There is little that’s old about Major League Baseball’s old ball game once you get out to the ballparks.
Heralded as a sport of grand tradition and unwritten rules, baseball went through a spate of demolition and building within the past few decades that left it with ballparks that are only about as old as Taylor Swift, on average. The average age of Major League Baseball’s 30 ballparks checks in at a little more than 26 years old, with just a few outliers making it seem even that aged.
Only one of the three ballparks that opened in the 1980s, the Toronto Blue Jays’ Rogers Centre (formerly the SkyDome), still houses a baseball team. Of the six baseball stadiums built during the multipurpose era of the 1970s, only one — the World Champion Kansas City Royals’ Kauffman Stadium — have been vacated or razed. Even worse is the track record of 1960s ballparks, of which only two of the 13 built that decade still house Major League Baseball franchises.
For a sport that clutches so tightly to weathered, well-worn traditions from uniforms down to the preferred pace of a home-run trot, baseball makes its homes look outright disposable. In fact, with the National Football League still using nine of its 32 stadiums built before 1990 (thanks for padding those numbers with Los Angeles Coliseum, Rams), its facilities hold greater claim to “hallowed halls” and “cathedrals of the game” than those that host the seventh-inning stretch, “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” and hand-written scorecards. Also, the nearly $1 billion in public funding that went into baseball’s newest ballparks — Marlins Park in Miami (more than $500 million) and SunTrust Park in Cobb County, Ga. (more than $400 million) — is roughly what taxpayers spent on new NFL stadiums in Atlanta, Minnesota, Santa Clara, Calif., and East Rutherford, N.J., combined.
But as baseball continues its wise embrace of statistical analysis and peppers its lineups with young talent like Jose Bautista, Chris Archer, Bryce Harper and Jose Fernandez — who seem more interested in making baseball a fun and entertaining game than getting bent out of shape every time someone flips a bat — its antiquity becomes more of a burden than a blessing. That said, there are still a few places around the league where owners are playing caretaker too (if not triage nurse for) baseball’s links to the past. Will a nod to Kansas City — which gave Kaufman Stadium a roughly $270 million overhaul six years ago and made it World Series-ready even before the Royals were — we look at the oldest ballparks in baseball and see what they’ve meant to the owners and franchises left to run them.
Oakland Athletics
Opened: 1966
Cost to build: $25.5 million ($200.2 million adjusted for inflation)
There was a time when this was a great place to come to a ball game.
From the early 1980s until about 1996, it actually looked like a ballpark. There was a great view of the Oakland hills in center field, there wasn’t an overabundance of seating and there wasn’t an NFL roommate throwing its weight around and crying every time the building didn’t look football-specific. Please, tell us again how that infield dirt makes it so tough for kickers to make field goals, even though Sebastian Janikowski has done so for the Raiders for years.
However, thanks to a $200 million renovation ($302 million in today’s dollars) in 1996 that sealed up the Coliseum and blocks the view of the hills with “Mount Davis,” it’s been a lot easier to focus on the Coliseum’s negatives. Visiting teams have been grossed out by the raw sewage that backs up into the locker room and showers, but the indignities and constraints of playing in the Coliseum over the past 20 years helped usher in the “Moneyball” era of general manager Billy Beane. Granted, while the postseason appearances have been sporadic and the wins have come in bunches, Beane has kept the A’s competitive with a payroll that regularly ranks in the bottom third of the league.
Meanwhile, as Raiders owner Mark Davis pouts about not being invited to play in Los Angeles and not getting Oakland to buy him a new stadium, team owner Lewis Wolff signed a 10-year lease at the Coliseum in 2014 and got $1 million a year in maintenance money as a reward for his loyalty. While the courts and the San Francisco Giants won’t let Wolff and the A’s leave for San Jose, they’ve shown no interest in going anywhere other than their cheap digs in Oakland.
Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
Opened: 1966
Cost to build: $24 million ($188.4 million adjusted for inflation)
They’ve played here as the California Angels, the Anaheim Angels and the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, but the Angels are still at the Big A thanks largely to an assist from Disney.
Much like the A’s, the Angels had to deal with a pushy NFL tenant when the Rams played here from 1980 through 1994 during their first stint in Los Angeles. The Rams came in, enclosed the stadium, blocked a view of the San Gabriel and Santa Ana mountains, tore out bleachers, kicked the “Big A” scoreboard out to the parking lot and made fans in center field feel as if they were watching the game from Pomona.
Once the Rams inevitably took their better offer from St. Louis, and the Northridge earthquake in 1994 made it clear that even the local fault lines didn’t like the enclosed stadium, Disney had seen just about enough. They bumped up their longstanding minority stake to a majority in 1996 and, by 1997, had torn down the football seating, restored the view and gave Angels fans a rock wall, geysers, a stream and fireworks during a $118 million renovation. The Angels followed up with their first, and only, World Series win in 2002.
While they haven’t exactly been a playoff fixture since Arte Moreno bought the team from Disney in 2003, they’ve only had five losing seasons in the past 20 years and still have arguably the best position player in the American League in 2014 MVP Mike Trout. They also don’t seem to be in any rush to play anywhere other than Anaheim.
