by Paul Caputo
When the Philadelphia Phillies won the World Series in 2008, I felt like I had accomplished the feat myself. After a lifetime of rooting for a team that had experienced what can politely be described as minimal success, I surprised even myself with the intensity of my reaction to their claiming the ultimate prize. Watching the last few outs in my living room in Colorado, I cringed, sweated, and ultimately cheered along with close to 50,000 fans in Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia, 1,800 miles away. Here was my favorite team in my favorite sport—a team that had heretofore won the World Series only once in its 125-year history—accomplishing something I never thought I would see in my adult life.
My wife, who is completely baffled by my affinity for team sports, stopped asking long ago why I allow myself to be affected so deeply by millionaire strangers playing a game in their pajamas. This is a good thing, because there’s no rational way to explain it. But when the final out was recorded, I thought of my father, who raised us on baseball in what is largely a football town; my sister, a lifelong fan; and my brother, who was actually in the stands when it happened. I thought of my friends in what I still think of as “back home”—as well as countless strangers in the stadium or elsewhere in the greater Philadelphia area—hugging, high-fiving, and crying tears of joy.
I thought, too, of the place itself. Citizens Bank Park debuted in 2004 and has been home to relatively good teams since its inception—unlike now-defunct Veterans Stadium, where I suffered through countless losses throughout my youth and young adulthood. As with most new ballparks, it’s a beautiful place in terms of aesthetics and architecture, whether you care about the game or not. But if you’re a fan, stadiums are like cathedrals, and standing in their shadows evokes memories of deeply emotional experiences shared with thousands of like-minded individuals.
In August 2008, just two months before the Phillies won the World Series, I took a guided tour of Citizens Bank Park. Obviously, many of the people who take tours of stadiums already have emotional and intellectual connections to the place, so the guide’s challenge is more to facilitate a meaningful experience than to create those connections.
Of course, much of the thrill of the pregame tour was being on the field while larger-than-life superstars took batting practice, but even empty rooms in the depths of the stadium brought a thrill. At each stop on the tour, our guide gave us minimal information and let us simply soak it in.
Two months later, when fireworks popped and the players celebrated their championship on the field, I watched on TV, remembering what the stadium looked like when I saw it from home plate during that tour. Whenever players and managers take questions during interviews in the media room, I remember the brief moment I stood behind that podium, trying to imagine flash bulbs popping and reporters shouting questions.
When Harry Kalas, Phillies announcer for literally my entire lifetime, passed away suddenly in 2009, one of my first thoughts was of visiting the broadcast booth where he worked his magic. I’ll forever remember a headset labeled “Harry” and our guide’s simple statement, “Harry Kalas sits here.”
In the field of interpretation, it’s easy to think of traditional natural and cultural resources like parks, museums, and historical sites when we talk about creating emotional and intellectual connections. But sports are a huge part of our heritage, not just in the United States but worldwide.
Many of us have some connection to something related to sports, whether we play or spectate, whether it’s professional, college, amateur, or just an informal game played by children in a neighborhood. This issue of Legacy addresses the interpretation of sports, from a Mesoamerican ballgame with origins more than 3,500 years ago to contemporary youth baseball leagues, from the marshes of a New Jersey-based birdwatching event to the skies over New Mexico interpreted in the Anderson Abruzzo Albuquerque International Balloon Museum.
NAI Art and Publications director Paul Caputo can be reached at pcaputo@interpnet.com. Send letters to the editor for publication to legacy@interpnet.com.
Note about the cover: Visit www.interpretationbydesign for a discussion on the ethics of the Photoshop techniques used on the cover of this issue.
