European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - May 4, 1994, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Workers finish up the Ballpark in Arlington Texas. Baseball a new Staci urns lots of hits few errors Parks by Paul Goldberger the Nev York times he most Rabid football fan thinks Little about what surrounds the Gridiron the ardent basketball fan dreams of 3-p Point goals not Ofa. Arenas. A. A a a a by quota but baseball is connected intimately to the place in which it is played and derives much of its Aura from that place. It is no Accident that people do not merely like ballparks they Loye them and they remember them with passion. A a a a Ivy by  could any other sport yield a Wrigley Field or a Fenway Park Only baseball which is played Over time not against it and whose Field dimensions Are never quite fixed. Y  i -. Every Outfield is different or at least it used to be until the Concrete flying Saucer stadiums of the last generation replaced glorious eccentricity with banal bureaucratic sameness. The Astrodome May be great for rodeos but it is not what baseball is about. Count the Astrodome generation dead. The first blow was struck two years ago at Camden Yards the magnificent Baltimore orioles Park that opened in 1992 a a and whose stunning Success made it difficult if not a impossible for anyone to seriously propose putting baseball into one of those Concrete bunkers again now comes Camden Yards progeny two Brand new Fields that make it dear that the Baltimore Ballpark was not some sort of romantic aberration but the Harbinger of a whole new Way of building for baseball. One of the new Parks is in the midst of a City the other seems to be waiting to have a City grow up around it but both Are the Clear offspring of Camden  like Many children they owe plenty to their. Parent even As they struggle to do things their elder never dreamed of. Y a y v a the Ballpark in Arlington As the Texas rangers Park is called and Jacobs Field where the indians play in downtown Cleveland could not be More different from each other. Yet these Parks each in its own Way continue the work begun at Camden Yards the Mission of recapturing the baseball Field from the architects and owners and Public sports authorities who 30 years ago pulled baseball out of ballparks and started putting it into huge vapid Concrete stadiums More suited to football and Stock car races. These two Parks Are for baseball and for baseball Only. The grass is real the Field is open to the sky and the connection to the surroundings is intense particularly in Cleveland where the City s Skyline looms Over Center Field and the Park is an easy walk from the heart of downtown. But even in Arlington where the Urban context is really suburban sprawl there is a sense of urbanity. Its Brick Walls and towers line the Street and they seem to cry out for a real City to surround them. Maybe some Day there will be one the architect of the Park David m. Schwarz of Washington has also been commissioned to do a master plan for the area around the Park the Success of Arlington is startling in part because the project seems from drawings and photographs to be just too Good to be True a too pretty too romantic too derivative of old style Ball Parks to be convincingly a product of the 1990s.�?T l. With its roof trusses recalling the original Yankee stadium its Quot Home run porch Quot alluding to Tiger stadium and its Brightfield shape loosely calling to Fenway the whole thing looks As if it s going to be less a Ballpark than a Ball theme Park. A. A. A new yorker expects to grumble at it in the same Way he wants to sneer at the smiling faces at Disneyland and then you go and you discover How Little you can Trust drawings. It is As pleasing to watch a a Figarie Here As at Camden Yards maybe More so. A every detail of this Park a of which plenty Are sleek and modern and look not at All to the past a comes together to create a coherent work of architecture a work that functions Well and even has some unexpected. Moments of monumental grandeur. The experience of being at Arlington begins outside the Park where the facade looms up Over a Messy a landscape of parking lots amusement Parks hotels and a convention  mix of red Brick and Stone with four Pyramid topped Corner towers and a rhythm of repeating Arches makes it look like a kind of simplified Palazzo. The outer Walls Are decorated with sculpted Texas longhorns and Lone stars and a frieze of Texas history in Bas Relief not to mention rooftop lamps in the form of huge baseballs. The magic moment though is when you step through the Stone Arches and catch a glimpse of the Field within it. Is a powerful instant when you feel the order of the City and the order of baseball coming together. You experience that sensation in what is itself a great space inside the concourse Between the outside \ya11s and the seating bowl where Green painted steel trusses decorated with Lone stars line the ceiling. \ it. And from there it is into the Park itself where the seating is arranged in three main tiers. It is asymmetrical both to emphasize the tie to older ballparks and to give the Field a degree of idiosyncrasy. The