Major League Baseball Stadiums vs Major Championship Golf Courses

[Rich Goodale]

There are interesting parallels between the evolution of ballparks and golf courses in the 60's and 70's. During that period a number of new,  symmetrical ballparks were built. Fulton County, Three Rivers, River Front, the Mets, Royals and St Louis ballparks. The dimensions of the parks were very similar. A senior partner in one of the consulting architecture firms was an old friend of my father. We were at a cocktail party sometime in the mid-70's and I had a chance to talk with him about his work on ballparks.

Some background. I had been to many Bosox games and fallen in love with Fenway. I thought then and still think that asymmetric outfield dimensions make baseball a more interesting and better sport. So I asked the architect why his firm put such importance on building these new parks so symmetrically, particularly in light of the affection many felt for Wrigley Field, Yankee Stadium and Fenway.

His answer was interesting. He said, first. that it was less expensive to build symmetrical parks, in part because you could duplicate a lot of the architectural prep work, contractors expertise at one park could be used at others and they became more efficient, etc. But he also said that MLB wanted to see more symmetrical parks. Players would have a better sense of outfield walls and would hurt themselves less often. But also MLB (read team owners) wanted play to be conducted at venues that were more consistent so that performances could be compared more accurately.

But the main thing was that communities wanted their new parks make a statement about the community itself. They wanted their ballparks to look clean, 'modern' and not like an after-thought from a less prosperous era that had been shoe-horned into a city block.

The urge to build ball parks in the 60's and early 70's that looked 'modern', in the sense that they were carefully planned from A to Z with no loose ends, the pressure to build them quickly and cheaply and to make them easier to maintain, all those concerns strike me as having parallels with what was going in golf architecture over the same time period.

You can think of the turn in American gca in the 90's to more Golden Age type designs as also occurring in parallel with the revival of old style, asymmetrical ballparks that began at about the same time.

Which for you historians in the room seems to suggest that changes in the playing venues of baseball and golf were ultimately motivated by factors that did not originate inside the sports themselves.    

Bob

  

Interesting, Bob. I thought the main reason was to make them multipurpose, with retractable stands that could provide good sight lines for football as well as baseball. Perhaps the analogue to golf would be the attempt for courses to accommodate all ranges of golfing skill, eg via lots of tees.

Bingo!

[Tony_Muldoon]

Golf courses, Stadiums, Theatre's, Opera Houses, Schools, Universities Hospitals etc etc. always get buildings bigger than the one they replace.

The quirk is ironed out as efficiency and cost savings are the mantra of those promoting them.

They are not always built to budget, nor as efficiently to run as promised. It is the rare case where the charm is improved.

[BCrosby]

Mark -

At least in Atlanta, Turner Field is pretty strictly a baseball park. OTOH, it predecessor, the NLE Fulton County Stadium, was built to be a multi-purpose facility. Seating could be changed for the Falcons and college football games. In another variant it could be used for concerts. I saw the Beatles there in the 60's, for example.

The Ted's current narrower mission is possible in large part because enclosed facilities for non-baseball events were built in the last 15 years. There is now less need for a multi-purpose ballpark.  
 
I am not as familiar with those sorts of issues in other cities.

But whether or not other functions are feasible at these new parks, the main motivation behind them (to reprise the theme of my earlier post) was - not unlike the return to Golden Age design ideas in golf courses built in 90's and later - to have ballparks that captured the feel of older ballparks like Fenway and Wrigley. Seating is closer to the field to increase intimacy. Seating capacity is reduced to enhance the coziness. Sightlines are improved and so forth. In short, the main goal is to make attending baseball games more fun.

All ideas, if I might be permitted, taken from "Golden Age" ballparks built before WWI.

Bob  

[John Kavanaugh]

I have never understood how the Cardinals manage to plug in new players year after year and still win on a consistent basis. I've just accepted that the Braves will win every year. Now we see a common theme in their sanitary simple stadiums. It makes a certain amount of sense that if your major league field is straightforward your farm league training can be straightforward. In the same vein when a struggling player leaves Wrigley they always seem to excel someplace, anyplace else.