Polar Park, in Worcester
— Photo by MoVaughn123
Adapted from Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocal24.com
On June 11, I drove from Providence to Worcester on Route 146, through old mill towns, to watch the Worcester Red Sox play the Rochester Red Wings at Polar Park. The WooSox won, 5-2, and it was a nice day, with only a little Canadian smoke.
The ballfield is in a gritty and depressing part of the old industrial city, though there’s been some new building in the past couple of years. But I find that looking a few blocks over to the bizarre Union (train) Station’s twin towers, which makes the 1911 structure look like something put up during the Raj, in India, cheers me up, as do the trains running right next to the stadium.
(Don’t feel you have to use the big parking garage next to Polar Park. There’s cheaper and easier surface parking a couple of blocks away.)
The main reason I went to Worcester was to see old friends, who happen to be pals of the WooSox owners. Because of this connection, we watched the game in luxury from a suite with a lounge-like inside area and a porch from which we had a superb view of the field and the stands, though one of my hosts complained that watching a game from a fancy suite at ground level, as was the case with the Pawtucket Red Sox at McCoy Stadium, is more fun. We spent most of our time yakking while sporadically glancing at the action on the field, with cheering the main signal to pay attention.
New professional baseball playing rules, by the way, have blessedly speeded up that action.
There were a little under 9,000 people there -- close to capacity. This is only the stadium’s third year in operation and so probably more than a few in the stands were there out of curiosity to see the glitzy facility. Of course, many baseball fans are still unhappy that this Boston Red Sox affiliate bailed out of Pawtucket. I did see some Rhode Island license plates at Polar Park.
Some economists who are experts in the public financing of such stadiums say that Polar Park will be a long-term drain on the city. Worcester issued $146 million in bonds to build the stadium and owns it. It will take some years to know what the fiscal impact will probably be. The next recession with high unemployment will provide a test; buying a game ticket is, after all, very discretionary. Meanwhile, it has to be said that the WooSox is a very well-run organization.
How much money do WooSox fans from out of town spend in Worcester’s restaurants, etc., outside of Polar Park? Not much, I’d guess. And I doubt that many take in such impressive local cultural venues as the Worcester Art Museum.
Watching baseball, between gossiping with friends and meeting some of their pals for the first time while consuming the likes of lobster rolls or hot dogs (not the latter anymore for me; I avoid eating fellow mammals), popcorn and beer and other goodies is a languid summer pleasure in New England.
As are walking on a beach or along a Vermont stream; letting ice cream and Popsicles drip on your hands; going fishing; eating such vacation artery blockers as fried clams; climbing mountains; sitting on a park bench watching the birds in between desultory looks at a book, and going to country fairs and amusement parks (where you can watch the kids throw up after eating too much candy and then being spun around on a ride).
Summer has certainly changed in our corner of the world in the past five or six decades. One change is the vast expansion of air conditioning. Very few New Englanders had A/C in their homes before around 1970. Movie theaters, restaurants and big stores used to draw many customers simply because they offered cool air.
Summers have generally been getting hotter and longer, and so air conditioning has become increasingly attractive. The tricky thing is that generating the electricity to run the A/C units usually involves burning more fossil fuel, which, in turn, heats up the atmosphere more. Oh, well.
I suspect that home A/C has tended to discourage many people from spending as much time outdoors in the summer as they might have half a century ago – an unhappy change, exacerbated by computer-screen addiction. This probably has played a role in the obesity epidemic. Anyway, we all need more natural light (with sun block on our skin) and exercise. And breezy porches are soothing.
Other notable changes include the building of superhighways to places with great summer allure, most notably in New England -- Cape Cod. This has led to rampant overbuilding there and the erosion of some of the qualities that made The Cape, etc., so beautiful. (I remember the two-way country road with summer farmstands and a piney aroma that led us from Cohasset, Mass., to my grandparents’ house on the Cape in the ‘50s.) And while many folks used to lie for hours in the soporific sunshine, most of us are now aware that we were setting ourselves up for skin cancer.
One improvement is that more people are taking advantage of the fact that summer weather doesn’t end with Labor Day, and can in some years extend into October.
My drive back to Providence from Worcester was thrilling because fewer and fewer drivers these days signal before cutting across lanes. This is particularly menacing in the tangled spaghetti and confusing signage of Worcester’s roads. One guy in an SUV nearly got a bunch of us killed as he swerved across two lanes to get on an exit ramp he belatedly noticed. The best way in and out of Worcester is by helicopter.
