The Ballpark Great Model For Seattle

As All-Star visitors continue to swoon over The Ballpark in Arlington - the prettiest thing in Texas since Sammy Baugh threw his last spiral - I’ve got a dissenting opinion.

It’s making me miserable.

I’m staying in a nearby hotel, and the more I see the smashing new park (and I see it whenever I look out the window), the more it galls me to think of the pathetically tepid support the Seattle Mariners got in Olympia for a similar project.

The more I see The Ballpark in Arlington, the more it disturbs me to realize no prominent Washington politician has any concept of the dreams that can come true when a few blueprints are combined with a lot of backbone. Or as Rangers managing general partner Rusty Rose put it when The Ballpark opened a year ago last April: “A work product that shows what can be accomplished when everyone gets on the same team.”

So color me miserable. The more I see The Ballpark in Arlington, the more I want The Ballpark in Seattle.

When my old college roomie bought us two $9 tickets in the upper deck for the Rangers game against the New York Yankees Saturday night, I was anticipating a baseball stadium not unlike Chicago’s new Comiskey Park: clean and convenient and somewhat cheerful, if not drop-dead gorgeous.

I was misinformed. Everything about The Ballpark is gorgeous, from the red-brick exterior decorated with 35 steer heads, 21 Lone Stars and 10 murals - hey, this is Texas, where subtle is a Scrabble word - to the exposed structural-steel arches in the concourse.

As for the view inside, picture the center field lawn in Kansas City’s Kaufmann Stadium sandwiched by the left field scoreboard in Fenway Park and the right field, upper-deck porch in Tiger Stadium. The Ballpark’s upper deck is supported by posts, long regarded as passe by stadium architects who didn’t want to install obstructedview seats.

Ah, but the only way to create that classically steep upper-deck overhang is with posts. So there are posts, giving The Ballpark an antique ambience, as Milwaukee outfielder Darryl Hamilton has suggested, that’s “like watching the old black-and-white film clips come to life.”

There are 49,178 seats in The Ballpark, and 49,178 of them are painted baseball-seat green. Roses are red, violets are blue, and baseball seats green. It’s not especially complicated.

Beyond the center field picnic area is The Ballpark’s most distinct twist: an office complex that evokes comparisons to the 18th-century flavor of New Orleans’ French Quarter. Tenants in the four-story structure, all of whom enjoy views of the field, include Dr. Rick Herrscher, D.D.S. Apparently, Dr. Rick’s philosophy toward root canals emphasizes the rooting.

Had The Ballpark been built on a bargain-basement budget, it would have been surrounded by nothing more exotic than a sprawling parking lot. But, again, this is Texas, and Texas doesn’t do bargain basements.

Amid the nine separate parking lots is a cozy Little League ballpark, two six-acre lakes, a 22,000-seat amphitheater, and a 2,600-brick Walk of Fame. Deep in the heart of nowhere, Texans built a spectacular tourist attraction that will help lure 6 million visitors to Arlington this year.

Those 6 million visitors will spend an estimated $341 million, for a projected economic impact of $1 billion. Yo, Mike - I mean, your royal honorableness, Mr. Governor, sir - a projected economic impact of $1 billion.

A few other facts and figures, courtesy of the Arlington Convention and Visitors Bureau:

Visitors spend an average of $50 per day, outside of attractions.

Every 400 occupied hotel/motel rooms creates/sustains one job.

Nine out of 10 visitors make Arlington their primary destination.

Nine out of 10 visitors plan to return to Arlington.

The regional impact of the AllStar Game and related events: $50 million. In other words, more than one-fifth of the cost of the $191 million, city-owned ballpark will have been rerouted into the economy by a single event.

But there are some benefits The Ballpark has provided Texas for which no price can be attached.

Listen to Rangers president Tom Schieffer’s comments after the stadium was christened during an April exhibition in 1994: “It was a feeling I didn’t expect to have. It was a feeling that major league baseball had finally come to north Texas.

“There was a lot of emotion in the fans today. There was a strong feeling out there, a great love of baseball. I don’t think people who came to the old park ever had a real major-league experience here before today.”

That major-league sensation was echoed by the Rangers’ players.

“This outdoes them all,” Texas pitcher Kenny Rogers told the Dallas Morning News’ Frank Luksa. “It makes you feel good. Maybe this is what we needed.”

The writer mentioned that The Ballpark must be a great place to work.

“That doesn’t sound right,” Rogers said. “This is a great place to PLAY. Work is pitching in Cleveland.”

Rogers, of course, hadn’t yet seen Cleveland’s Jacobs Field, another gorgeous baseball stadium that has become the pride of a once-sluggish metropolis.

Work? Work is pitching in Seattle, where dreams of tomorrow slowly sink with the summer sun.