Submitted by Jim Meyer, Feb 8, 2007 20:07

Mr. Marchman:

You read for all the world like one of the authors of contemporary books about ballparks. And in the interest of presenting another viewpoint on the subject of ballparks, I offer you the following:

Although I'm an avid baseball fan, I have to confess that I don't enjoy reading books about ballparks much anymore. These days, if you read one ballpark book, you've pretty much read them all. In something of an interesting irony, contemporary ballpark books are all alike in that they universally rail against the ballparks of the 1953-91 era for "all being alike".

Here is the "Cliff's Notes" version of the typical contemporary ballpark book:

A ballpark's unique design features are what make it historic and memorable. The events that take place inside a ballpark have no bearing whatsoever on its historical value or significance.

Major League Baseball was better in the era before World War II, when all the ballparks were small, intimate, urban and--above all--asymmetrical and quirky (not to mention dirty, decrepit and difficult to get to).

As the only remnants of this hallowed bygone era, Fenway Park in Boston and Wrigley Field in Chicago are the brightest stars in the ballpark firmament. Despite the fact that they ceased to be satisfactory as functional buildings more than forty years ago, these ballparks must nevertheless be preserved in their present decrepit and obsolete states at virtually any cost, no matter how expensive they become for their home teams to maintain and operate, no matter how structurally unsound they become and no matter how problematic an asset they become to their home teams in terms of revenue generation.

The ballparks that were built during the same hallowed era as Fenway and Wrigley--the original Comiskey Park, Tiger Stadium, Braves Field, the Polo Grounds, Sportsman's Park, Shibe Park, Crosley Field, League Park, Baker Bowl, Griffith Stadium, Forbes Field and most of all, Ebbets Field--should never have been abandoned or demolished, even if they were obsolete and structurally unsound.

Because they attempt to recapture the "feel" and "spirit" of the historic ballparks of the hallowed pre-World War II era by imitating their asymmetrical playing fields and unique design characteristics, Oriole Park at Camden Yards and the wave of imitations it has spawned were every bit as historic as those old ballparks--even before a single official game was ever played in them.

With the possible exception of the pre-1976 Yankee Stadium, every ballpark built between Wrigley Field and Camden Yards was an absolute abomination; a monstrosity that should never have been contemplated, let alone actually built. And Yankee Stadium should never have been renovated.

A symmetrical ballpark is a monstrosity, even if it was designed specifically for baseball.

Cantilever construction is an abomination. It's much better to get a seat behind a post in an old-time ballpark than to suffer through a ball game from a seat in the uppermost reaches of a modern cantilever construction ballpark that has no posts.

A ballpark should always be located either downtown or in an inner-city neighborhood close to downtown. A ballpark should never be built in the suburbs or on the outskirts of town, no matter how easily accessible it might be in such a location.

"Stadium" is a dirty word. A baseball park should always be called a "park" or a "field'; never a "stadium".

If I were to write a ballpark book of my own, I would try to debunk these and all the other erroneous premises of contemporary ballpark books. I would begin by posing the following series of challenges to the "ballpark romantics" who think not only that the pre-World War II ballparks were all infinitely superior to even the best of their immediate postwar successors, but also that the current crop of ballparks--which I call "retro cheese crates" because they tend to be exceedingly friendly to home run hitters--are so great simply because they mimic the asymmetry and the quirky, disjointed architecture of the ballparks of yesteryear:

The ballpark romantics can't show me any of these spots, because they don't exist in any of these ballparks.

So where did these historically significant events actually take place?

Roberto Clemente got his 3000^th career hit at Three Rivers Stadium.

Bob Gibson stuck out seventeen Detroit Tigers in a World Series game at the original Busch Memorial Stadium.

Hank Aaron hit his 715^th career home run at Fulton County Stadium.

The Phillies clinched their lone world title at Veterans' Stadium.

Nolan Ryan pitched his record-breaking fifth no-hitter at the Astrodome.

Pete Rose had his infamous home plate collision with Ray Fosse at Riverfront Stadium.

