Larry Lucchino ’67 Brought Back the Old-Fashioned Ballpark

Describing the new Oriole Park at Camden Yards in 1992, columnist George F. Will *68 wrote that “a ballpark can be an active ingredient in transforming a crowd — a mere aggregation — into a community.”

Larry Lucchino ’67, the Baltimore Orioles president who drove the ballpark’s development, might not have put it so poetically, but he certainly understood the sentiment. He’d pushed for an intimate, baseball-only park on the site of a former railyard near Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, featuring modern amenities and throwback styling — a clean break from the antiseptic multipurpose stadium designs that dominated Major League Baseball during the 1970s and ’80s.

“That was truly Larry’s idea: This notion of an old-fashioned ballpark as part of the urban context was not something that would have come about without him,” says Janet Marie Smith, an architect and former Orioles vice president for planning and development. “We were trying to do the best thing for Baltimore.”

The city was undergoing a downtown revival and had no NFL team at the time, so the plan made sense for both the town and tenant. Still, Lucchino had to win over doubters at nearly every step, Smith recalls, from preserving the warehouse behind the right field fence to building with steel trusses instead of concrete.

Boston Red Sox president and CEO Larry Lucchino watches a video tribute before a baseball game between the Red Sox and the Baltimore Orioles in Boston, Sunday, Sept. 27, 2015.

AP Photo/Michael Dwyer, File

Camden Yards was a rousing success, boosting Baltimore’s attendance and inspiring a decades-long trend in ballpark construction. Lucchino’s work reshaping professional baseball was just beginning.

He went on to spearhead on-field success and a new stadium project for the San Diego Padres in the late ’90s. Then he returned to the East Coast in 2002 to become part owner, president, and CEO of the Boston Red Sox, who — after an 86-year drought — won three World Series titles during his tenure. Working with Smith again, Lucchino refurbished and expanded Fenway Park, the oldest stadium in the major leagues, adding fresh flourishes, including seats on top of the Green Monster in left field. And after stepping away from the Sox, he led the organization’s top minor-league club during its relocation to a downtown stadium in Worcester, Massachusetts.

Lucchino, who died in April at age 78, traced his love of baseball back to childhood afternoons sitting in the grandstands of Forbes Field in his hometown of Pittsburgh. But at Princeton, his sport was basketball. He played on two NCAA Tournament teams, including the 1965 squad that reached the Final Four.

Teammate Gary Walters ’67, Princeton’s former athletics director, recalls that at the basketball banquet after their senior season, he devoted his entire speech to Lucchino. “I had so much admiration for Larry’s competitiveness,” he says. “Here’s a guy that’s playing second-team point guard to me for four years, and yet still is maintaining his intensity. It was so impressive, and … such a reflection of his character.”

After graduation, Lucchino earned a law degree at Yale and headed to Washington, D.C., where he eventually worked at Williams & Connolly for the famed trial lawyer Edward Bennett Williams, who was also part owner of the Orioles and Washington’s NFL team. Lucchino’s unplanned detour into sports became a genuine career path in 1988 when he was named president of the Orioles.

Charles Steinberg, a close friend and colleague for 45 years, says part of Lucchino’s brilliance was that he could relate to seemingly anyone, from U.S. presidents to hot dog vendors. Smith recalls that at public appearances during his early days with the Red Sox, Lucchino would ask fans whether they should keep Fenway or build a new one, even after the owners had already decided to renovate the beloved ballpark.

“Larry liked to be provocative,” she says. “Even if, at the end of the day, he knew he’d agree with you, he wanted you to defend your point.”

He also provoked the Red Sox’s chief rivals, the New York Yankees, memorably dubbing them the “evil empire” during one contentious offseason shopping spree. The Yankees embraced it, playing Darth Vader’s “Imperial March” theme during home games.

While Lucchino was devoted to winning and had the World Series rings to prove it, his greatest legacy may be in how fans experience baseball. Camden Yards and the other parks it inspired brought people closer to the action and restored some of the charm that had been stripped away from the game. The attraction of new stadiums helped the sport bounce back from the 1994-95 players’ strike, and by the early 2000s, “ballparks became destinations unto themselves,” says Josh Pahigian, co-author of The Ultimate Baseball Road Trip, first published in 2004.

Lucchino, even though he’d ascended to the owner’s box, still saw baseball through the eyes of a 9-year-old, according to Steinberg.

“He disguised it well, with his Princeton undergrad and his Yale Law School and Williams & Connolly pedigree,” he says. “He disguised it well, negotiating some of the most complex deals in baseball. But at the heart of it, beneath that textured exterior, was a little kid who loved baseball, who loved ballparks, and who loved cities.”

Brett Tomlinson is PAW’s managing editor.