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It's Outta Here! But What's Next?

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By BAIRD HELGESON, The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 11, 2007

ST. PETERSBURG - Perhaps the most endearing feature of the Tampa Bay Rays' proposed waterfront ballpark could be watching batters launch home run balls into the Bay.

To highlight the importance of this visual, Rays first baseman Carlos Pena hit balls into the Bay when the team unveiled the $450 million plan last month at the proposed site, Al Lang Field at Progress Energy Park in downtown St. Petersburg.

But behind the signature amenity are several vexing questions: What will happen to the balls? Who will retrieve them? Do sunken balls pose an environmental risk?

The San Francisco Giants dealt with many of the same issues when the team opened its waterfront stadium in 2000.

At AT&T Park, the Giants have logged 45 "Splash Hits," in which batters sent balls over the right field wall into McCovey Cove. The "Splash Hits" don't include 15 home run balls hit by opponents.
Chief architect Joe Spear of HOK Sport recalled a pivotal meeting with 10 team executives that threatened to derail the plan even as the community began to embrace the idea.

"We were all sitting around and at some point someone asked, 'Does a baseball float?'" said Spear, who has designed several ballparks and is the lead architect for the Rays' new field. "No one knew."

That night, Giants executive Larry Baer went home, filled a bathtub with water and dumped in some baseballs.

The next day he reported back: They float.

The team's next challenge became figuring out how to retrieve the balls.

At one point, the team reviewed a proposal to build a dock that would serve as a home base for several Portuguese water dogs during games. A handler would dispatch one of the able swimmers to recover a home run ball. To cover costs, the dogs would be adorned in a vest with a sponsor's logo.

"It was hilarious, but it never happened," Spear said.

Instead, the team decided to rely on an expected flotilla of kayakers and boaters to chase down balls during games.

The problem took care of itself as net-wielding boaters raced to retrieve balls hit by former Giant Barry Bonds as he approached the all-time home run title. Bonds hit 35 "Splash Hits" in his career with the team, which ended last season.

The Rays, too, hope that fans will prevent balls from cluttering Tampa Bay.

Illustrations of the 34,000-seat, open-air stadium show boaters prowling the shoreline during games.

"That's what we are hoping, anyway," said Matt Silverman, team president.

Some sports aficionados worry that Silverman could be optimistic. The Rays are consistently among the worst teams in baseball and don't have a player challenging for the all-time home run title.

"Nobody is going to be in the water unless Barry Bonds is hitting," said Tom Springer, owner of RT Sports, a memorabilia shop in Tampa.

"Nobody stands on Dale Mabry waiting to get home run balls from Legends Field," he said of the New York Yankees' spring training facility.

So the Rays might need a backup plan. For instance, when Pena thrilled community leaders with his water-bound hits, they didn't see the ball-hunting interns stationed beyond the outfield wall.

Roughly 10 game balls a season could wind up in the Bay if the numbers at the new Rays stadium match those in San Francisco. That doesn't count balls lost during batting practice.

That's an alarming number of high-speed projectiles to the people at the St. Petersburg Sailing Center next to the proposed stadium.

On any given day, the sailing center has about 60 boats for rent, which routinely glide past Al Lang Field.

"From the looks of things, the balls will be coming directly at us," said Shawn Macking, sailing master. "Those things could do some serious damage."

Sailing center staff has added concerns about parking and congestion during games, but they spend a good deal of the day imagining balls arching right at them.

"Everybody's saying we are going to get pelted," said Macking, noting that the team has yet to contact them about their concerns. "We hope it doesn't turn out that way."

Even the most ardent environmentalists don't see a toxic hazard if a few balls plop into the Bay. The glue used in baseballs contains trace amounts of chemicals that can cause nausea and confusion, but only after excessive and prolonged exposure.

Peter Clark, executive director of the environmental group Tampa Bay Watch, said he is more concerned about the part of the stadium plan that calls for using dirt to fill in about a half-acre in Tampa Bay, in part to reroute Bayshore Drive around the stadium. The plan could threaten several notable seagrass beds and concrete domes installed to serve as habitat for oysters and other marine life.

"Of course, we are concerned about anything that could put more debris in the bay," Clark said.

Barnacles and other sea life would quickly cover a ball that became waterlogged and sank, said Roger Smith, a state underwater archeologist.

Eventually, the ball could become buried and wait to be discovered by future archeologists, he said.

LeRoy Alaways, a visiting engineering professor at Temple University, has another theory.

Balls that splash in the Bay will likely be carried back to shore by wind and tide, said Alaways, whose dissertation on the aerodynamics of the curve ball is considered one of the defining studies of the complex pitch.

"Any kid who finds the ball will treasure it forever," he said. "And it will create a mystery that will last a lifetime. Who could have hit this ball?"

Reporter Baird Helgeson can be reached at (813) 259-7668 or bhelgeson@tampatrib.com.

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