THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, December 7, 1995 TAG: 9512070484
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Tom Robinson
LENGTH: Medium: 76 lines
One warm summer afternoon or evening spent among thousands at Harbor Park for a Tides game is enough to tell you the place is pretty special.
The clean, carnival atmosphere, the open concourses and intimate sightlines, the boats on the Elizabeth River, among other attractions, make Harbor Park a sensory feast and surely one of minor league baseball's finer showplaces.
What nobody knew until recently, though, was just how special it is.
No less an authority than Baseball America, the recognized leader for news and features on minor league baseball, has tabbed Harbor Park as the best stadium in all the minor leagues.
Based on what the magazine called location, charm, conveniences, unique features and fan friendliness, Harbor Park graded out as ``the Camden Yards of the minor leagues. ... A great setting with tugboats chugging up the harbor and a true baseball feel for good measure.''
That puts Harbor Park atop a pile of 58 stadiums built for minor league baseball since 1987. Six more are slated to open in '96, the magazine reported, with the building boom expected to continue another five years.
Which means Harbor Park, born in 1993, might be surpassed if and when Baseball America does another top-10 list. Even then, it should remain a model of excellence for future construction.
``My thought was that if I had designed a park, I would have wanted it like Norfolk's,'' says Miles Wolff, Baseball America's president and a rookie league franchise owner who compiled the rankings.
``Norfolk sort of opened my eyes that, `Boy, you can do something more than the usual.' ''
Wolff has visited most of the parks in his top 10, and on those he hasn't he received ample feedback. Salt Lake's Franklin Quest Field, for instance, Wolff has not seen. But he placed it No. 2 based on reviews from people in the Pacific Coast League and the architectural firm of Hellmuth Obata & Kassabaum.
HOK also designed Harbor Park and four others in the top 10, and Wolff said that a conversation with HOK's Earl Santee actually tipped the balance for Harbor Park. When Santee confided that Harbor Park was his favorite among all of HOK's minor league projects, Wolff had his No. 1.
Now, what do the Tides and the city of Norfolk do with it?
It's PR for Baseball America, so Wolff naturally has given his blessing to milk it. And because Wolff said these aren't annual rankings, Harbor Park won't be dethroned anytime soon.
The Tides, then, ought to stamp the honor on every piece of stationery and drop it in every news release they put out. Tides president Ken Young says he is considering those options and more.
Norfolk's public information and economic development operatives should make sure that whenever Harbor Park is introduced in municipal publications, there is no overlooking its ranking.
And here's a radical idea. I know there are various regional cooperation efforts going on. But is it too much to dream that Virginia Beach or any other local city, in its quality of life blurbs, might prominently mention that the gem of minor league baseball is ``just a short drive away in Norfolk?''
Norfolk has it and the Tides bear Norfolk's name because it went to the fiscal mat to get the park built. But the region shares it and should ensure that Harbor Park enjoys a high profile as a regional asset.
Sure, it's a fairly arbitrary top 10. But No. 1 is No. 1, baby. Run with it. ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photo]
The Virginian-Pilot file
[Harbor Park]
Graphic
WHO'S NO. 1? HARBOR PARK
[For a list of the top ten minor league baseball stadiums, see
microfilm for this date.]
by CNB