The Worcester Red Sox are about to open their new $157 million stadium — okay, about to open when the minor-league season starts, which isn’t until May, but anyway, isn’t two months in advance still a good time for the local newspaper to write a piece about how great the place will be once it’s finished? The local newspaper that is owned by the owner of the WooSox’ parent club? Surely this will be a reasoned and objective assessment, so let’s dig in:
Worcester didn’t want its new stadium to be Fenway Park.
Easily accomplished. Moving on!
There’s capacity for 9,508 fans, but the seating bowl of 6,000 seats — all with cup holders — is almost entirely around the infield.
That’s true of almost every minor-league ballpark. And, actually, most major-league ballparks, which have a grandstand wrapped around home plate, and usually at most some more cursory bleachers in the outfield. Glad to hear about the cupholders, though, because if there’s one thing American sports fans hate, it’s having to put their beers on the ground.
Polar Park will be unique. There’s a Woo Shop where purchases are recorded on an app without any checkout or waiting in line. There are heart-shaped light towers and a heart adorned on the side of each seat.
“Without any checkout” sounds like the Amazon store system, which is made possible by an insane number of surveillance cameras, so maybe that’s what the team has planned here? One hopes they will be heart-shaped cameras, at least, to honor Worcester’s nickname of “the Heart of the Commonwealth,” because it’s so close to the middle of the state, which, I guess?
On June 12, 1880, Worcester pitcher Lee Richmond threw the first perfect game in Major League history, against the Cleveland Blues.
Interesting! But not actually about the stadium, if we’re getting technical here.
“One of the things we’ve been good about is making sure that there is a customization factor in every ballpark, so it looks and tastes and feels and smells like the city in which it is located,” Lucchino says.
I’m not sure which is more disturbing, the notion of a stadium that “tastes like” Worcester, or what the construction crew needed to do to ensure quality control on that.
They could have built the stadium on flat land, but instead they shoehorned it into the historic Canal District with multiple levels, a nod to Worcester’s three deckers and the up-and-coming downtown restaurants.
Yes, they could have built on flat land, saving themselves and Worcester taxpayers $58 million. But they chose to build on a hill, because … I dunno, say something about restaurants, the Globe will print whatever we tell them.
“So you should be able to experience a two-dimensional ballpark. Both a low-priced ballpark where tickets are eight or nine dollars, and we have higher-priced tickets that come with more creature comforts,” says [WooSox owner and former Boston Red Sox CEO Larry] Lucchino.
That is not what two-dimensional means.
A long ball hit to left field could land in an open boxcar and wind up in Chicago.
Freight rail companies don’t leave boxcar doors open anymore, but nice thought!
The home bullpen is just a few feet past the dugout and built into the stands. To sit in a box seat sandwiched between the dugout and the bullpen is unique. Fans get an umpire’s view of pitchers warming up, and hear the pop of the catcher’s mitt up close and personal.
Seats right next to the bullpen actually sound kind of neat, though also something that can be experienced at a bunch of other stadiums, including Fenway Park. Though in Worcester this view will be reserved for high-paying patrons, so maybe that’s the unique part here.
Not mentioned at all in the article: The controversy over the stadium’s high public cost, not to mention the overruns that now have taxpayers on the hook for $146.8 million, or more than eight times what it cost to build Fenway Park in 1912, adjusted for inflation. On the other hand, the original Fenway seats didn’t have cupholders or surveillance cameras watching your every shopping move, and who can put a price on things like that? (A: Larry Lucchino, and that price was $146.8 million.)
I am guessing the Woo Shop will be ringed with crystals that will channel our bodies’ energy into the appropriate commerce and security devices. There will be crystals that pick up “I wanna buy this” vibe and those that pick up the “I wanna steal this” vibe.
Came across the recently. Had to smile.
https://youtu.be/hF6QCZIBCFY
Typo – this.
You know, you really have to root for a guy who pulled himself up by the bootstraps from a tough college like Princeton or Yale and dragged himself out of that mire of poverty and deprivation to….
I mean, is there anyone more deserving of $150m in taxpayer funding than Lucchino and his family?
I think Worcester should be congratulated for righting this incredible wrong and giving public funding to a wealthy man like our Larry instead of using it to fund schools, hospitals, libraries or other public services.
It’s about time we recognized who the truly needy are in our society. And it’s Larry and his fellow millionaires/billionaires.
Hey, don’t knock those cup holders. Many a beer or Coke/RC/Pepsi (depending on who was sponsoring the Mets that season) has been kicked and spilled over the years. Nothing worse than losing an overpriced beverage that way.
To be fair, it’s not like Worcester has any local economists with expertise on the economic impact of sports facilities who could have aided the city in its decision-making.
I’m sure they tried to call, but got your voicemail and were too shy to leave a message.