While in Philadelphia on business this weekend, my traveling companions decided that I should attend a Phantoms game. The minor league affiliate for the neighboring Flyers of the National Hockey League, the Phantoms play in the former arena of the Flyers, the First Union Spectrum. Having never been to any sporting even besides professional games or college matches, I expected menial attendance, particularly in a metropolis such as large as the city of brotherly love. These people would have better things to do with their time than some developing hockey players.
I was wrong. I found myself stunned in the middle of the third period when attendance was announced at nearly 10,000. I looked around the arena, granted slightly limited due to the blocking out of certain upper level seats, but it was nearly full. People in this large city had turned out in droves to watch the Phantoms and Albany River Rats do battle, two of the worst teams in the American Hockey League.
Witnessing all that support, my mind began to drift to an idea proposed for the Red Sox a while back, about bringing a minor league affiliate into the city. (Of course being a Boston sports fan and it being mid-February, my mind was on baseball).
When the Red Sox were seriously considering moving out of beloved 91-year-old Fenway Park, one of the many plans tossed about was to keep the park in use. The Red Sox would move to their new facility while the landmark of Fenway would become the new home for a minor league affiliate, most likely the Trenton Thunder. The park would stay in existence and be a showcase for new up and coming baseball talent.
Philadelphians are equally passionate about their four major sports, with basketball perhaps getting a slight edge. With all due respect to Patriots, Celtics, and Bruins fans, the Sox own Boston year round. Even in late January, all that is on most sports fans’ minds is spring training down in Fort Myers. If a minor league team in a non-major sport can draw so well, imagine what a baseball farm team could do in one of the top four baseball markets in the country.
The fact that the Phantoms are a farm team for the Flyers helps as well. If the minor leaguers that people in Boston were getting to watch, were a majority of the Red Sox future potential talent, it would give that much more incentive for the fans to fill the seats.
The Red Sox already have the highest average ticket price in baseball and it only keeps going up. Now part of this is due to the limited capacity of Fenway, but a big portion of the responsibility for the expensiveness of a Red Sox game is being in the city of Boston and trying to compete under baseball’s current salary structure, especially in the same division as the New York Yankees. Surely a new park might help lower some ticket prices, but a night out at the ballpark would still be an expensive adventure for the average family of four.
With a minor league affiliate in town, games at Fenway would be more affordable. It would still not be the cheapest thing in the world, but could definitely pass for family entertainment. A large portion of the Phantoms crowd was from the junior set, and many of the giveaways and antics of the evening were geared towards them. While a family might be able to do a Red Sox game once or twice a season, the same group could potentially visit the Thunder (or whomever) a few times a month if they so desired.
Fenway Park is a huge draw in its own right. With all due respect to the Spectrum, it does not hold the same place in hockey lore that the oldest ballpark in America does for baseball. People would go to games just to be in the ballpark, particularly the tourists to Beantown. The longer the park is around, the larger its mystique grows.
I’m as big a Fenway fan as there is around. The lore of the park is too numerous to mention. Say what you will about new facilities, and they are nice, but there is still something magical about a game at that old irregularly shaped field. Yet someday, the Sox will move to a new field, just as the Celtics and Bruins did a decade ago. It is inevitable.
The best that baseball fans in Boston can hope for is the preservation of their beloved Fenway and there is no better way that displaying future Sox talent right in front of the Green Monster. It won’t be exactly the same, but I’m sure the thunderous roar of the fans will still make the hair on the backs of necks of every baseball diehard all over Beantown stand on end.
Regan McKendry is a Collegian Columnist.
