A field of nightmares

 

By Jeff Rapsis

Spring is nearly here, and with it comes baseball.

Here in the Gate City, it’s a crucial season for the Nashua Pride. The franchise is under new ownership after a string of exciting but unprofitable seasons.

Will they draw the bigger audiences needed to break even? Hard to say, as the launch of a successful minor-league team in Manchester last year has fragmented the potential audience for hometown ball.

And with the Queen City’s decision to build a new stadium to host the New Hampshire Fisher Cats, it may be tougher than ever for the Pride to compete.

You’d think.

Actually, Manchester’s new riverside stadium is nearing completion and, from the looks of things, it’s a joke. Originally designed as the centerpiece of a riverside redevelopment, the stadium was built on the cheap, and it shows.

Even now, the place looks like it’s under construction, but what you see is all there is. And what is it? An imitation stadium made of steel beams and sheet metal. A giant tin can, a throwaway building, a stadium without character and an insult to the team and its fans.

That’s too bad, because in building the stadium on an inadequate budget, Manchester forfeited a chance to add a significant facility to the city’s urban landscape.

Manchester hasn’t learned what Nashua learned the hard way when it built its high school on the cheap in the mid-1970s. The lesson is this: Buildings not built to last end up costing more in the long run.

What will become of Manchester’s new stadium in a few years, when the newness wears off and the place becomes just another throwaway building, covered in dented sheet metal?

It’s a safe bet that Holman Stadium will still be going strong. At least Nashua can take pride (har!) in having a real stadium — one that was given a classy facelift in the manner of Camden Yards and other great ballparks.

When it comes to stadiums, Nashua has the real thing. Holman is an asset that Manchester can’t match — a ballpark with intimacy and character and authenticity.

So in the battle of the stadiums, Nashua appears to have won. The only thing that might go wrong is if the Fisher Cats return to Manchester’s Gill Stadium, which was renovated for the team’s first season.

And that’s about as likely as the Red Sox winning the World Series. Wait — let me find a different expression.

- Jeff Rapsis