Maybe the Ghost of Babe Ruth Could Build Boston a House

Downey’s California:

* A Boston baseball big shot reportedly wants to knock down Fenway Park. He thinks it’s getting old.

Yeah, so are the Pyramids.

Egypt will probably rebuild the Sphinx, and put up luxury boxes.

I can’t advise Red Sox chief executive officer John Harrington what to do. All I know is, if the city of Boston gets rid of both Boston Garden and Fenway Park, no cat or rat in town will have a decent place to sleep.

My concern is that a new stadium would be called something like “Red Sox Park at Harvard Yards.” Either that, or they could do what I would do. Call it Yastrzemski Field. Or maybe the YaztroDome. “Let’s go see the Sox at The Yaz tonight.” “I pocked my cah ova by the Yaz.” Yaz, I really like this idea.

From what I have seen in Baltimore and Cleveland both, a new Fenway could be constructed that would be true to the original. They could build a taller Green Monster fence in left field, with an arrow at the top that reads: “Hit It Here.”

A bigger, better Fenway could even hold--Boston, you absolutely won’t believe this--more than 35,000 fans at once!

Boston could also copy Toronto and make the new stadium a mall. Have a hotel where Kennedy family members could watch the game from a window, with their dates.

Plant plastic grass, maybe get Roger Clemens back. . . . Hey, it’s just a thought.

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* I see where Bill Buckner was fired as Chicago White Sox batting coach. Buckner should join the New York Mets and coach first base. Every batter who hits a ball to the first baseman, Billy could yell, “Run it out! You never know!”

* Eddie Murray is a Dodger again. I haven’t been this excited since I was a little boy at Christmas and, instead of a toy, my parents bought me underpants.

* The starting DHs at an Angel-Yankee game were Tony Phillips and Darryl Strawberry. I would rather they be my designated hitters than my designated drivers.

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* I have my fingers crossed for L.A. City Councilman Mike Hernandez, who got arrested near skid row Thursday on suspicion of possessing cocaine.

(Everybody in this town who hasn’t been arrested for possessing cocaine, raise your hand.)

Looks like the councilman needs counsel.

As for us, the people of Los Angeles, we need our old pal Councilman Mike to get back to the important work he has been doing, making Peter O’Malley feel like getting out of the baseball business, antagonizing the National Football League and keeping L.A. safe from professional football for years to come.

You know, it’s possible the councilman was simply inspecting a proposed NFL site.

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* Meanwhile, back at Politicians Out to Ruin Sports For the Rest of Us headquarters, a couple of other fine L.A. councilmen, Joel Wachs and Nate Holden, continue their bid to stop our city’s teams from playing in a nice, new arena and keep them in a rundown dump.

Wachs wants voter approval for the proposed basketball and hockey arena downtown, even though the developers are volunteering to pay 100% of the city’s costs for repaying the bonds needed to build the joint.

Knowing they are jocks, maybe he wants them to give 110%.

Holden has supported Wachs in voting against the arena project several times. By all means, let’s make sure Los Angeles has the worst basketball, hockey and football facilities of any large city in the United States of America, and to also keep that pesky convention business away.

With gentlemen like Hernandez, Wachs and Holden, we can make Los Angeles the place it used to be . . . a desert wasteland, covered with scrub.

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* Deion Sanders claims to have become a born-again Christian. I guess that makes his new nickname “Prayin’ Time.”

* I wonder if Mission Viejo could teach Anaheim how to get to a World Series.

* Saturday at a Notre Dame Club of Los Angeles kickoff picnic, former USC football star Anthony Davis agreed to be “put on trial” for crimes against the Fighting Irish. Among his crimes: scoring four touchdowns in USC’s 55-24 victory over Notre Dame in 1974, which “stole the game and robbed the Irish of their pride.”

If I know Anthony Davis, after the first half of the picnic, he ran off with all the pigskin he could carry, and nobody from Notre Dame could catch him.

* No wonder Tom Lasorda still wants to be a Dodger. With Brett Butler and Eddie Murray there, he finally has guys to talk to who are nearer his own age.