NL Leading... Jumbotron?

With the return of baseball this week, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the improvements being made down at Citizens Bank Park this year. The story broke about 3 weeks back, but construction has been under way since at least November. In addition to a number of statistical categories, the Phillies will lead the league in HD "Jumbotron" size for the 2011 season, boasting one of the largest screens in the world. 

It's a impressive $10M upgrade for a stadium that is on only its 8th year of existence, but an appreciated one. The new "Jumbotron" is scheduled to measure in at 76' high by 97' wide for 7372' of high definition goodness. To put that into perspective, if you were to purchase something like this from Best Buy, you would be looking in the aisle for a 1,478" screen. It will almost certainly offer a better viewing experience than the 27" round tube in my man room. The digital display area will triple the previous video board(which has been relocated to Bright House Field in time for Spring Training). As with their history of Green initiatives, the new monitor will be powered by LED technology which requires significantly less energy than your typical display as well as improved viewing angles and resistance to sun glare. The video board will offer a number of different statistics and graphics at once as can be seen below. The new Daktronics HD-15 technology will include 1512 lines of resolution and the ability to show up to 144 quadrillion colors. I don't know what any of that means, but quadrillion sounds mighty impressive!

In addition to the massive new jumbotron, the Phillies will be installing a dedicated 4'x74' scrolling closed captioning display to assist the hearing impaired and all 800 monitors around the park will be upgraded to 32-42" HD displays.

While my initial reaction to this story was something along the lines of "why don't we spend that $10M on a right handed bat?!?!," I've since learned to appreciate the gift we're being given as fans. The old video displays were certainly adequate, but I applaud Phillies management for seizing an opportunity to reinvest in their park (Next up, demo Phillies drive and add another 10,000 seats!). The old round tube TVs in the public viewing areas were shoddy and dated. More than ever, Citizens Bank Park is becoming the "place to be" on warm summer nights (whether that's good or bad is a matter for a whole other article). The days of rats scurrying through corridors of Veterans Stadium and grown men urinating in sinks are way behind us.

When driving by the stadium, you can notice the void left by the missing display. Let's hope the weather cooperates in the coming weeks so the project is completed by March 29th!