How the architecture of fields shapes the ways we play and watch sports

MARK BRODIE: When I was a kid, every year I went to a game at Yankee Stadium with my dad and grandfather. This is at what we now call the "old Yankee Stadium," which was grand and historic and wonderful and a little dark and cramped in the concourses.

As we walked to our seats, I would be careful not to look through the tunnels that led to the stands and beyond them, the field — that beautifully cut, green as green can be grass leading to the facade atop the stadium.

I wanted to wait until we got to our section where I could stop when the field came fully into view and take it all in to really experience it.

As I got older and went to more stadiums, I noticed I did this at other ballparks as well. I would try really hard not to look at the field until I could really see and appreciate it.

From the Green Monster at Fenway Park to the ivy-covered walls at Wrigley to the Western Metal Supply Company Building at Petco park in San Diego.

As it turns out, I'm not the only one who's taken an interest in the architecture of playing surfaces. Richard Cleary is an architectural historian, professor emeritus at the University of Texas at Austin and author of the book, "The Architecture of the Playing Field: Shaping Space in Sport."

He joins me. And Richard, when you watch a game, how do you see what's happening on the field or court maybe differently than fans who don't have your architectural background?

CLEARY: Well, one way that I see it is spatially. And I'm very interested in how the physical setting has been conceived, the playing field itself. But as much I'm interested in, like, how players make use of that, you know, those limitations of the dimensions of the playing field. How do they use them to their best advantage?

And I love watching the patterns of ... team sports that they form, literally form a living architecture. You know, on a soccer field, football field. I like thinking historically, as an historian, about how those uses and approaches have changed spatially over time. And, you know, sports are constantly about athletes figuring out new ways with their coaches to utilize the space at hand.

BRODIE: Do you find that mostly like, sort of within the plays themselves, maybe the plays that coaches design, or in some cases, maybe players just kind of improvise, or the way maybe entire teams play the game?

CLEARY: Well, it's definitely both. From the individual player level, of the individual creativity of a particular player or coaches who have strategies. You know, the infamous triangle offense in basketball, for instance. And then you can get to the level of we often, especially historically, used to think about national ways of playing or certainly regional ways of playing.

Brazilian soccer is a great classic example of their passing, sort of dancing with the ball style, as they were known for historically, versus the stereotypes about German soccer in the olden days.

BRODIE: It's interesting because I remember during the last World Cup reading stories about Lionel Messi, of course, the great Argentinian soccer player, and how much he walked during a soccer game.

Like somebody calculated how many miles he walked. And it was really about not him not wanting to run or exert energy, but him sort of probing particular areas of the field to look for weaknesses in the opposition. And then at just the right moment, know when to strike. It seems like that's kind of an example of what you're talking about here.

CLEARY: It is particularly at the level of the psychology of the game. You know, you have someone, a great champion, like a Messi. People who know through their experience, their training to be able to read the field. Act as if they have eyes in the back of their head, you know, constantly aware of the big picture and immediately what's happening in front of them.

And that comes from total engagement with what they're doing, a total focus in the game that's in the now, but it's constantly informed by their personal history, their memory. And then, of course, it's made possible by, you know, the finely tuned mechanisms of their body that they've taught themselves. How to react, how to move.

BRODIE: Yeah. I'm curious about, especially in baseball — and you write a little bit about this in the book, that you're not so much looking at the architecture of a stadium or an arena, but more that the playing surface.

And it seems like, and please correct me if I'm wrong, that baseball fields are maybe the most different from one to another in at least the American sports. Where, you know, you can have a field like Fenway Park, which has a giant wall and a very shallow left field, to a place like where the Oakland A's used to play in the Oakland Coliseum. Where the, you know, so much foul ground and the outfield was so expansive.

Do you find that maybe in baseball that offers a unique opportunity for players and teams to use their space maybe a little differently, as opposed to other team sports?

CLEARY: Absolutely. I think American baseball has — for most of its history — prided itself on the individual quirkiness of particular ballparks. And there was a time, particularly in the ... 1960s, 1970s, when ballparks were being — baseball parks were being combined with football fields, and there was a desire to standardize the dimensions of the outfield.

But since Camden Yards for the Orioles was built, and you know, all the kind of sometimes called retro stadiums. Those have to do with creating something that's kind of really interesting for spectators and to draw them in. But also it really creates some interesting variety on the field.

You know, have a short left field like at, at Fenway Park, or just, you know, monster outfield where the ball keeps going. And I wrote a little bit about, you know, some of the quirks in, in baseball at different levels.

And, you know, one of was at the University of Texas in its old baseball field. They had this rocky outcropping in play in the outfield called Billy Goat Hill. And it was in play and you literally had to scamper up a face ... a change in elevation. And, you know, old Yankee Stadium used to have ... Monument Park right in play. You know, I think it's wonderful to sort of see that happening.

BRODIE: Do you find that this goes down sort of to levels beyond professional or college sports? Like, I think back to when I was a kid playing wiffle ball in the backyard and how we sort of set up the field based on the size and the shape of whoever's yard we were playing in. Do you find that it sort of impacts us at that lower level, too?

CLEARY: Yeah ... I think it's a great point. And, you know, one of the amazing things about our most popularly played sports is the concept of what the playing field has to have is passed down to us. And so as young kids, you know, we learn this from our older siblings and maybe an adult or two.

But, you know what you need to have to play baseball, for instance. And then you adopt that to what you have, you know, your wiffle ball back court, you know, the limitations of your backyard hockey rink. Something like that. But it's the same concept that the pros are actually working with as well.

BRODIE: Well, I wonder if it also maybe helps develop creativity in athletes. Like, as you point out, like if you're playing ... hockey, not everybody can play at Madison Square Garden. Sometimes you're going to have to play on the frozen pond, you know, down the street, or, you know, if you want to play baseball, not everyone can play at Wrigley Field.

Sometimes you got to play, you know, in the cul-de-sac at the end of your street. Does having that kind of space maybe lead to more creativity in the athlete to work with that particular space that they can then use to when they do get to play in a high school gym, for example, or on a more "standard playing surface."

CLEARY: I think it certainly can, it can do that. You know, these old often mentioned things like about, you know, about soccer players. These are usually written about soccer players ... professional players who grew up under very poor circumstances, playing under, in very, very tight playing situations as youth in a barrio or something like that. And developing incredible, incredible foot skills to be able to handle the ball in tight spaces surrounded by other players.

And we see them go on and flourish on the much more expansive international stage of a regular full-sized soccer pitch. ... So I see that.