Reactions to In the Same Ballpark, episode 262 from 99% Invisible.
My review of baseball photographs was not restricted to the architecture of ballparks alone: it included a look at people playing baseball in the landscape outside of ballparks. I also did not restrict my review to baseball’s golden age.
The analysis of maps proved particularly striking as urban landscapes changed when concrete donuts came to dominate the sporting landscape. Notably, one round thing would supplant another: many railroad roundhouses disappeared.
To create a new ball park for Des Moines was not just about the park itself — it was about the ballpark as an integral part of the city. It was a not a concrete donut which stood apart from the urban fabric — it was urban fabric. That a professional baseball team happened to occupy the green space within was a distinction I wished to destroy.
Each of these elements came with some subtext which I will not get into here but the gist of it was that every time I would sketch the site plan for my ballpark design or zoom into an element of it, I would ask myself what roles the parts are playing: Is that field? Is it fence? How does it contribute to the panorama of the urban environment?
It did not take long to see the writing on the wall, as noted in the 99% Invisible podcast, that this approach to ballpark design would soon be overdone. Many of these new parks revealed my thesis all too well: that a ballpark is urban intervention and reflection. The donut stadia were clear products of their time. While many of the new ballparks seek to be partners in a “new urbanism”, they are often instead donut stadia in heavy makeup.
Housing for baseballs fans: the left field fence was comprised of townhouses with terraces making, in effect, the ball field their back yard.
A sloping outfield — sloping down to the Des Moines river away from home plate. The outfield was too deep to hit one into the river (although maybe not for the steroid era or such sluggers as Adam Dunn). No wall was included however, opening the tantalizing prospect that an inside the park home run would be transformed into an outside the park homer, provided the ball found it’s way into the river by a bounce or roll. Perhaps it would be accompanied by an overly eager outfielder.