And what do all of these venues have in common, besides having recently been replaced?

They are routinely disparaged in contemporary ballpark books for being multipurpose stadiums that were similar (but not "identical", as the authors of these books would have you believe) in their design and specifications. The different authors even use the exact same terminology in their books to describe these stadiums, calling them "cookie-cutters" or "sterile concrete ashtrays". All of these stadiums were vast, white, circular concrete bowls (although Philadelphia's Veterans' Stadium was actually built in a slightly elliptical shape known as an "octorad"). They were all designed to accommodate both baseball and football, and as such, they were admittedly ideal for neither sport.

The Astrodome carried the further stigma of having ushered in the eras of indoor baseball and artificial turf, both of which are pure blasphemy in the minds of ballpark romantics.

Now I acknowledge--and have long recognized--the truth that a baseball-only stadium is infinitely superior to a multipurpose one. On that point, the ballpark romantics and I totally agree. When a stadium is designed for just one sport, it can be tailored to suit the unique needs of that sport. For example, the best seats for a baseball game are located behind home plate, extending around to just beyond first and third base. By contrast, the best seats for a football game are located along both sidelines, extending out from midfield to both thirty yard lines. It is extremely difficult to design a stadium that satisfies both of these requirements while keeping the majority of the spectators reasonably close to the action.

Where I part company with the ballpark romantics is in their universal disparagement of these multipurpose facilities--and the symmetrical baseball-only parks of the same era, as well--to the point of totally ignoring the significant baseball events that took place in them. As mundane and homogeneous as many of these stadiums arguably were, they nevertheless were the scenes of some of the most momentous and memorable events in baseball history, as I pointed out earlier. Great ballplayers plied their trade in these stadiums. Milestones were achieved in them. Records were tied and broken in them. Important games--and championships--were won and lost in them.

The multipurpose stadiums of the 1960s and 1970s were functional buildings that admirably carried out the functions for which they were designed, and whether the ballpark romantics admit it or not, the fans who attended baseball games in those stadiums saw good--and in many cases, great--baseball played in them.

Does the fact that Roberto Clemente got his 3000^th career hit in a "sterile concrete ashtray" really make it any less of an achievement? Does the fact that Hank Aaron hit his 715^th career home run in a "cookie-cutter" stadium really diminish his accomplishment in any way? How would winning their only world title someplace other than multipurpose Veterans' Stadium have made the Phillies' 1980 championship any more memorable for their fans?

To imply, as the ballpark romantics do, that the settings in which these and other great moments and achievements in baseball history took place somehow diminish those moments and achievements, making them less memorable and less worthy of celebration, unjustly belittles those moments and achievements. Furthermore, whether they intend to or not, by making such assertions, the romantics actually dishonor the memory of the players who took part in those great moments and achievements. And this is wrong.

And as for the notion, advanced by author Lawrence S. Ritter in Lost Ballparks, that it's much better to have your view of the field obscured by a post in an old-time ballpark than to have an unobstructed vista of the entire field from an upper-deck seat in a modern cantilever construction ballpark, that's just patently absurd. If Ritter actually believes this nonsense, he should test his theory by canvassing fans who actually buy tickets to attend big-league baseball games.

I don't know about you, but if I paid fifteen, twenty or thirty dollars for a ticket to a baseball game, only to discover that my seat was behind a post, I wouldn't be relieved--as Ritter apparently believes I should be--that I wasn't sitting in a seat that was half a skyscraper above the field and so far away that all the players looked like ants. No, I'd be upset, and I'd demand my money back.

Even those ballparks of the 1953-91 period that weren't multipurpose facilities can't escape the stinging rebukes of the ballpark romantics.

For example, in his book Ballparks--Then and Now, author Eric Enders describes Milwaukee County Stadium as "an old ballpark without the charm".

Philip J. Lowry, the author of Green Cathedrals, is even more acerbic in his criticism of certain baseball-only parks of the 1953-91 period. In his book, Lowry ends his discussion of the second edition of Comiskey Park in Chicago--which opened the year his book was published--by asserting that the new Comiskey Park is "not hallowed ground."