Los Angeles Dodgers
Opened: 1962
Cost to build: $23 million ($180.6 million adjusted for inflation)
The story of Dodger Stadium isn’t a great one, and not just because your grandfather cried into his glove on Sullivan Place the day the Dodgers left Brooklyn for Los Angeles.
It isn’t as if Chavez Ravine was unoccupied by the time Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley came sniffing around. Not only had Los Angeles initially purchased it for public housing, schools and a college, but there were a bunch of homeowners still there. The largely Mexican-American homeowners were bought out, but in decreasing amounts to promote rapid flight from the area. However, given that many had nowhere else to go and were unwilling to take anything below market value for their property, there was a 10-year holdout referred to as the Battle of Chavez Ravine. It ended in arrests, displacement and, ultimately, the arrival of the Dodgers.
Dodger Stadium receives a fair bit of praise for being built without public money and, since 2000, has undergone multiple renovations that similarly left the public coffers untouched. Even the Dodgers’ $8.5 billion deal with Time Warner Cable for its SportsNet LA joint venture is largely seen as self-sustaining. However, given how Dodger Stadium came into existence and what became of the families that once called its grounds home, picking up the tab seems the least that the Dodgers can do.
Chicago Cubs
Opened: 1914
Cost to build: $250,000 ($5.9 million adjusted for inflation)
No, Wrigley Field hasn’t seen the Cubs win a World Series in its lifetime. Yes, the last six occasions it’s hosted a World Series came just after the Japanese surrendered to end World War II. Yes, there’s a strong argument to be made that Wrigley Field had become a museum that just happened to have a baseball team playing in it.
During Theo Epstein’s first years as the head of baseball operations, the Cubs did seemingly little to alter any of the above. From Epstein’s first year in 2011 — when he arrived just after watching his Boston Red Sox win their second World Series under his watch after not winning one since beating the Cubs in 1918 — the Cubs racked up four straight losing records and finished at the bottom of the National League Central four consecutive times (not including a similar performance the year before Epstein’s arrival).
However, the Ricketts family of owners had a plan after taking over in 2009. Part of it involved Epstein, but the other part included a $575 million, privately funded renovation of Wrigley that would rework the facade, supports, plumbing, restrooms, concourses, luxury suites, bullpens, press boxes and clubhouses. That would also include restaurants, batting cages, patios, a 5,700-square-foot Jumbotron and an entire hotel, plaza and office park on the nearby grounds.
When Epstein and the Rickettses added former Tampa Bay Rays manager Joe Maddon for the 2015 season and saw years of futility turn into stars including Anthony Rizzo, Kris Bryant, Addison Russell, Kyle Schwarber and Jorge Soler, Epstein’s “Moneyball”-inspired approach paid of. The Cubs beat their hated rivals, the St. Louis Cardinals, on their way to the NLCS and are a favorite to lead the National League this year. Wrigley Field, meanwhile, spent its first year after renovations hosting meaningful baseball in October rather than serving as just another tourist attraction between Willis Tower and the Frank Lloyd Wright house.
1. Fenway Park
Boston Red Sox
Opened: 1912
Cost to build: $650,000 ($15.6 million adjusted for inflation)
In 1999, Sox ownership wanted to tear this ballpark down and replace it. There was even talk of parking the Sox next to the Patriots near the Seaport in Southie.
However, once owners John Henry, Tom Werner and Larry Lucchino took over in 2002, that notion quickly went out the door of 4 Yawkey Way. A team assembled by 20-something GM Theo Epstein not only made it to the ALCS in 2003, but won its first World Series since 1918 the following year. By 2005, it was clear that the Sox weren’t going anywhere, and that big changes were afoot at Fenway.
Seating capacity was increased from 35,000 to roughly 38,000. Seats were added along the Green Monster wall in left field and on the right-field roof, luxury boxes were added, a party deck was put into place, new video screens were installed, a bar was built beneath the bleachers, and wooden seats were removed. All of it was done without tax dollars and, though a nearly 10-year sellout streak ended in 2013 (though some would argue it ended well before), the Sox remained competitive, maintained one of the highest payrolls in the league ($215 million last season) and even tacked on another World Series title in 2013 between losing seasons.
Fenway Park can keep chugging along in its current state until 2060. Considering it serves as not only the motor for Red Sox operations, but as one of the crown jewels of a Fenway Sports Group that also owns Liverpool’s historic Anfield ground, Fenway’s importance to Boston as a whole can’t be overstated. Though fans will still come out to hockey games, soccer matches, hurling matches and concerts in the Sox’s down years, fielding a competitive team while keeping a lid on facility costs is one of the biggest parts of Fenway’s appeal. With ace pitcher David Price in town and young talent finally rising through the ranks, Fenway looks set for another season in the spotlight in 2016.
Jason Notte is a freelance writer based in Portland, Ore. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Huffington Post and Esquire. Notte received a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University in 1998. Follow him on Twitter @Notteham.
