Baseball and the Rational Limits of Historic Preservation
Baseball builds its future by learning from its past, but Fenway stays behind
Allen Fletcher was the long-time owner of the alternative weekly Worcester Magazine and something of a mover-and-shaker in that city. When I lived in Worcester, Allen and I occasionally met at Charlie’s Diner for breakfast to discuss all-things Worcester, and its struggles to revive itself.
When Worcester’s Union Station finally reopened to great fanfare after decades of decline, Preservation Worcester recognized Allen’s role in its restoration. Asked to speak before its members, Allen stood up in a room full of advocates for historic preservation, thanked them for the award, and promptly declared that he was not a preservationist.
To the politely surprised gathering, he explained his belief in the importance of practical value behind any such effort. I couldn’t help but laugh because Allen echoed my own sentiment that saving and restoring every diner out there made little sense if we didn’t have capable people running them. Sometimes, we just have to let things go, but it might soothe the pain if we replaced them with something better.
On my last visit to Fenway Park in 2009, I formed a similarly provocative opinion. The Sox by then had won the championship twice since I moved, and I decided to start following the Phillies in 2005, the year after the Red Sox finally ended an 86-year championship drought.
After attending a few dozen games at Citizens Bank Park, I returned to the league’s oldest park with my 80-year-old mother in what would be her last visit. Soon after we took our seats just to the right of the Pesky Pole along and at the same level as the circumferential walkway, Mom started yelling helplessly at the steady stream of fans walking directly in front of us, blocking an already poor view of the action.
Shoehorned into a seat only a Puritan could love, I freshly considered the park’s cracked concrete, the aging, tiny scoreboard, the congested walkways, and the remotely located amenities. Had we sat one section to our left on the other side of the Pesky Pole, we’d find ourselves in those infamous grandstand seats facing the center-field bleachers.
By the fifth inning, the effort to watch the action frustrated by the endless stream of wandering fans left my poor mother exhausted. It didn’t help that the listless Sox fell well behind the Mariners that day, but I would remember her last game as her worst. On her first visit to Fenway, she saw Ted Williams hit a home run. On her last I saw my mother resting her head on a picnic table under the right field grandstand during the seventh inning waiting for a wheelchair.
For me and I’m sure for many others, Fenway had long ago outlasted its utility. I had to conclude that this park, my Fenway, the field of my dreams, was a dump. It was time to let it go.
The Legacy of Penn Station
The demolition of New York’s storied and palatial Penn Station in 1963, arguably gave birth to the modern preservation movement. Others have decried the greed and incompetence of the ailing Pennsylvania Railroad, but the simple truth was that this eternal structure succumbed to economic and political forces that favored the automobile at the expense of passenger rail. As a result, the value of the location outstripped the value of the building’s use, and in its place, New York got a new Madison Square Garden and an office building — both still in use 55 years later, three years longer than the depot they replaced. With station services shunted into the basement of the complex, Vincent Scully famously described the rail passenger’s plight: “One entered the city like a god. One scuttles in now like a rat.”
The historic preservation movement exists because we rarely replace the thing we tear down with something better. Penn Station serves as the poster building for this movement. All over the country, one grand train station after another came down, large and small, most artfully designed representations of our prosperity and confidence in the future.
Rest assured that there is no equivalent seat in Citizens Bank Park to the ones suffered by my mother and me in Fenway.
Then there’s baseball. In 1992, the city of Baltimore got a new baseball stadium that today is still recognized as one of the best venues in the league. Oriole Park at Camden Yards stuck a fork in the trend to package baseball and football together into multi-use, bowl-shaped, dystopian structures. Seeking a park that fit seamlessly into the historic surroundings, the city directed HOK Architects to design a retro-style park dedicated solely for baseball. The rest is, as they say, history.
Rest assured that there is no equivalent seat in Citizens Bank Park to the ones suffered by my mother and me in Fenway. Major League Baseball has learned to build a better park, and the fans have responded. Better amenities, locations, and views restored much of the appeal of the game for fans old and new.
Make Fenway Fan-Friendly Again
So, what to do about Fenway? When new owners took over the Red Sox from the Yawkeys in 1992, they announced a proposal to replace Fenway Park, creating a disturbance in the Force felt in desolate Siberian villages. These plans would retain parts of the original Fenway as a monument to its history, while a new park rose up on an adjacent, already-occupied parcel. No one bought into this idea. Ultimately, the plans were shredded and the owners handed the keys to yet another group led by John Henry, who publicly committed to keeping Fenway and doing everything he could to modernize and shoehorn additional seating into it.
Twenty-three years on, John Henry has kept his promise, but I have to think the only reason why the Sox still play in Fenway is mostly because Boston’s overheated real estate market keeps them there. Moving the Sox out of Boston is a non-starter, and finding a new location anywhere within city limits that can potentially handle 45,000 fans in a spot other than at the corner of Brookline Avenue and Jersey Street might disrupt the city almost as much as the Big Dig did.
Building a new Fenway in place — which I believe is the only option — means the Sox need an interim field for two or three years, and the only area venue that could handle that is probably Gillette Stadium twenty miles away in Foxboro.
A close friend with an inside track to such things claims that ticket sales barely figure into the team’s bottom line. The real money, he tells me, comes mainly from television. That means if you are one of the 37,700 fans squeezed into your rock-hard seat, possibly behind a pole, staring at the back of someone’s head, or at the the butts of passers-by, while sipping your ten-dollar Budweiser and munching on your six-dollar Fenway frank, management considers your comfort an afterthought. In fact, it counts on your ability to suffer through a four-hour game.
Yes, Fenway Park is hallowed ground in baseball, but no more than Yankee Stadium was, and that finally came down as well. I may have a genetic predisposition to hate the Yankees, but even that can’t keep me from applauding what they did for their fans.
What do you think, Sox fans? Anyone from Cleveland that miss Lakefront Stadium? Yankee fans who miss the original Yankee Stadium? Phillies fans who preferred the Vet? Let me have it in the comments.
Hmmmm. You certainly have balls to criticize Fenway!
But seriously. A well-reasoned argument. I need to share it with other Sox fans...incoming...
Camden Yards is on my bucket list.
Also: the story of your mom's last visit is, sadly, a common one. So sorry for her, and the son who tried to show her a good time. This bullshit goes hand-in-glove with the franchise's rapacious profit motives, which is tied to...oh, never mind, you know.
My best Fenway visit was Opening Day, but I can't remember which year, just that the weather was blessedly good, sunny and cool. Got there early. Walked up a ramp with a glimpse of the park that enlarged with every step, of course, until I burst forth and, gasping, took in the full panorama. O, my heart. My worst visit? Every other one, and there were dozens.*
* we were not rich, nor did we have season tickets; ex-husband worked for beer distributor and always got tickets, which he sometimes used for family and friends...
It’s a balance between nostalgia and comfort. Our family is quietly renovating our beach shack. When we bought it in 1977, it had no interior sheathing. Or insulation. You were inside looking at the back of the exterior sheathing. It got insulated and walls were sheathed withe the knotty pine as was the stead back then. Outdoor shower with black sunheated hot water tank. No AC or heat. Over the years the comfort became more important than the classic look inside and out. But we managed to balance the look of the place by trying to maintain the intangible charm. It’s worked so far. But now we got water, AC, heat, and even a Nest thermostat to preheat or precool before leaving the house. It gives us 3-4 months in the shoulder season to enjoy it without all the “summer people”.