Worcester Ballpark & Redev

[Equilibria]

I guess some people actually like corrugated buildings. The sides look like a long temporary FEMA shelter.

To me it looks like a ripoff at $157 million and the most expensive minor league park in history.

I kind of wonder how much of that price tag is (a) building this in MA during a boom, (b) the need to cut the ballpark into hillside for some reason (it could easily have been built on flat land across the street), or (c) general bloat. The design seems kind of secondary to the price - the theme here seemed to be "as little like Fenway as you can make it, please..."

 

[stick n move]

the theme here seemed to be "as little like Fenway as you can make it, please..."

To me this is a bit odd considering Fenway is the most beloved park in America but hey, I think the retro look is pretty cool. Im interested to see how it ages.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

I guess some people actually like corrugated buildings. The sides look like a long temporary FEMA shelter.

To me it looks like a ripoff at $157 million and the most expensive minor league park in history.

I guess Hartford was the MiLB corruption trailblazer with all the grift that went into Dunkin Donuts Park, and Worcester enviously said "hold my beer".

 

[Equilibria]

To me this is a bit odd considering Fenway is the most beloved park in America but hey, I think the retro look is pretty cool. Im interested to see how it ages.

Apparently, people they talked to in Worcester didn't want it to feel like a little brother.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

To me this is a bit odd considering Fenway is the most beloved park in America but hey, I think the retro look is pretty cool. Im interested to see how it ages.

[Citation needed]

Until around 1998 right here in Boston were were beaten over the head with relentless propaganda from the Sox organization itself that Fenway was an irredeemable dump that simply *must* be replaced by (first) a taxpayer-funded Seaport Megaplex or (later) a taxpayer-funded and eminent domained facility down the street. And certainly by the mid-90's the ownership was anti-maintaining the stadium's creature comforts with according contempt to help underscore that pitch. It's only been since that last attempt at new digs was roundly rejected by the City that they've retrenched to renovating what they had, then celebrating it some more with each renovation. Now with about 20 years of PR revisionism about how they--and by extension the region--always loved the place.

It took pedal-to-the-metal revisionism PR onslaught to reverse the organization's own shade-throwing with a new area of myth-making. This so-called "beloved" status isn't even canon locally to most people who were paying attention before, say, 2000 (nevermind '04). Or, really, at any point before 81 sellouts per year, year after year, imposed market scarcity effects on fans' willingness to tolerate obstructed-view seats, often kooky field viewing angles, and cramped seats as any intrinsically charming part of the gameday experience rather than inconveniences to mutter under breath about. As such it definitely doesn't carry much water further-flung from ground-zero Boston, including regionally. Shitloads of nü-retro ballparks have been built across MLB and MiLB over the last quarter-century. Very few of them have architecturally borrowed much at all from Fenway. If anything the more *consistently* lionized Wrigley Field is the archetype...followed by throwbacks to Ebbets Field and others that long ago met the wrecking ball and long ago were more consistently lamented in tribute. The Sox org's own relatively recent "it's a dump!"-to-"it's a treasure!" about-face simply hasn't had enough time to sit there and influence ballpark architecture. Since Worcester has long stoked its independent streak about not charting its redev course as a Mini-Boston, that would subsequently be one of the last places you'd expect a Fenway homage to sprout up.

 

[DBM]

[Citation needed]

Until around 1998 right here in Boston were were beaten over the head with relentless propaganda from the Sox organization itself that Fenway was an irredeemable dump that simply *must* be replaced by (first) a taxpayer-funded Seaport Megaplex or (later) a taxpayer-funded and eminent domained facility down the street. And certainly by the mid-90's the ownership was anti-maintaining the stadium's creature comforts with according contempt to help underscore that pitch. It's only been since that last attempt at new digs was roundly rejected by the City that they've retrenched to renovating what they had, then celebrating it some more with each renovation. Now with about 20 years of PR revisionism about how they--and by extension the region--always loved the place.

