Major League Baseball In Providence

[TheAnk]

Fenway.. I hear that.. I hit a few games every year and after seeing other parks, Fenway sucks... Make it a museum, build the new park to the exact field specs, and move on.. Although they put in new bleach-seats this season so maybe I'll change my tune come 4/18/08..

If a freaking parking lot is the only thing standing between a pro team and PVD.. Well.. I'd start mixing home brewed asphalt in my basement tonight.. I'd pave over Roger Williams Park by hand with a plastic toy trowel killing all the pretty things if we could get a pro team.. Remorseless

[HartfordTycoon]

If a freaking parking lot is the only thing standing between a pro team and PVD.. Well.. I'd start mixing home brewed asphalt in my basement tonight.. I'd pave over Roger Williams Park by hand with a plastic toy trowel killing all the pretty things if we could get a pro team.. Remorseless

[jencoleslaw]

The new Nationals Stadium has valet bike parking. But very little car parking. It is right along the Anacostia River so they had to be careful about runoff. Plus there's plenty of public transit options, of which I will taking advantage next wednesday when i start using my season ticket share!

[09/21/38]

If there was a new stadium built on allens Ave. there wouldn't be room for much surface parking. They could use the existing parking at Johnson & Wales Harboursde Campus and have a trolly down the ave.

But they would have to increase the bus service from the train station and Kennedy Plaza. A light rail line coming from the airport down Allens would also help.

With the right group of ownership, with deep pockets, this could happen.

[webbage]

The Marlins have agreed to stay in Florida in exchange for a new stadium if that hasn't been mentioned.

Also not sure if this has been mentioned, but I'm pretty sure part of the Red Sox contract with MLB is an agreement that they will be the only New England team...so some negotiations would have to be made.

[dgreco]

philly's got tons of surface parking at their stadium, but it's a mega sports complex with the football field and the arena right there.

[Dan]

unfortunately, a lot of the money not only comes from the corporate sponsorships, but also from the state and city. that's where we run into problems.

[runawayjim]

Google maps of Philly's sports complex area... parking hell.

[jencoleslaw]

I am definitely conflicted about Fenway, mostly because I have that misty-eyed nostalgia thing about the ballpark. I think it has been preserved while continuing to roll with the advertising times. However, until MLB, The Red Sox and the state of MA do something about the scalping, it won't matter how many seats fenway, or a potential new fenway build because there will never be $14 tickets as long as such a gigantic quantity of tickets are somehow ending up on Stubhub within minutes (or before?) of going on sale. Plus, i believe if the Red Sox partners managed to figure out a way to build a new stadium, one with 20K more seats, I think those would be snatched up by corporate boxes, or season ticket holders anyway so again, there will never be $14 tickets to see the red sox, unless you see them at Camden, or The Toilet, or somewhere else.

[09/21/38]

They should move McCoy Stadium to Allens Ave. and make it bigger. If things really catch on and they figure out parking, transportation and corporate funding then they can call major league baseball and see who wants to move to RI.

This might not be until 2020 but it is something that could happen.

[eltron]

This is not the same Fenway, its character has not been preserved. And even with all this advertising revenue the fans are still hit up with huge ticket price increases every single year. There are not, and presumably won't ever be, nearly enough seats to meet the demand.

It really doesn't make any sense. The Yankees (the only MLB club that spends more than Boston) are building a state-of-the-art 51,000 seat park that looks just like the old stadium and anybody can still afford a bleacher seat for $14. The Red Sox need to wake up.

[dgreco]

I've been going to Fenway since 1986, every year, and currently own season tix in the bleachers. I'll just say I completely and totally disagree with you, as there's pretty much no other place in the world I would rather spend a summer evening (and I have been to over a dozen other ballparks, including Camden and Wrigley). I'll leave it at that.

[Lone Ranger]

I hear a lot of people whine about the ticket prices at Fenway.

And those prices, on a regular basis, I couldn't afford myself. But hey, let's be reasonable. The Red Sox have sold out every single home game for the past 3 or 4 years, give or take a few games, so apparently (according to the laws of supply & demand) the Red Sox aren't charging nearly enough for tickets.

Just a thought.

[webbage]

Google maps of Philly's sports complex area... parking hell.

[Griswald]

In response to the last few posts: I have been to an average of 3 or 4 regular season games and the same number of playoff games a year, for the past 5 years or so. It's always a blast going to a game, especially at Fenway. The fans in the grandstand are usually nice and vocal, and it's just a good experience all around. But you can't deny that the ballpark and the organization in general do nothing to help the common fan get to a game. There are a few ways a fan can get to a game at Fenway: having some kind of connection to someone who has tickets; getting tickets from your company or from a sales rep; winning tickets in a contest, i.e. on a radio show; having season tickets from someone in your family who purchased them a long time ago; winning tickets in the Red Sox lottery for opening day, Yankee games, & Monster seats; being rich so that you don't mind getting gouged by scalpers - whether online, from a ticket reseller or at the park....

