Ballpark Changes in the Majors

Ballparks come and ballparks go.  Sometimes you feel like you can't tell the changes without a program!  Well, here's your own "program," compliments of BASEBALLPARKS.COM™.  And when you're done reading about the Majors here, check out our summary of the Minor League parks that will be new in 2002 -- as well as a glimpse of changes coming for 2003 and beyond.  Note that you can still check out our description of the Major League changes that occurred for 2001, as well as our special page on PNC Park being named BASEBALLPARKS.COM's Best New Major League Park for that year.  

Since no new Major League parks are opening in 2002, we'll start our tour with the changes expected for 2003.

CHICAGO   While it's never a good idea to tinker with perfection, the Cubs are willing to risk it.  They want to enlarge and enhance the bleacher sections in the outfield of Wrigley Field, and add three rows of "premium" box seats directly behind home plate.  The team's proposal also requested that they be allowed to play more night games, which the neighbors vehemently oppose.  However, before they could move forward with the construction projects, several entities had to grant permission because, after all, Wrigley is a designated historical landmark.  Since the Cubs couldn't gain approval during the offseason between 2001 and 2002, they hoped to make these changes prior to the 2003 campaign. This is now seriously in doubt, since the city refused to grant permission to have the necessary supports built for the expanded bleachers (they also turned down the request for more night games). Note that the proposed changes to the ballpark -- while not earth-shattering -- would change the look of (a) the bleachers, especially from the outside and (b) the nearly perfect brick backstop currently in use.  By the way, there is an interesting battle brewing between the team and the owners of the buildings across Waveland Avenue and Sheffield, which border the back of the bleachers.  Those owners want to continue the longstanding practice of allowing folks to watch the games from the roofs of those buildings.  The Cubs aren't crazy about this practice, and have both short-term and long-term plans to diminish or block the view from those rooftops - a la the "spite wall" erected atop the right-field fence in Philadelphia's Shibe Park in 1935.   This made the wall a total of 34 feet tall, and prevented tenement owners across 20th Street from selling rooftop seats to watch Athletics games.

TEXAS AND KANSAS CITY   No, the Rangers and Royals are not moving out of their current stadiums.  However, they are going to make major moves for spring training.  Starting in 2003, the two teams will be vacating their long-time homes in Florida to share a complex currently under construction in Surprise, Arizona, northwest of Phoenix.  The set-up will be similar to the complex shared by the Mariners and Padres in Peoria, Arizona, which happens to be just a couple of miles from Surprise.  Each team will have its own set of practice fields, clubhouses and offices, and the two teams will share a fancy, state-of-the-art stadium at the center of the complex for their exhibition games.  The rendering of the stadium was provided to BASEBALLPARKS.COM by the city of Surprise.  

CINCINNATI   If all goes according to plan, the Reds will move into Great American Ballpark (GAB for short), a baseball-only facility, in 2003.  The team has already inked a 30-year lease on the stadium, which is being constructed on the banks of the Ohio River, right next door to Cinergy Field.  In fact, the site of the new park is so close to the old park that a huge section of the outfield seats at Cinergy Field were removed prior to the 2001 season to allow construction to continue on GAB.  HOK is the architect for the new park, which will include a plaza called Crosley Terrace -- after the Reds' home field through the middle of the 1970 season.  Other interesting features of the 42,000-seat ballpark will be a 21,000-square-foot Reds Museum and an opening, which HOK calls The Notch, in the third-base-side stands that will allow fans walking to the facility from downtown to see into the park . . .

