Passage I

Take Me Outside to the Ball Game

My sons are fortunate to have grown up in a city where major league baseball is played. When I was a child, it was a five-hour, once-a-summer trek, to the nearest major league ballpark. My sons have to endure only the twenty-minute ride to the stadium that we make five or six times a year. But I think my experience needless to say was richer than theirs. The stadium I remember had a natural grass field and seats piled up high and close to the players so we could hear them mutter. Domed and bowl-shaped, my sons sit in a park where the players meander about on artificial turf that is not natural grass, and where we sat at such a distance that the game appears to be only a rumor. Fans should not have to endure these errors in aesthetics and architecture?

First, the turf should go. There should be nothing artificial about baseball, least of all the grass. The odd green shade of artificial turf is a poor counterfeit of grass green. When my sons and I visit the ballpark we are essential on a picnic. Why gather around a carpet, in which we can do just as well at home, to enjoy our hot dogs, peanuts, and sodas? (10)

Second, the dome should go. While it's true that the dome blocks out rain, it also blocks out the sun and sky. Baseball is a pastoral sport, where players lope across the field, where a strong player can smack a ball seemingly to the sky. Under a dome, the game is hermetically sealed, the players' skins look sickly, and the hit ball is in danger of banging a rafter. Finally, I want my sons to be closer to the game. I don't want us to be forced to the edge, of a bowled stadium, like the remnants of unwanted cereal. I want us to hear the ball slapping the catcher's mitt, and the shortstop yelling "I got it !" when the ball is popped up in the infield. Let us study an outfielders face, without the aid of binoculars. When he's sprinting toward the infield to catch a short fly ball.

Baseball is a game as much about atmosphere as athletics. Architects need to remember stadiums are playgrounds, not office buildings. If architects play fair, they will remember that, and my grandchildren will be thankful when they take their seats in the bleachers.