None of the above ways for procuring a ticket include something revolutionary like going to the box office and buying a ticket; calling the park and buying a ticket to pick up at will call; purchasing a ticket at face value from the Sox website....

I can't complain about not getting to games because I've been lucky enough to have connections with people who can get tickets. But that doesn't mean I cant sympathize with fans who don't have that opportunity. This is really a separate discussion, but I just had to chime in. I won't get into the fact that ticket resellers should be banned and all that - but it would be nice to have a day when average fans can buy tickets and watch the Red Sox play in Boston.

[Bil]

Washington's experience (with a report from Jencoleslaw forthcoming, I hope)

[jencoleslaw]

Washington's experience (with a report from Jencoleslaw forthcoming, I hope)

[TheAnk]

I think with a bigger park there will be $14 tickets.. The only reason the scalping is rampant is lack of supply..

And lets be honest here.. 50% of these people disappear once the season goes awry.. Take 2006 for example.. I COULDN'T GIVE AWAY tickets @ the end of the season.. WHAT??

You have a couple subpar Sox seasons, very possible with the core aging, and it will get cheap real quick.. People forget how fair weathered people are..

I think Remy said a few nights ago that for Roger Clemens 20k there was like 14,000 people there.. They asked people to move down so it looked more full.. My mom bought tickets to YAZ DAY the week before.. They were front row.. Times change REAL quick..

I personally think the magic of Fenway could be captured in a new park by building the field to exact specs, put some things on display from the old park like the TD Banknorth Garden does in lux box row, build a ton of lux boxes and a legit upper deck.. AT FAN PIER.. Maybe even build a ridiculous shrine like they have in NY so gorditos like Clemens and

Wells can suck face with Babe Ruth's likeness..

The lux boxes make reg fan tickets more affordable.. Plus.. Going to another park like Citz Bank or Camden and then going back to quaint Fenway is like driving a Mercedes G class and then going back to the 1979 Chevy Nova..

I understand the whole camp lo black nostaljack fenway thing, but its kind of fear of change-y..

[eltron]

The lux boxes make reg fan tickets more affordable.. Plus.. Going to another park like Citz Bank or Camden and then going back to quaint Fenway is like driving a Mercedes G class and then going back to the 1979 Chevy Nova..

I understand the whole camp lo black nostaljack fenway thing, but its kind of fear of change-y..

[TheAnk]

As someone who goes to 25 plus games a year, Fenway rocks. To go your analogy route, Fenway is a like a true, honest to god vintage Rolex, while many of the new parks are like knock-offy crap you can buy at a flea market. It FEELS different. REAL. BETTER. I really like Camden, great place to see a game. But Fenway blows it out of the water in FEEL. There are only two things I would change at Fenway, and I hope the ownership eventually gets around to them, but I will certainly live if they don't - beer sales in the stands, and fixing the bottleneck behind first base. Other than that, the place is like heaven...

[09/21/38]

I needed four tickets last year to bring my out of town in-laws and the only one's I could get was on the internet and paid 74 each to sit in the center field bleachers 10 rows below the scoreboard. It was great fun and I was not the only over 50 person in the bleachers. Most were. But the price was outrageous and i sat facing the right field grandstand. But that is the reality for red sox fans these days if you need more than one ticket.

I think Fenway will always be a tough ticket unless the Red Sox completly fall apart because you have people treating it like a religous shrine and now Japanese fans are making the pilgrimage also.

Which is why a second major league team in Providence makes so much sense.

[dgreco]

I'm getting old.. The place is cramped, damp and the beers are $7.50.. It costs me as much in beer as it does in tickets.. Which probably says something bad about me.. Also, Camden had an A/C'ed concourse which comes in hand sitting in the bleach on a +90 day (where along with you, I also have some regular tickets)..

I just think the luxuries outweight the history for me now, but I COMPLETELY agree with the FEEL comment.. Ridiculous hop in step for like 3 days prior to hitting a game.. Just one man's opinion..

[jencoleslaw]

Camden Yards is a different place. I was there this weekend and it is a ballpark for the fans. The only problem is people do not show up and outside the park it is fairly dead. The bars, the people and atmosphere outside the park make it just as exciting to go. At Camden Yards my section was all Sox fans the 100 of us and there was nothing going on outside to get you excited. It was like going to a AAA game. The game was exciting with a bunch of homeruns and a win for the O's but it just doesn't have that great feel like other parks.

[dgreco]

well, you can thank Peter Angelos--he's baseball's bad apple--for that. I think it is indeed a shame that the O's don't get the kind of reception that the Red Sox do, but i have extra innings down here and I can tell that all around the country, stadiums are empty regardless of who is playing.

[jencoleslaw]

Baseball has been on the incline for money, but it is widely cited that most stadiums do not sell out. Overall baseball is in great shape though.

The funny think about being at camden yards was that on the new scoreboard they kept showing updates of the redsox/jays games and the crowd would cheer when the sox did good obviously. I thought it was odd and I do not know if it is because there are that many NE transplants or just they are obvious people love the sox across the country.