SAN DIEGO    This is certainly one of America's most idyllic cities, but there's been a lot of trouble in paradise.  Construction of the Padres' new downtown ballpark was suspended in September 2000 when the initial funding was depleted and several legal challenges had made it impossible for the city to issue bonds to pay for the completion of the stadium.  One by one, the legal challenges were resolved, and on January 28, 2002, the 16th and final challenge was thrown out by the court, paving the way for the team and city to re-start construction.  The "re-start" happened on February 18, after Merrill Lynch agreed to buy $169 million worth of construction bonds being issued for the project.  The team had originally hoped to move into the 46,000-seat park at the All Star Break in 2002, but all of the delays mean that the new facility won't be ready until 2004.  HOK is behind the novel design of the park, and the total cost of the project is now expected to top $450 million -- with $146 million coming from the team.  Prior to the impasse that began in 2000, the project was expected to cost $400 million, with $115 million coming from the Padres.  There's an area in the team's Website devoted to the new park, but the Padres have done a woeful job of keeping it updated. 

BOSTON   The Red Sox had hoped to start playing in a new facility -- or at least a renovated Fenway -- in 2003, but countless delays have ruined those plans.  There continues to be a fair amount of arguing about whether a brand-new park should be built or the current park should be gutted and re-built.  Now that a new ownership group for the franchise is on board, it appears a little more likely that the old park will be renovated, since that is the preference of the new owners.  ''We feel like we made a campaign promise, and we need to honor it,'' said Larry Lucchino, who now runs the day-to-day operations for the new ownership group. ''As we go forward, renovating Fenway is our most desired option.''  So he didn't commit to renovation, but at least that is the way they are leaning.  The architecture critic for the Boston Globe, Robert Campbell, weighed in on the issue by writing this:  "Should Fenway Park be saved? Of course it should. There's no better work of architecture in Boston, not if you see architecture for what it really is. Architecture is the art of making places, and there's no more memorable place in Boston."  Well put.  Regardless, by the time all is said and done, the project (including any additional land that would need to be acquired) will probably cost in excess of half a billion dollars.  Visit the site of the Save Fenway! organization to learn more about why renovating the old park is the way to go.

PHILADELPHIA   At long last, the seemingly endless conflict over a new park for the Phillies seems to be resolved . . . although by no means is it a peaceful resolution (not to mention that a few legal challenges to this project have been filed).  In a city where politics are every bit as fascinating as Philadelphia's sports teams, proposals, counter-proposals and back-room proposals about a new park had been dragging on for months.  Finally, on December 21, 2000, the City Council seemed to come to an agreement with the Mayor that new stadiums for both the Eagles and Phillies would be constructed in what are now parking lots for Veterans Stadium in South Philadelphia.  On June 28, 2001, some of the specifications of the new park were revealed.  The Phils' park will have about 43,000 seats and be completed by Opening Day 2004.  It looks like designing the ballpark is a collaborative effort between Ewing-Cole-Cherry-Brott in Philadelphia and sports kingpins HOK of Kansas City.  The cost for the two stadiums -- and the demolition of the Vet -- could approach a billion dollars when all is said and done.  The city, through rental-car taxes and other revenues, will put up $304 million toward the construction, while the state long ago had pledged $170 million.  The move, though, has left the following groups unhappy:  a number of civic leaders, who felt the last-minute back-room deal making was not in the city's best interests (not to mention that there is still no resolution on where millions of dollars in shortfalls for the project will come from); many residents adjacent to where the new park will be built (who fear noisy, drunken crowds); citizen activists in the Northern Liberties neighborhood north of downtown, who felt that the best spot for the new baseball park was in their urban setting, a la Coors Field, Wrigley and Camden Yards (they are right, by the way); and ballpark aficionados who felt that there simply had to be a better place to put the ballpark for a franchise with as much tradition and history as this one.  Frankly, the prospects of yet another baseball stadium surrounded by a sea of asphalt in a warehouse-laden part of town saddens me.  If you'd like to read BASEBALLPARKS.COM's commentary on the controversy (which was written before the city finalized the South Philly site), click here.  An op-ed piece by William Becker in the Philadelphia Inquirer puts the whole situation best:  "The designers of this building faced an impossible challenge: to compensate with architectural amenities for the ballpark's profoundly wrong location. To walk from your car through a parking lot into a single-purpose building, do your business, walk back through the parking lot and then drive home is a fundamentally suburban experience . . . One of the important measures of a society is its grand public buildings. They endure long after their sponsors stop telling us what to think about them, and they tell their own story. The story of this ballpark will be timidity in the face of challenge, resulting in a huge opportunity squandered. What a shame."

