The article that I used for this assignment was “Fenway Park and the Golden Age of the Baseball Park”. The main idea behind the article was giving in detail how baseball parks were built, what they looked for in a location, and numerous other things. Some of the baseball parks talked about were Fenway Park, Wrigley Field and Comiskey Park in Chicago and Tiger Stadium. In this summary I intend to describe the audience of this article, summarize it, describe the organization of the article, and the main point that I took away from this article.
I feel that this article was intended for the specialized audience. In my opinion, someone would pick up this article only if they had a fascination about not only baseball, but the history of the baseball parks. I have learned that there is more history in the ball parks themselves, than history of the baseball team. Another reason I feel that the author is aiming at the specialized audience is because of his intent to portray baseball as the national pastime. Finally I believe this is geared towards a specialized audience because there is a lot of information given on the history of these parks. Those who didn’t have any interest in baseball wouldn’t take the time to read this article. Knowing that this is a specialized article helps us get into the authors main points of his article.
The main idea of this article included how sites were chosen to build baseball venues. There are four main factors to think about when building a new stadium: accessibility, neighborhood, room for expansion, building material, and availability (Bluthardt, 1987). Accessibility was what most fans were looking for. The ease of transportation by means of street cars, subway lines, or taxis were what fans were looking for in accessibility (Bluthardt, 1987). Fenway Park was thought to be very accessible. The article also notes about that accessibility for motorcycles, bicycles, and baby carriages was also important (Bluthardt , 1987).
The next items that a builder looked for when building a stadium were a good neighborhood and room for expansion. Fenway Park was located in a quiet area with few neighbors (Bluthardt, 1987,). The only bad thing about its location was that it could not expand beyond its original site because it was built on a irregular shaped plot (Bluthardt, 1987). It was very important to have a friendly neighborhood because it was inviting tofans. The material that these builders used was another important factor.
Concrete and steel were the main choice when building a new stadium (Bluthardt, 1987). It was extremely important because other stadiums had problems with catching on fire. In 1894, ten wooden baseball parks caught on fire and burned (Bluthardt, 1987). Fenway was constructed with wood, but its main grandstands were concrete and steel and the pavilion areas were also made from steel (Bluthardt, 1987). These building materials impacted how the interior of the field was laid out and how it was decorated.
Fenway Park had the classic image of a park with the advertisements plastered all over the stadium (Bluthardt, 1987). This was a trend that most parks during these time periods all followed. Fans believed that these advertisements helped the appearance of the ball park. Along with the interior filled with billboards, seating became a bigger issue. Before the 1909-1915 era, ten thousand was a good crowd (Bluthardt, 1987). Fenway Park doubled these numbers and the perception of larger changed crowds. Fenway Park allowed more people to watch the game and drew record number spectators, especially women and set an example for other ball parks.
In my opinion, this article was very well written and organized. It seemed to flow from topic to topic smoothly with very little repetition. The main ideas were highlighted clearly and presented in a very professional manner. I feel the text was very easy to read. The author used normal everyday language, and I didn’t have to refer to a dictionary to look up any words. I feel that this author gave great detail on how Fenway Park became what it is today.
There were many key ideas that I was able to take away from this article. The most important piece of information that I came away with is how old Fenway Park really is. I have been a baseball fan for many years, but I didn’t realize that this park has been around for so long. The author gave great detail about every part of the stadium from the scoreboard to the seating to the pavilion areas to the concrete structures in the outfield. I feel that no detail was left out. Another thing that I took from this article was how stadiums were constructed in the past. I would have never of thought that they were mainly built of concrete and wood until the 1900’s. To have ten stadiums burn down in one year is a lot, I think. Overall, this was a very informative article and it gave me a greater respect for the history of baseball stadiums.
References
Bluthardt, R.F. (1987). “Fenway Park and the Golden Age of the Baseball Park, 1909-1915. Journal of Popular Culture, 21 (1) 43-52
I feel that this article was intended for the specialized audience. In my opinion, someone would pick up this article only if they had a fascination about not only baseball, but the history of the baseball parks. I have learned that there is more history in the ball parks themselves, than history of the baseball team. Another reason I feel that the author is aiming at the specialized audience is because of his intent to portray baseball as the national pastime. Finally I believe this is geared towards a specialized audience because there is a lot of information given on the history of these parks. Those who didn’t have any interest in baseball wouldn’t take the time to read this article. Knowing that this is a specialized article helps us get into the authors main points of his article.
The main idea of this article included how sites were chosen to build baseball venues. There are four main factors to think about when building a new stadium: accessibility, neighborhood, room for expansion, building material, and availability (Bluthardt, 1987). Accessibility was what most fans were looking for. The ease of transportation by means of street cars, subway lines, or taxis were what fans were looking for in accessibility (Bluthardt, 1987). Fenway Park was thought to be very accessible. The article also notes about that accessibility for motorcycles, bicycles, and baby carriages was also important (Bluthardt , 1987).
The next items that a builder looked for when building a stadium were a good neighborhood and room for expansion. Fenway Park was located in a quiet area with few neighbors (Bluthardt, 1987,). The only bad thing about its location was that it could not expand beyond its original site because it was built on a irregular shaped plot (Bluthardt, 1987). It was very important to have a friendly neighborhood because it was inviting tofans. The material that these builders used was another important factor.
Concrete and steel were the main choice when building a new stadium (Bluthardt, 1987). It was extremely important because other stadiums had problems with catching on fire. In 1894, ten wooden baseball parks caught on fire and burned (Bluthardt, 1987). Fenway was constructed with wood, but its main grandstands were concrete and steel and the pavilion areas were also made from steel (Bluthardt, 1987). These building materials impacted how the interior of the field was laid out and how it was decorated.
Fenway Park had the classic image of a park with the advertisements plastered all over the stadium (Bluthardt, 1987). This was a trend that most parks during these time periods all followed. Fans believed that these advertisements helped the appearance of the ball park. Along with the interior filled with billboards, seating became a bigger issue. Before the 1909-1915 era, ten thousand was a good crowd (Bluthardt, 1987). Fenway Park doubled these numbers and the perception of larger changed crowds. Fenway Park allowed more people to watch the game and drew record number spectators, especially women and set an example for other ball parks.
In my opinion, this article was very well written and organized. It seemed to flow from topic to topic smoothly with very little repetition. The main ideas were highlighted clearly and presented in a very professional manner. I feel the text was very easy to read. The author used normal everyday language, and I didn’t have to refer to a dictionary to look up any words. I feel that this author gave great detail on how Fenway Park became what it is today.
There were many key ideas that I was able to take away from this article. The most important piece of information that I came away with is how old Fenway Park really is. I have been a baseball fan for many years, but I didn’t realize that this park has been around for so long. The author gave great detail about every part of the stadium from the scoreboard to the seating to the pavilion areas to the concrete structures in the outfield. I feel that no detail was left out. Another thing that I took from this article was how stadiums were constructed in the past. I would have never of thought that they were mainly built of concrete and wood until the 1900’s. To have ten stadiums burn down in one year is a lot, I think. Overall, this was a very informative article and it gave me a greater respect for the history of baseball stadiums.
References
Bluthardt, R.F. (1987). “Fenway Park and the Golden Age of the Baseball Park, 1909-1915. Journal of Popular Culture, 21 (1) 43-52
Image from trsullivan.mlblogs.com/Fenway-Park-Photograph... Retrieved June 25, 2009.
