Matt Freed, Post-Gazette

By Don Hopey
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Before a recent game at PNC Park, Neil Spada was waiting for his dad next to the muscular Honus Wagner bronze outside Gate A and talking about the classic design of the five-year old ball yard.

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"It gives the park an old feeling, like Forbes and Fenway, and reminds you it holds a history, baseball history," said the 18-year-old Mt. Lebanon resident. "But inside it provides the conveniences that people expect out of a ball park today. It's the best of both worlds."

PNC Park, home of the Pirates and site of Tuesday's Major League All-Star Game, is widely recognized as one of the best examples of the sport's new generation of ball yards.

They're designed to be as sweet as a fresh-cut outfield, as magical as a triple and as timeless and definitive as a walk off home run ... in the World Series ... against the Yankees.

Beginning with Baltimore's Orioles Park at Camden Yards in 1992, major league baseball has sprinted away from Astroturf and antiseptic, multipurpose concrete bowl-style stadiums and toward real grass and intimate retro designs better integrated into their urban neighborhoods.

That sea-change in ballpark design -- 15 Major League parks have been built since Camden Yards and still more are on the way -- has relied heavily on reestablishing the friendly intimacy of a "home field."

PNC Park's light standards, right field wall and lettering fonts, for example, evoke Forbes Field, and the arches recall the city's many bridges. Houston's Union Station, built in 1911, forms part of the main entrance of Minute Maid Park, which opened in 2000. Visitors to Philadelphia's Citizen Bank Park, which opened in 2004, can stroll through a street fair on Ashburn Alley. Camden Yards abuts a 100-year-old railroad warehouse in right field.

Larry Lucchino, a native Pittsburgher and president of the Baltimore Orioles when their new ballpark was built, brought his Forbes Field memories and experiences to the planning process.

"I grew up near Forbes Field and saw them build Three Rivers Stadium. Something was lost in that transition," said Mr. Lucchino, now president and chief executive officer of the Boston Red Sox. "When I had a chance in the mid-1980s to help design a new park in Baltimore it was my strong desire to capture some of the ballpark feel of Forbes Field."

Mr. Lucchino said that Ebbets Field, the Brooklyn Dodgers' old ballpark in New York, and Fenway Park in Boston also influenced the design of Camden Yards as a traditional ballpark with modern amenities.

"One thing I knew," he said, "is we didn't want a stadium. We wanted a ballpark."

PNC Park was built with the idea of reforging the kind of community ties that Pittsburghers once had with Forbes Field and lost when the Pirates moved in 1970 Three Rivers, one of that era's "cookie-cutter" stadiums.

"The multipurpose stadiums built in the 1960s and 1970s to house both football and baseball didn't identify with any one sport, so they couldn't identify with anyone," said Earl Santee, a senior principal and architect with HOK Sports of Kansas City, which designed PNC Park, Camden Yards and most of the other back-to-the-future Major League baseball fields built since. "But baseball is a game of personal experiences, and we do our job well if we can recreate those different experiences for everybody.

"We want to create a seamless meshing of the community and the ballpark. Baseball is a game of history and details, and we work on the texture and the ambience. In the end, it's designed as a personal space."

Fans and non-fans alike have responded enthusiastically to the throwback ballparks. The old-time look is so popular that the Chicago White Sox, who moved into U.S. Cellular Field in 1991, undertook a major renovation in 2001 to give it more of an old ballpark feel. HOK is also working on renovations to the Chicago Cubs' Wrigley Field that it says are "respectful" of that ivy-covered ball yard's traditions and on a new throwback park for the Washington Nationals.

"Major League Baseball didn't tell its teams what kind of ballparks to build, but Camden Yards and Jacobs Field and Coors Field were well received," said Tim Schuldt, the Pirates' vice president for marketing, sales and broadcasting. "This is a historic game and keeping that kind of atmosphere is pleasing to the fans, and if they like that look then why not continue building them."

More than just a game
At the HOK-designed, publicly financed, ballpark that opened on the North Shore in April 2001, the mix of nostalgia and modern amenities makes it easier for crowds to have a good time without necessarily seeing a good game. The ballpark's design, location, and marketing have made PNC Park a destination for crowds that value entertainment as much as errorless ball and for whom comfort is at least as important as hitting the cutoff man.

It also provided the Pirates with new marketing opportunities and revenue streams to meet the financial challenges facing many small market teams. Certainly the All-Star Game, its attendant festivities and the estimated $50 million in economic benefits wouldn't be coming to Pittsburgh without it.

"It's a balance now. We have the kind of ticket packages and venue to attract the diehard fans," Mr. Schuldt said, "but we also have the opportunity to create new audience opportunities. With our different entertainment spaces we can target different audiences. We have the kind of flexible facility to handle that."

From the outside, PNC Park, baseball's second smallest ballpark with a capacity of 38,496, shows a classic silhouette. But inside the ballpark's yesteryear-style grandstand there's between-innings pierogie races, hot dog shoots, the Pirate Parrot, family sections, batting cages for the kids, and ladies night spa treatments, manicures, and wine tastings.

On the 200 level there's luxury boxes and a wood-paneled, club-like setting where patrons can spend time shooting pool, eating fancy deserts, smoking cigars and sipping martinis in front of a plasma flat screen television without ever having to worry about inclement weather or spills caused by incoming foul balls.

"I don't follow baseball much, but this club is one of the things that brings me Downtown," said Paul Rosato, 38, of Bloomfield, who owns the City Grill on the South Side and was sitting in the Pirates' new-this-year Monte Cristo Club. There, for a special ticket price, fans can sit in a richly appointed, paneled room with deep cushioned chairs, get a free drink -- tequila, chocolate vodka and martinis have been recent features -- a couple of cigars and buffet service.

"I like to come here for lunch and a cigar," Mr. Rosato said as he rolled a big dark stogie between his fingers during the third inning of a recent day game against the world Champion Chicago White Sox. "And I'm going to be in here the whole day. I can bring work here on the computer or hold meetings. Besides, you're at the ball park, so you got to smoke a cigar."

Or eat a huge wedge of a decadently rich six-layer carrot cake, as Sue Elder of Edgewood was doing in the Club Level during a recent rain delay.

"I'm not a baseball fan, but I've enjoyed being here today," said Ms. Elder, 54, who was with nine female friends, all of whom work in PPG Plaza. "This is a much nicer park than the old stadium. It has a great view of the city and river."

That view and those rivers, unique to Pittsburgh, are highlighted by HOK's design approach, Mr. Santee said.

"A constant is that we want to make the experience in each new ballpark in each city unique to that city," said Mr. Santee, who spent weeks in Pittsburgh prior to starting design work after the last All-Star Game here in 1995.

"The game is one aspect of the experience. We want people to enjoy the game but also the view of Downtown, a walk on the promenade, or the picnic area in the outfield. There should be every reason to go to the game and for some it will be just a great place to have fun."