Monday, August 30, 1999

Bank One Ballpark creates tradition from scratch

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Historic displays, a museum - and cool air

BY JOHN J. BYCZKOWSKI
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Bank One Ballpark in 1998. (Enquirer file photo) | ZOOM |

        PHOENIX — You take $238 million in public money, add $110 million of your own and build a massive air-conditioned, retractable roof ballpark. You pay $140 million for a major league franchise, and spend $40 million to build an organization just to prepare to throw the first pitch of the first game.

        All that's left to do is convince the local citizenry — which has no history at all of supporting a major-league team — to buy 3 million tickets a year.

        The Arizona Diamondbacks over their first two years in baseball are meeting the challenge, thanks in no small part to Bank One Ballpark, :known as the BOB. And it's not just that it's clean, comfortable, lively and — above all — cool.

        Ed Wynn is a home-building consultant who flies in several times a year from Las Vegas to watch baseball. Outside it's 107 degrees, and Mr. Wynn doesn't hesitate when he says what he likes best about the BOB.

        “Climate control,” he said. “It beats the hell out of sitting in this heat.”

        But air conditioning is only one part of the equation. To turn an expansion baseball team into a going concern, the Diamondbacks had to get Arizonans involved. That meant two things. The first is getting them to understand baseball as a fun and interesting game steeped in history. The second is to accept the Diamondbacks as their team, playing in their ballpark.

        “We tried to build in tradition since we didn't have it to begin with,” said team president Jerry Colangelo. In terms of baseball knowledge, “We're going to assume people are starting from scratch. We need to help educate them on the game of baseball, create a strong warmth to the game, give them a lot of information.”

Bank One Ballpark in 1998. (Enquirer file photo) | ZOOM |

        So the Diamondbacks just lay it out. Around the stadium on the main concourse are more than two dozen glass cases with baseball memorabilia of all sorts. One large display shows the stages in the making of bats, mitts and balls.

        In another are a hat and T-shirt worn by Carney Lansford in the 1969 Little League World Series, won by his team from Santa Clara, Calif. Another has memorabilia from Joe Garagiola Sr. (he's a Diamondbacks TV analyst and his son is the team's general manager), including his 1946 “uniform players contract” with St. Louis paying him $600 per month.

        A ring of signs up and around the inner edge of the concourse honors the great stadiums, players, moments and words of the game, in 10 sections.

        The section “A Time for Power” commemorates such players as Cy Young and Mark McGwire. “A Time for Achievement” looks at players who've overcome adversity, such as Jackie Robinson busting the whites-only standards of the game and Eric Davis beating cancer. Around the outer edge of the concourse are dozens of TV screens, showing highlights of the game's great moments and quizzing fans.

        “It makes it like an old traditional ballpark,” said fan Paula Vaughnn of Scottsdale, of the signs and cases. “Even though it is new, they try to give it some old-time features. It feels like an East Coast ballpark.”

        Out behind the batter's eye in center field, in the Cox Clubhouse, is the ballpark museum. It features a locker room where each locker represents a team, displaying vintage and current uniforms (Cincinnati is represented, for instance, by the uniforms of Johnny Bench and Barry Larkin). Off one side is the Cooperstown room, with displays of artifacts from the Baseball Hall of Fame.

        The fans seem to have responded. “It's the best thing that ever happened to Phoenix,” said Carlos Lopez of Mesa, who sells roofing material. He comes every Sunday, and usually sits behind first base “so I can see the big scoreboard.”

        This all seems like too much, with the color and the signs and the cases, as if a shopping mall were trying to pose as Wrigley Field. But it all works somehow; it's busy because it was built that way.

        “This is not baseball,” said one fan from Chicago, clutching an $8 beer and standing on the concourse above the swimming pool. “But there's nothing wrong with it.”

       

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