It took pedal-to-the-metal revisionism PR onslaught to reverse the organization's own shade-throwing with a new area of myth-making. This so-called "beloved" status isn't even canon locally to most people who were paying attention before, say, 2000 (nevermind '04). Or, really, at any point before 81 sellouts per year, year after year, imposed market scarcity effects on fans' willingness to tolerate obstructed-view seats, often kooky field viewing angles, and cramped seats as any intrinsically charming part of the gameday experience rather than inconveniences to mutter under breath about. As such it definitely doesn't carry much water further-flung from ground-zero Boston, including regionally. Shitloads of nü-retro ballparks have been built across MLB and MiLB over the last quarter-century. Very few of them have architecturally borrowed much at all from Fenway. If anything the more *consistently* lionized Wrigley Field is the archetype...followed by throwbacks to Ebbets Field and others that long ago met the wrecking ball and long ago were more consistently lamented in tribute. The Sox org's own relatively recent "it's a dump!"-to-"it's a treasure!" about-face simply hasn't had enough time to sit there and influence ballpark architecture. Since Worcester has long stoked its independent streak about not charting its redev course as a Mini-Boston, that would subsequently be one of the last places you'd expect a Fenway homage to sprout up.

All quite true. I think it's very interesting to think of where Fenway Park stood in the pecking order for Back Bay civic palaces when it opened in 1912. Consider a young son of Beacon Hill in the spring of 1912--some arch-Brahmin, a Cabot or Weld or similarly-pedigreed princeling--stepping-off from Beacon & Arlington for a meandering southwestward stroll to the outermost realm of civilization (Fenway) and back.

He wanders past an astonishing string of newly-erected institutions that successively reinforce Boston's remarkable ascension from a cramped crabby backwater to a sophisticated global colossus unrivaled by anything on the Eastern Seaboard save NYC and Philly:

--Trinity Church (1872)
--BPL (1895)
--Horticultural Hall (1901)
--Symphony Hall (1900)
--Christian Science Center (1894, 1906 extension)
--MFA (1876)
--Muddy River component of Olmstead Necklace (1891 or thereabouts per Wikipedia)
--Mass. Historical Society (1899)

etc., etc... so much to demonstrate Boston's arrival as a city of international fame and stature! But then... Fenway. Sited in a grimy semi-industrial district, the most unglamorous nub of the filled-in swamplands. Shoehorned against the Boston & Albany tracks, back when railroads created serious collateral damage with their soot and grime and "the wrong side of the tracks" really meant something. Plus, the tawdry origins of the park's development--a flagrantly speculative real-estate development scheme by the Taylors... like some bamboozle in South Florida, the young man surely would've sniffed!

(And we haven't even gotten to the reputation of baseball itself in the 1910s--a brawling loutish sport that attracted the worst breed of gamblers and immigrant brutes--Irishmen and worse!)

Anyway: when you consider where I imagine Fenway stood in the eyes of Boston's Brahmin overlords in 1912, in comparison to the Back Bay institutions cited above of similar Gilded Age vintage and especially in terms of the vulgar entertainments it hosted... it's come a long way.

[NOTE: anyone feel free to correct any of this if I'm in err, I'm mostly relying on Wikipedia and my general understanding of things]

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

No idea. I know the Braves whupped the Sox in attendance for most of Boston's history as a two-team town, but ballpark optics probably had next to nothing to do with why that was the case. I was just disputing the assertion that Fenway was ever "the most beloved ballpark in America". Like...no...that hasn't even been true here of all places for more than 2 decades. Mind-blowing revisionism in that claim.

Nationally? Again...Wrigley's the archetype. Never been proposed for replacement, never was allowed by ownership to fall into as much disrepair, and is seen nationwide on a shitload more TV sets than Fenway ever was because of WGN's immense national cable reach. And architectually influenced a lot more retro park construction than Fenway ever did. The extremeness of Fenway's dimensional unorthodoxy alone makes it kind of repellant to much in the way of derivative mimicry.

 

[DBM]

Nationally? Again...Wrigley's the archetype.

Interestingly, this column from 1999 by a Baltimore sports columnist completely disputes that assertion--while simultaneously reinforcing what you were noting re: how aggressively the pre-John Henry ownership regime was advocating to replace Fenway...