FLORIDA   All of the news on a new park for the Marlins had been bad for the past couple of years.  However, in December 2000, the team and Miami-Dade County seemed to come to an agreement on a new baseball-only, retractable-roof park to be built near downtown Miami.  This ultimately fell through, though, leaving the future of the franchise in doubt.  As you might know, the Marlins were one of the teams targeted for possible "contraction."  Further, the principal owner of the team, John Henry, left this franchise as quickly as he could, because he is heading a group that bought the Red Sox.  Jeff Loria, who had owned the Expos, has bought the Marlins (with a huge helping hand from Major League Baseball), and he is making it his goal to find a way to build a new baseball-only ballpark.  If that fails, frankly, it appears that this franchise could be "contracted" or moved.  In the meantime, though, the Marlins will continue to play in Pro Player Stadium -- a perfectly good football stadium but not one that is conducive to baseball.

MINNESOTA   Another contraction target.  In fact, the only thing that stood in the way of both the Twins and Expos being wiped off the baseball map prior to the 2002 season was the court in Minnesota that ruled that Twins couldn't break their lease at the Metrodome (which, interestingly, was in its last year).  The future didn't appear to be all doom and gloom for the Twin Cities, though, as a prospective buyer of the Twins franchise came forth.  Donald Watkins, who is also rumored to be interested in buying the Expos from MLB and moving the team to Washington, DC, raised his hand to show he'd like to purchase the Twins from billionaire Carl Pohlad and put every effort into getting a new retractable-roof ballpark in downtown Minneapolis.  Things looked rosy, and it seemed both St. Paul and Minneapolis wanted to have the new park located within its downtown, plus for the first time in eons, the state legislature appeared sympathetic to approving funding for a new Twins facility.  Ahh, things didn't fall into place, and the prospective sale of the franchise now is anything but imminent (I wonder if it's because Pohlad figures he'll come out better with a contraction "buy out" than a straightforward sale of the team), and St. Paul has withdrawn from the running to be the Twins new home.  In fact, a referendum to establish a city tax in St. Paul to pay for the construction of a stadium has been canceled.  And to make matters worse, the legislators in the state house now seem much less inclined to foot the bill for a new ballpark.  A very unsettled situation indeed!

ST. LOUIS   But there is no chance that baseball-mad St. Louis will ever be without their Cardinals!  The team announced that they hope to move into a new 47,900-seat park adjacent to Busch Stadium, which, by the way, will need to be demolished to make way for the new facility.  The Missouri legislature adjourned in May 2002 without approving the financing package the team wanted, and the team started making noises about leaving St. Louis to build a new ballpark elsewhere -- like in East St. Louis, Illinois.  This was a completely ludicrous notion, but the team tried to act serious about it just to gain some leverage.  I don't know if it worked, but an incredible story unfolded just before election day, November 5, 2002.  On that election day, St. Louis voters passed a proposition that any public contribution toward sports stadiums had to be approved by the voters ... but hours earlier, the Cardinals and the city completed a deal to build the new ballpark in St. Louis after all.  Does the new proposition apply to the new stadium deal for the Cards?  Nope.  Says the city's deputy mayor, "In essence, the (new) ballpark is grandfathered in."  To be fair, there will be a significant amount of private money in the stadium, but the timing of the deal does smell fishy.  Anyway, if the original stadium plans are carried out, the team could move into the new park in 2004, but the stadium itself will be in a fairly unfinished form then, with only 40,000 seats.  Work will progress throughout that season and be completed by Opening Day 2005.  All the while,  HOK (whose international headquarters are just a couple of blocks from the site) has been working on the design . . .

