Boston, State Officials Step Up to Plate on Funding for New Fenway Park

BOSTON —  In this city there is church and state. Somewhere above both is baseball.

With a hometown team that last won the World Series in 1918, baseball in Boston is tragedy. Baseball is hope: “Maybe next year” is the cry of newborns and nonagenarians alike. Baseball is faith: With a bunch of bums like these, you just got to believe.

As of late Tuesday night, baseball in Boston also officially is a $665-million investment on the part of the city, the state and the owners of the Red Sox, the team that offers its fans an ongoing study in the art of disappointment. More than a year after the team’s management proposed a glittering new ballpark to replace the nation’s oldest, smallest major league stadium, the mayor, the governor, leaders of the state Legislature, key business executives and Red Sox brass announced plans for a new Fenway Park.

“We have come a long way on this deal,” Mayor Thomas M. Menino, looking exhausted, announced Tuesday night. “I think folks out there should be happy.”

Red Sox chief executive John Harrington hailed the agreement as “a significant step forward” after weeks of agonized negotiations that centered on how to finance the $352-million ballpark, $73-million garage, $140-million site and $100-million infrastructure. Harrington expressed hope that his team would be playing in its posh new quarters in time for the 2004 season.

Warm Feelings for the Original Fenway

The proposed ballpark is more than just an ordinary building plan here because, to many in Boston, the original Fenway Park stands as a beloved throwback to the days when baseball was a warm and cozy experience. The park houses just under 33,000 fans, about 10,000 fewer than the proposed new stadium. Seats are narrow and uncomfortable, part of the Fenway charm, devoted fans insist. The food is terrible, the bathrooms are dirty and many of the ticket takers poised at Fenway’s turnstiles look like they have been there since it opened in 1912.

“There’s a feeling of nostalgia,” said Boston public relations executive Barry Wanger, a longtime season ticket holder. “You feel like you’re going to go in there and see Jimmie Foxx,” a power hitter in the ‘30s and ‘40s.

Fenway’s fans are loyal, legion and in many cases, quite distinguished. Boston Symphony Orchestra conductor Seiji Ozawa is a regular. So are historian Doris Kearns Goodwin and her husband, playwright Richard Goodwin, as well as novelist Stephen King. Paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould seldom misses a game at Fenway. Helen Vendler, an authority on Shakespeare, haunts Fenway’s halls. Chemist Dudley Herschbach of Harvard was in the stands at Fenway in 1986 when word of his Nobel Prize was announced.

Novelist John Updike, another fan, has described Fenway as “a compromise between man’s Euclidean determinations and nature’s beguiling irregularities.” The late U.S. House Speaker Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill likened Fenway to an English theater: “You’re right on top of the stage. So chummy.”

Then there is ex-Red Sox player Mo Vaughn, the mountainous Anaheim Angels first baseman, who declared: “Blow the damn place up.”

Much the same sentiments were expressed by Red Sox officials. In an era of big-ticket luxury boxes, the park is a dinosaur, they declared. Fenway became the center of the team’s argument that it could not compete economically with other major franchises as long as it was forced to play in this antiquated arena.

Several Sources to Split the Costs

Taxpayers will foot close to 50% of the total project cost for the new ballpark. The city of Boston will provide a $140-million subsidy to buy land and prepare the site in the center of town, virtually where the current park is located. Boston also will kick in $72.5 million to build a garage. The state will provide $100 million for infrastructure work.

Fans also will do their part in paying for the project. A 5% surcharge will be slapped on every seat in the house, raising $4.5 million. Game-day parking will go up by $5. Sales, meals and hotel taxes are expected to generate $12 million in annual city revenue aimed at funding Fenway.

Luxury suites in the new park will be priced at $200,000 a box--tied with the Atlanta Braves for the most expensive boxes in the major leagues.

State legislators have scheduled a rare Saturday session to vote on the deal. Their discussion surely will include consideration of powerful opposition from community residents, consumer activists and some members of the Boston City Council. A grass-roots organization, Save Fenway Park, still hopes to thwart the plan to demolish the old stadium.

“But I think that the huge majority of people involved in this have come around to the view that the current park is pretty decrepit and something needs to be done,” said radio sports commentator Bill Littlefield, author of “Baseball Days.”

With teams all over the country building high-tech new parks, “the way to look at it is let’s hope they get it right,” Littlefield said. “Let’s hope they build a real place to play baseball, not just a shopping mall that contains a park.”

In his new book, “Fenway,” Boston Globe sports columnist Dan Shaughnessy wrote: “When they raze Fenway, it’ll be like cutting down an old tree. Count the rings. There’s one for each celebration and heartache suffered by Red Sox fans.”

But in the same book, Ted Williams--the “Splendid Splinter” who hit .406 at Fenway one year in his long career as a Red Sox outfielder--opined: “I’m glad they’re going to change Fenway. All in all, Fenway’s been a historic, absolutely unique place. Still, I can’t wait until I see the new park when it’s done. I want Boston to have the best.”