Hearne: Time to Give the ‘Downtown Ballpark’ Concept a Rest

Would the so-called journalists – past and present – at the KC Star please get a grip…

If memory serves, this “downtown ballpark” really got started around 15 years back when a business reporter at the newspaper from Buffalo, Kevin Collison, got a wild hair and embarked upon a campaign to convince locals Kansas City needed a downtown baseball stadium.

Excuse me, did I say, “stadium?”

I meant, “ballpark.”

Because “stadium” is too sterile – definitely not sexy enough to spend an entire writing career using any excuse imaginable to campaign for it. Which is why you seldom see my pal Collison using the dreaded “S” word.

Ballpark on the other hand, now that’s wistful – romantic even.

Because a lowly stadium is merely “a sports arena, usually oval or horseshoe-shaped, with tiers of seats for spectators.”

Versus a ballpark –  “a tract of land where ball games, especially baseball, are played.”

Field of dreams, anybody?

Example: According to one self-described baseball fan and player, “Baseball teams play in a ballpark – not a stadium. You won’t hear any player or staff of a baseball team say they work/play in a stadium.”

Now let’s talk shop…

Journalists – who are often little more than nice guys who like to write instead of engage in actual work – aren’t supposed to foist their opinions on the masses (that’s for columnists), they’re mostly supposed to report on stuff like, you know news…as opposed to making  news.

That said, there’s a fine line to that, especially after you’ve been in the biz a while and come to realize the power of persuasion that you either a) have  or b) think you have. And since you’re working more often than not for peanuts…you get the picture.

Which is why so many of the geek writers I worked with at the Star dedicated inordinate amounts of what are called “column inches,” to topics like comic books and politically slanted news stories.

In other words, it comes with the turf.

KC Business Journal and Pitch survivor Steve Vockrodt recently took up the downtown ballpark cause – although, give him credit for calling it a stadium.

Still his story about a new Royals owner morphed into an imaginative, heresy campaign for a downtown ballpark…absent a few details worth noting.

Like the out-of-context successes Cleveland’s  “new” downtown ballpark had achieved.

“”In Cleveland, where Jacobs Field – now Progressive Field – opening in 1994in downtown, fans embraced the new location…where the Indians set a then-record for 455 consecutive sellouts.”

Hold it right there…

First of all, the Indians were already playing ion a downtown ballpark, so geographically speaking, Progressive Field’s location was not a change from a suburban stadium – just a nicer, newer facility. On top of which the long forlorn Indians scooted from cellar dwellers to American League Central division champions for five straight seasons.

Steve Vockrodt

“The old stadium in Cleveland was a combo stadium where the Browns and Indians played,” says one Clevlander and longtime Indians fan. “And it had huge beams that would block sightlines – that was the joke about the stadium – hope you don’t get a seat behind the beams because you can’t see the game. And Cleveland had such a bad team for my whole childhood that people were thirsty for a winner.  And now suddenl,y you get a new stadium and a good team, and it was magical…And there was a lot of revitalization going on downtown.”

See what I mean?

Leaving out a key details to try and make a sale is kind of a no-no in journalism…

But all’s fair in love and downtown ballparks campaigning.