NEW YORK METS AND NEW YORK YANKEES   "You can't underestimate the effect on civic pride and the economy of the city," said outgoing Mayor of New York Rudy Giuliani, regarding a plan to build new stadiums for both the Mets and Yankees.  As he was about to leave office at the end of December 2001, Giuliani announced a plan to build a pair of retractable-roof stadiums, each costing about $800 million.  The new 45,000-seat park for the Mets, which could be completed as early as 2006, would be built in what is now a parking lot for Shea Stadium, the team's current home.  A new Yankee Stadium, meanwhile, would have 47,000 seats and be located in city-owned Macomb's Dam Park, which is across the street from the current ballpark.  It would be completed in 2007.  Under this plan, both teams would have to sign 35-year leases for their new stadiums, and each would have to pay $23 million a year to cover the debt service on the construction bonds the city would issue.  The plan announced by Giuliani was not binding on New York's new mayor, Michael Bloomberg, who has the authority to throw out the whole project if he chooses to.  Indeed, just seven days into his tenure as mayor, Bloomberg announced that the city would not be making significant expenditures on the new stadiums in 2002.  And on January 30th, several city council members introduced a resolution condemning Giuliani for jumping the gun in announcing the stadium deals.  By May, with momentum for the new stadiums having ground to a halt, an engineering study of Shea Stadium reported that the facility is in need of millions of dollars worth of repairs.  Anyway, visitors to BASEBALLPARKS.COM have plenty to say about  this two-stadium proposal, so there is a special page devoted to this subject.

OAKLAND   When all of the contraction talk was heating up, there was some sentiment to eliminate the Athletics, since some felt that the Bay Area could only support one Major League team.  Well, the Oakland Alameda County Coliseum Authority is serious enough about building a new ballpark for the Athletics that they commissioned a major study by architectural heavyweights HOK-Sport to recommend sites.  A report delivered to the Authority in late 2001 presented findings on seven possible sites, three of which were later ruled out by the Oakland Alameda Joint Powers Authority.  All of this is in hopes that a new baseball-only facility for Oakland will be ready by 2006.  The Oakland Athletics Fan Coalition has developed a website to champion the cause of a new ballpark.

And a note on Montreal . . .

We've had to change our assessment of Montreal's chances of building a new ballpark many times.  Here's a recap:  under the Expos' former owner Claude Brochu, fans became disenchanted with a team that was constantly cutting payroll by sending its stars to other teams.  The lack of attendance pushed the team to the brink of moving to another city in 1998 and again in 1999 (Charlotte was a front-runner), when average attendance sagged to a horrific 9,547 a game.  However, a new ownership group was formed late in 1999.  This group consisted of 14 Canadian investors and one American -- and that American was New Yorker Jeffrey Loria, who happened to hold a higher percentage (24%) of the team's stock than any other single investor, making Loria the lead investor or "general owner."  Optimism swelled during the offseason between 1999 and 2000 that the new infusion of capital would result in higher payrolls and a public-private partnership to build a new ballpark.  Designs for an open-air park to open in downtown Montreal in 2002 were unveiled, and it appeared that the Expos were finally able to pronounce that they would stay in Quebec for the long haul.  However, severe disagreements among the owners over the team's payroll and whether the new stadium should have a $70-million retractable roof doomed any hope of a new ballpark.  Attendance continued to plummet at Olympic Stadium, dropping a staggering 30% from 2000 to 2001, meaning the Expos' average paid crowd was lower than eleven minor league teams!  When preliminary plans for "contraction" were announced in the fall of 2001, no one even shrugged when the Expos were at the top of the list to liquidated.  While the team is definitely playing in Olympic Stadium in 2002 (when crowds exceeding 10,000 were met with great excitement!), this year will probably be a "lame duck" season, as almost no one within baseball thinks there's any chance that this franchise will be in Montreal beyond that.  A sad situation indeed.

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