Lowry is correct in this assessment, of course, but only because the new Comiskey Park hadn't even opened at that point; thus, nothing of any consequence or significance had happened there yet. Since then, the White Sox have won a world title--their first in eighty-eight years--while making their home at the new Comiskey Park, which is now known as US Cellular Field.

By contrast, the Texas Rangers celebrated the opening of the Ballpark in Arlington by giving Opening Day fans a rather pretentious eighteen-month calendar that billed the new facility as "History in the Making" and pointed out all the new park's similarities to the "classic" ballparks of the pre-World War II era. But the only "history" the Rangers have made so far at the Ballpark in Arlington (now called Ameriquest Field) is the fact that one of the team's executives who participated in the groundbreaking ceremonies for the new ballpark was later elected both Governor of Texas and President of the United States.

Additionally, Lowry claims in Green Cathedrals that Kansas City's fine ballpark, Royals Stadium, was "also known as the ‘Golden Arches of Baseball'". Lowry should have written that Royals Stadium was known by him as the "Golden Arches of Baseball". I grew up in Greater Kansas City. I was ten years old the year Royals Stadium opened. And I never once heard anyone refer to Royals Stadium as the "Golden Arches of Baseball".

Lowry claims that the design of Royals Stadium--which is an excellent design by any measure that is very appealing even today--had been "prepackaged" for sale to any city that wanted to build a new ballpark. While it's certainly true that many cities sought to replicate Royals Stadium--more or less--with new ballparks of their own in the 1980s and 1990s, Lowry's claim that the Royals Stadium design had been "prepackaged" is totally false.

In a classic example of damning with faint praise, Lowry writes that Royals Stadium really isn't such a bad ballpark, but if every ballpark in baseball were a duplicate of Royals Stadium, the "National Pastime would become the National Bore".

Fair enough, Mr. Lowry. But if you really want to talk about "prepackaged designs" and "making the National Pastime the National Bore", then by all means, let's talk about it. Let's talk about your beau ideal ballpark, Oriole Park at Camden Yards. Because almost every ballpark that has been built since 1992 has been a copy of Camden Yards in one respect or another. And so are many others that are on the drafting table for future construction, as well.

Like Camden Yards, the new ballparks tend to be extremely slugger friendly, with overly cozy outfield dimensions that yield cheap home runs by the bushel basket. These parks also have minimal foul territory, which ostensibly brings the fans closer to the action; but this, too, benefits hitters at the expense of pitchers.

The new ballparks all feature the same busy, cluttered, disjointed and unbalanced architecture that Camden Yards introduced--or reintroduced, as the case may be. In an effort to mimic the look of "old-time" ballparks and outdo each other in the "charm" and "character" departments, these structures attempt to blend far too many disparate design elements. This makes all the new ballparks look as though they were cobbled together from some amorphous collection of architectural "spare parts". Cohesion and harmony of line are nowhere to be found in any of these ballparks. The Camden Yards clones all feature design elements like "Green Monster" style outfield walls, inclines leading up to the outfield fences instead of the more conventional--and much safer--warning track, hand-operated scoreboards and seating sections where you can get a seat behind a post, if you really want one.

Many of these ballparks also attempt to incorporate some topographical feature of the surrounding neighborhood into their designs, in imitation of Camden Yards' integration of the B&O Railroad Warehouse into the design of the ballpark. The inclusion of San Francisco Bay as part of the design of AT&T Park (or whatever they're calling that place this year) is a prime example.

The new ballparks are almost invariably located in cramped downtown or inner-city locales surrounded by dense traffic and minimal parking space, which makes access by car a first-class nightmare. The new ballparks also ape Camden Yards in that they are all loaded with irrelevant fluff, fripperies and gimmicks like swimming pools, showers and water slides beyond the outfield fences, shopping malls and food courts on the concourses and amusement arcades at the entrances.

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