Let me get this straight. The Red Sox want public subsidies to replace Fenway Park, one of the most beloved historic ballparks in baseball, with a $665 million (or more) stadium next door designed to look as much as possible like the Fenway they already have.
No wonder they're having trouble getting this issue resolved.
I know Fenway's seats are cramped. I know it has electrical and plumbing problems. I know that, gasp, worst of all, it doesn't have enough luxury suites. But that doesn't give the team license to take a wrecking ball to history. Fenway Park is the soul of baseball.Getting rid of it would be as unforgivable as holding a garage sale at Cooperstown.
We're not talking about tearing down Veterans Stadium or Olympic Stadium. Fenway is a historic landmark, the oldest ballpark in the majors, a stadium that preceded Babe Ruth. It should be preserved for no better reason than that, so that our children and their children can go to the park and say: "That's the mound where Babe Ruth pitched. That's the box where Ted Williams swung his bat. That's the foul pole Carlton Fisk homered off. That's the Wall that Bucky &*%&ing Dent homered over."
The issue is not whether a new ballpark would generate jobs or revenue to Boston and Massachusetts (it won't). The issue is not whether the Red Sox can continue to compete and make money at Fenway (they can). The issue is not whether they will leave without a new park (they won't). The issue is not whether Fenway needs wider seats and more legroom, better facilities and structural updates (it does).
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It should be preserved for no better reason than that, so that our children and their children can go to the park and say: "That's the mound where Babe Ruth pitched. That's the box where Ted Williams swung his bat. That's the foul pole Carlton Fisk homered off. That's the Wall that Bucky &*%&ing Dent homered over." |
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No, the issue is whether Boston should preserve its history by carefully refurbishing Fenway Park rather than building an expensive new stadium next door at a mind-numbing cost.
Granted, remodeling is not cheap as anyone knows who has ever compared the final bill of a home improvement to the contractor's estimate. Yankee Stadium's refurbishing cost more than $100 million and that was 25 years ago. But a Fenway remodel wouldn't cost $665 million. And whatever the final cost to remodeling, it will be money better spent as long as Fenway's unique field and character is carefully preserved.
The Save Fenway Park group thinks it can be, that you can add luxury suites and club seats and concessions and diaper changing areas and all the other necessities of a modern stadium and still maintain the original park. They even think they can do it without moving out the Red Sox for a season if the project is carried out in sections over several years.
The Red Sox disagree, but that's to be expected. Major league clubs always opt for new and big and expensive over cheaper, smaller alternatives. They all want to build the last stadium, plus a little bit more. That's why stadiums become larger and more expensive as we go along, with teams constantly adding rooms and space they don't need or even want.
What they miss with these new stadiums, however, is what made the original parks so popular and so successful. They were intimate, they were cozy and they fit into the neighborhood rather than the other way around. You feel at home at Fenway or Wrigley. At Seattle's or Denver's stadiums, you feel like you are paying rent to a very big and very expensive condo.
Remodeling Fenway Park and preserving its charm would be better for the taxpayers, better for the fans and, though they don't realize it, better for the Red Sox, as well.
The Red Sox say they would preserve part of Fenway next to the new stadium and that the new one would look as good as the old one, if not better. But no matter how much a replacement looks like the original, it still would be just a replacement. After all, there is a family resemblance between Greg and Mike Maddux, too, but that doesn't mean they're the same pitcher.
Jim Caple is the national baseball writer for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, which has a Web site at www.seattlep-i.com. | |
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