the site, and move the Nets there.

Delay after delay happened. Not only were the Nets a lame-duck team even longer than baseball's Montreal Expos were, but they ended up moving in the interim, in 2010, from the Meadowlands Arena to the Prudential Center in Newark. I had hoped that the crowds in Newark, a good basketball city, would impress Rather so much that he would keep the Nets there.

Instead, the crowds were every bit as sparse at The Rock as they were at the Meadowlands. And Ratner lost so much money on the project that he had to sell the Nets, to Russian businessman Mikhail Prokhorov. Contingent on the sale was agreeing to move the team into the Barclays Center as soon as it was ready.

The 1st event at the Barclays Center was a concert by Brooklyn native Shawn Carter, a.k.a. rapper Jay-Z. Within its 1st year, the new building had surpassed its intracity rival Madison Square Garden to become America's highest-grossing venue for the category of concerts and family shows.

The Nets' 1st regular-season game there, originally intended as November 1, 2012 against the New York Knicks, was delayed due to Hurricane Sandy. Instead, it was November 3, against the Toronto Raptors, and the Nets won, 107-100.

The Nets have played there ever since. Long Island University, based a few blocks away (Brooklyn and Queens are part of Long Island geologically, if not politically or culturally), have used it for some home games since then as well. The NHL's New York Islanders used it from 2015 to 2020. And the WNBA's New York Liberty started using it as their home court in 2021. Seating capacity is 17,732 for basketball, and 15,795 for hockey.

Yankees Beat Twins on Twins' Birthday

2007: Yankees in slump. July 2: Ashley and Rachel are born - as fraternal twins.The Yankees win 5-1 over the Minnesota... Twins.

2013: Yankees in slump. July 2: Ashley and Rachel turn 6. The Yankees beat Minnesota 7-3.

My kind of coincidence.

After 4 innings at Target Field last night, the Yankees trailed 1-0. Phil Hughes had pitched pretty well in the 1st 3 innings, then got out of a 2nd & 3rd, nobody out jam in the 4th. But the Yankees had gotten only one hit off Twins starter Samuel Deduno. Yeah, it was looking like one of those games again.

But, as they did the night before, the Twins obliged. In the top of the 5th, Lyle Overbay led off with a single. After a Chris Stewart lineout, David Adams singled. Alberto Gonzalez doubled them home, to give the Yankees the lead. After a Brett Gardner groundout, Ichiro Suzuki singled home Gonzalez. 3-1 Yankees.

In the 7th, with 1 out, Adams doubled, and reached 3rd on an error. Gonzalez singled him home. After a Gardner flyout, Ichiro singled. Then Robinson Cano hit a home run, his 20th of the season and his 4th in the last 3 games. 7-1 Yankees.

Preston Claiborne had the worst outing of his major league career thus far. He stopped the Twins 1-2-3 in the 8th, but he allowed 2 runs in the 9th, before Joe Girardi made the move that he didn't need his Binders Full of Strategies to make: He brought in the Hammer of God.

Before the game, the Twins presented Mariano Rivera with an appropriate gift: A rocking chair made of broken bats.

Mo only had to face 1 hitter, Ryan Doumit, and he got him to ground into a force play to end it. Yankees 7, Twins 3.

WP: Hughes (4-7, but has picked it up lately). SV: Rivera (27). LP: Deduno (4-3).

The series continues tonight, with CC Sabathia going against P.J. Walters. He's a 28-year-old righthander from Alabama, who seems to be a "Quadruple-A" player: Too good for Triple-A ball, but not quite good enough for the majors. His full name is Phillip DeWayne Walters. I guess the "P.J." stands for "Phillip Junior."

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Elsewhere in baseball, last night at Pity Field, the Mets loaded the bases against the Arizona Diamondbacks in the bottom of the 7th, and then the umpires stopped the game because of rain.

Typical Met luck? Not really: Play was allowed to resume, and the Mets got it done. They ended up winning, 9-1.

Homer Bailey of the Cincinnati Reds, who pitched baseball's most recent no-hitter last September, did it again, and this time he blanked the defending World Champions, the San Francisco Giants.

Some sportswriter (I forget who, and I won't embarrass him by looking him up and mentioning his name) said that the last time a pitcher had baseball's 2 most recent no-hitters was in 1975, when it was Nolan Ryan, and, like Bailey does not, Ryan was wearing Number 34. Uh-uh: Ryan was still with the team then known as the California Angels, and he was wearing Number 30.

An achievement like Bailey's deserves a toast. Anybody got any Bailey's Irish Cream?

Which means that if Matt Harvey does what no Met has ever done, and pitches a no-hitter that cannot be questioned, we'll have to toast him with Harvey's Bristol Cream.

The Red Sox and Rays both won, the Oriles and Blue Jays lost. So, at the moment, the AL East standings look like this:

Boston 51-34 
Baltimore 47-37 - 3 1/2 (3 in the loss column)
Tampa Bay 45-39 - 5 1/2 (5)
New York 44-39 - 6 (5)
Toronto 41-42 - 9 (8)