 

[NoShJFK]

[Citation needed]

Until around 1998 right here in Boston were were beaten over the head with relentless propaganda from the Sox organization itself that Fenway was an irredeemable dump that simply *must* be replaced by (first) a taxpayer-funded Seaport Megaplex or (later) a taxpayer-funded and eminent domained facility down the street. And certainly by the mid-90's the ownership was anti-maintaining the stadium's creature comforts with according contempt to help underscore that pitch. It's only been since that last attempt at new digs was roundly rejected by the City that they've retrenched to renovating what they had, then celebrating it some more with each renovation. Now with about 20 years of PR revisionism about how they--and by extension the region--always loved the place.

It took pedal-to-the-metal revisionism PR onslaught to reverse the organization's own shade-throwing with a new area of myth-making. This so-called "beloved" status isn't even canon locally to most people who were paying attention before, say, 2000 (nevermind '04). Or, really, at any point before 81 sellouts per year, year after year, imposed market scarcity effects on fans' willingness to tolerate obstructed-view seats, often kooky field viewing angles, and cramped seats as any intrinsically charming part of the gameday experience rather than inconveniences to mutter under breath about. As such it definitely doesn't carry much water further-flung from ground-zero Boston, including regionally. Shitloads of nü-retro ballparks have been built across MLB and MiLB over the last quarter-century. Very few of them have architecturally borrowed much at all from Fenway. If anything the more *consistently* lionized Wrigley Field is the archetype...followed by throwbacks to Ebbets Field and others that long ago met the wrecking ball and long ago were more consistently lamented in tribute. The Sox org's own relatively recent "it's a dump!"-to-"it's a treasure!" about-face simply hasn't had enough time to sit there and influence ballpark architecture. Since Worcester has long stoked its independent streak about not charting its redev course as a Mini-Boston, that would subsequently be one of the last places you'd expect a Fenway homage to sprout up.

I remember in the late 90’s the place frankly WAS a dump. And calls for a new park were warranted. I remember wanting a new park back then as a youngster.

I remember thinking it was a shame they weren’t going to build the new park on the seaport waterfront.

It’s still a shame that either Gillette (thanks Finneran) or a new Fenway (more so the former) didn’t go there. Can you imagine the Gillette lighthouse with the skyline (where 1 International Place is) and the immediate harbor in the background? Or imagine over the Left or Centerfield wall seeing Boston Harbor? I mean Foxboro is a pathetic place for a stadium and the area around Fenway back in 98-00 was nowhere near what it is today.

Back to Fenway: Yes revisionist history has been done. But in fairness the park IS a gem today. It’s functionable and serviceable to the point that you can enjoy the history of the place without being overwhelmed by the lack of amenities and forced discomforts. They’ve done genuinely A+ work with the place.

 

[NoShJFK]

As for this park? Compairisons to DD Park in Hartford should begin and end at the corruption in the cost. Because that park came out REALLY nice and it’s a AA park. This park? You get the feeling they figured “we’ll put the Red Sox AAA team in Worcester and it’ll be a cash cow no matter what”. Because this park is an embarrassment. I totally understand not wanting it to be a generic replica as Fenway (avoid the little brother complex). But this thing could have been done WAY better.

Paying more to make the stadium a must see destination would MORE than pay for itself. Now it’ll be seen as just a generic minor league park that’ll be half empty once the new car smell wears off. This thing could have been MAGICAL. For the outside of the park to have exposed beams and siding that screams “self service storage” is a joke. Not having the park enclosed via press/luxury boxes from foul pole to foul pole gives it a very MINOR league feeling (This is supposed to feel just one step shy of the majors, instead it feels one step up from college) Not only does the physical building barely stretches from dugout to dugout but the seats are from just past 1st to just past 3rd. Don’t even get me started on how scaled back the development is.

The construction companies or the team or someone ripped off someone. And this park is a legitimate embarrassment. Could not be more of a disappointment. There are some amazing AAA parks in this country. Granted the market is saturated with pro teams so you don’t need a park as good as say Memphis. But what they came up with is... barely better than Campanelli Stadium in Brockton.