real achievement  $189-Mtlion project is in the layout of the 49,292 seats to maximize a sense of intimacy Zyvith the fiend. The Angle of the upper deck is less Steep than in Many recent Parks and Many of the seats Are angled slightly toward Home plate the columns supporting the roof of the Home run porch in right Field make for a few obstructed View seats but the columns also Frame and intensify the View of the Field for those sitting far behind them and the porch itself is a spectacular architectural element. The layout also includes 120 private luxury suites slipped deftly into intermediate Levels avoiding the sense that this Park is dominated by special seating for the Rich. This is no Small problem these Days in Arena and stadium design where class distinctions once altogether absent from sports architecture seem now larger and larger. There is at least the illusion of democracy in the Arlington layout if not the reality of it there is no such illusion in Cleveland alas and that is that Park s biggest problem. The $170 million Jacobs Field named for the indians owner Richard Jacobs also contains 120 luxury suites but instead of being slipped i unobtrusively Between main seating Levels these Glass enclosed boxes dominate one whole portion of the Park Cleveland s Jacobs Field is part of a City renewal project and blends in with existing streets and buildings. Three Levels of Glass facing the held sends a disquieting message that is very much at Odds with the larger Goat of this Park which is to tie itself into the larger life of the City. Luxury sky boxes symbolize isolation they Are an unavoidable part of sports economics today but this hardly Means that they have to be so. Conspicuous an architectural presence. It s too bad since otherwise the Cleveland Park makes every Effort to integrate itself into the larger City. The views of the Skyline Are spectacular and there is no mistaking from any one of its 42,000 seats that you Are in Cleveland. Indeed the open Corners which maximize the views _ Are one improvement Over Arlington where the 1 frequency of High winds mandated a Park closed on All sides. / /. A. A a a a a a. A a  Jacobs Field which was built As a part of the City Gateway renewal project was designed by Joseph Spear of Hellmuth Obata amp Kassabaum a firm that has made a specially out of stadium architecture for years and whose credits Range All the Way from the acclaimed Camden Yards to the 1992 Comiskey Park the most disappointing of the current generation of ballparks. If Schwarz carried the old fashioned air of Camden Yards even further dancing on the Edge of sentimentality Spear goes in the other direction trying to prove that it is possible to build Ballpark that is traditional in its respect for baseball while being modern in its architectural details. A y. A a a a a a a. A a. This is a lighter More hard edged building than either Camden or Arlington less instantly lovable but with a kind of strength that feels right for a Northern Industrial City. A a. The Park is Well Laid out with Field dimensions that like Arlington a Are slightly eccentric and a seating bowl that is asymmetrical. Unfortunately the upper deck is steeper than at Arlington and some of its seats Are far away indeed from Home plate which came to part As a result of trying to satisfy the worthwhile goal of jetting the right Field Side of the building run straight along a neighbouring Street rather than curve inward Given that most older ballparks responded to the pattern 6f the streets around them this gesture in its Way is every bit As much a look backward As anything done at Arlington. To be fair the views from the bulk of the seats at Jacobs fiend Many of which Are angled toward Home plate Are excellent. And there is a splendid bleacher area under the huge Lively scoreboard. If you look toward the Field with the Skyline As a backdrop and keep your Back toward the three stories of sky boxes you la be perfectly Happy a i. The Field lights Are set not in Large horizontal blocks but on narrow vertical poles like smokestacks along with the gently vaulted roof and the vault topped elevator towers these give the stadium a distinct profile _. Each of these new Parks is a kind of Monument a place in which the idea of baseball and the idea of civic architecture come together and in this sense each is part of the Long tradition of ballparks. The great ballparks have always been places of Green country in the City and it is in the meeting of these two things the soft perfection of the Field where games Are played with the hard lines of the City where real life goes on that the special Quality of ballparks lies. Baltimore s Camden Yards with its old time feeling has set a tone for other new ballparks to follow. Nolan Ryan Waves after throwing the opening pitch at the Ballpark. Fans take in the action at the new Comiskey Park in Chicago called the most disappointing of the new Breed of  groundskeeper works on the Pitcher s Mound at veterans stadium in Philadelphia one of the generation of multipurpose and standardized Parks that have fallen out of favor. 18 the stars and stripes wednesday May 4,1994 the stars and stripes 19