 

[Seanflynn78]

Worcester is a city built on corruption and backroom deals. This ballpark should have been built in 2 or 3 other desirable neighborhoods than on a pigeon hole from hell. I was shocked that they squeezed this ballpark in a neighborhood that is more frustrating to navigate than challenging sections of eastie. I frankly wanted a new Paw Sox stadium, but Rhode Island can't get out of its own way when it comes to having a functional state government supporting private businesses.
As far as Fenway goes, Boston should have built a new stadium. But Bostonians tend to romantically fear any kind of change.Many seats face the wrong direction and the new owners have convinced fans that a new ballpark would ruin the charm of the old town team. Please every time I go to Petco Park, Seattle, or Pittsburgh I think wow I wish Boston had this.... meaning a modern and comfortable inviting field of dreams.

 

[HenryAlan]

Back to Fenway: Yes revisionist history has been done. But in fairness the park IS a gem today. It’s functionable and serviceable to the point that you can enjoy the history of the place without being overwhelmed by the lack of amenities and forced discomforts. They’ve done genuinely A+ work with the place.

This is key. The label of America's Favorite Ballpark does not regard Fenway throughout its entire history. The claim goes to the here and now. And while it's impossible to prove such a claim, the people making it at least have a lot of reason to be proud about the old Park. I've been going to games there since 1988, and have always loved the place, but for different reasons over the 33 year span.

 

[shmessy]

Apparently, people they talked to in Worcester didn't want it to feel like a little brother.

Well, they succeeded in that. Worcester definitely acieved Billy Carter/Frank Stallone status with this overpriced construction hut.

 

[shmessy]

Peruse these 60 minor league baseball stadiums. Ask yourself, "Where does Worcester's highest ever priced, corrugated siding stadium rank in this list?"

Best Minor League Baseball Ballparks

They may not be Wrigley or Fenway, but these charming parks offer memorable experiences that go far beyond the action on the field.

www.stadiumtalk.com

Look, I am all for having the highest priced minor league ballpark in Worcester, in an area that will be a dynamic upgrade over what was before, and I am ok with Worcester and the state putting up all the money if this is truly an economic engine driving exponential growth from it.

But FUKKING corrugated storage container siding with only 6,000 seats for THAT MONEY????????

Worcester got pantsed by Lucchino.

 

[RandomWalk]

They didn’t want to upstage Table Talk Pies, before they decamp to new digs.

 

[SlothofDespond]

I walked over to the park a week ago and from the street above center field thought it looked like a nice place to watch a game. It looks worse in photos than it does in person, especially the corrugated siding. Which isn't to say it's gorgeous but I don't think the photos are an accurate representation of how it looks in-person. I'm looking forward to going to games there and I think it's generally going to be a popular destination.

Apparently, people they talked to in Worcester didn't want it to feel like a little brother.

That's absurd, if so.

 

[Rover]

A few thoughts:

1) agree about the team owners trashing Fenway 20 years ago, but that was during the utterly corrupt and inept era where a trust owned the team and was governed by a CEO (Harrington) who didn't have any of his own money in the team but was looking for a big payday if the trust sold it (mandated after 7 years) with a new ballpark attached. Say what you want about John Henry and Lucchino, but as soon as they took over they fired all the clowns and hires professional leadership (Epstein, etc) while refurbishing the park.

2) not sure about Wrigley being more beloved. The first problem is that aside from the Bartman game can anybody recall anything significant ever happening there? I also haven't seen any other stadium try to recreate the ivy or the chain link fence.

3) since Worcester is paying for the stadium themselves I'm cool with them putting it where they think it might do the most good for the surrounding area in terms of new development. No need to replicate Fenway.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

2) not sure about Wrigley being more beloved. The first problem is that aside from the Bartman game can anybody recall anything significant ever happening there? I also haven't seen any other stadium try to recreate the ivy or the chain link fence.

The WGN effect. The Cubs have the largest TV audience in the game because their broadcast affiliate WGN-TV is a cable superstation available to over half the country, reaping them untold windfall over the last 45 years in spite of the mostly poor on-field product. Same setup as the Atlanta Braves had with TBS, and why you could find regular-season Braves games on TV most nights. Very few cable systems in New England ever carried WGN (while nearly all carried TBS), but it's everpresent in all other parts of the country. Unlike TBS and the Braves where old agreements have lapsed and it's now a generic Game of The Week, WGN is still Cubs Central.

I would agree that Camden Yards in Baltimore has probably direct-influenced more actual retro-ballpark architecture in the 29 years it's been open, but cable TV proliferation forcing the Cubs down millions of viewers' throats all those decades is what implanted the *idea* of going architecturally nu-retro in fans' brains. Again, unlike the Harrington-era Sox, the Tribune-era Cubs tended to *consistently* celebrate Wrigley's charm (even if the reason for that was the on-field product's utter lackthereof). And for the national cable audience Wrigley was a lot more telegenic than the TBS/Braves alternative of drab, 1960's-multipurpose Fulton County Stadium. Rinse, repeat day after day from the mid-70's to the mid-90's and it conditioned a whole lot of national attitudes about stadiums.

Again, not so much in New England because 'GN was never available on TV here...but yes in every other region where it was/is a basic cable co-equal with TBS. NESN, by contrast, was a greedy premium-tier cable option until they loosened up in the late-90's. I couldn't even get the Sox on TV growing up in Greater Hartford except for the twice a week they were on Channel 38 because it took a second mortgage to afford NESN...but I got the freakin' Braves every single night because of TBS. If the same was the case for Worcester subscribers, they barely got any impressions of Fenway at all before 1998...but likewise were as sick as I was in CT of seeing the Barves' Fulton County Stadium every damn night.

 

[Seanflynn78]

The WGN effect. The Cubs have the largest TV audience in the game because their broadcast affiliate WGN-TV is a cable superstation available to over half the country, reaping them untold windfall over the last 45 years in spite of the mostly poor on-field product. Same setup as the Atlanta Braves had with TBS, and why you could find regular-season Braves games on TV most nights. Very few cable systems in New England ever carried WGN (while nearly all carried TBS), but it's everpresent in all other parts of the country. Unlike TBS and the Braves where old agreements have lapsed and it's now a generic Game of The Week, WGN is still Cubs Central.

I would agree that Camden Yards in Baltimore has probably direct-influenced more actual retro-ballpark architecture in the 29 years it's been open, but cable TV proliferation forcing the Cubs down millions of viewers' throats all those decades is what implanted the *idea* of going architecturally nu-retro in fans' brains. Again, unlike the Harrington-era Sox, the Tribune-era Cubs tended to *consistently* celebrate Wrigley's charm (even if the reason for that was the on-field product's utter lackthereof). And for the national cable audience Wrigley was a lot more telegenic than the TBS/Braves alternative of drab, 1960's-multipurpose Fulton County Stadium. Rinse, repeat day after day from the mid-70's to the mid-90's and it conditioned a whole lot of national attitudes about stadiums.

Again, not so much in New England because 'GN was never available on TV here...but yes in every other region where it was/is a basic cable co-equal with TBS. NESN, by contrast, was a greedy premium-tier cable option until they loosened up in the late-90's. I couldn't even get the Sox on TV growing up in Greater Hartford except for the twice a week they were on Channel 38 because it took a second mortgage to afford NESN...but I got the freakin' Braves every single night because of TBS. If the same was the case for Worcester subscribers, they barely got any impressions of Fenway at all before 1998...but likewise were as sick as I was in CT of seeing the Barves' Fulton County Stadium every damn night.

F-Line being 43 I remember those days of only being able to see the Sox on TV38. Sometimes if it was a big Saturday matinee game I would try to decider through the scrambled static on NESN and listen to Jerry Remy and Mr.Coleman as I was never a Joe Castiglione fan.

I am interested how many fans they will be able to squeeze into this stadium for baseball. Did they design it to host soccer/football games? I am still waiting for Holy Cross to renovate Fitton Field I was hoping they would host BC to see the place sold out at 24k to see what that looks and sounds like.

 

[Rover]

I remember getting a steady diet of 1) the Braves, 2) the Mets (wwor or something out of Secaucus) and 3) the Yankees believe it or not (channel 26?). You can't ever forget Phil Rizzuto (sp?) calling a game.