A big-league team should have a home in the heart of the region.

Last September my book “Storied Stadiums” was released, about baseball parks dating back to 1862.  It etched how ballparks ‘r’ us: where we work, how we live.

A century ago urban parks began dotting America: Wrigley Field, Fenway Park, Yankee Stadium. 

By 1923, each major-league team boasted a Xanadu of personality.  Entire cities revolved around the park.

For half-a-century, such fields spurred MetroAmerica.  Enter the 1960s: Baseball swapped downtown for suburban ovals from Anaheim to Queens.  Hotels, bars, and restaurants closed.  Jobs left the city - often never to return.

We love a happy ending.  Since 1992, 12 big-league parks have gone back to the future by opening downtown - Baltimore’s Camden Yards, a Coors Field in Denver. 

What does this mean for Rochester? As it happens, quite a lot.

Since 1996, the Rochester Raging Rhinos have played soccer at Platt and Plymouth streets. 

Their home, Frontier Field, is a baseball park.  Yet the team regularly sells out.  “Small city, big appeal,” Rhinos president Frank DuRoss said last year.  “People call us soccer’s Green Bay Packers” - and Rochester Soccer Town USA.

The Rhinos moor soccer’s A-League, similar to Triple-A baseball.  Their aim is higher: Major League Soccer, which demands a soccer-friendly home. 

Thus, in 1998 DuRoss proposed a $48 (now $49.3) million, 20,000-seat park near Frontier in the Brown’s Race/High Falls district west of the Genesee. 

Monroe County and the Rhinos pledged $7 million and $4 million, respectively.  Bonds would float $22 million. 

Last year the state Assembly OK’d the rest. 

”It can help rebuild downtown,” vowed Assembly transportation head David Gantt.  For a time an urban park seemed likely. 

”Ah, but this wouldn’t be Rochester,” a friend mused, “if problems didn’t happen.”

First, skepticism rose over Rhinos’ funding. 

Next, the city dallied over land acquisition.  Monroe’s stadium body, the Sports Authority, termed downtown too expensive.  MLS has also shrunk from 12 to 10 teams.  To some, a city site won’t work.  Others say soccer won’t. 

DuRoss counters with ABC/ESPN’s 2002 MLS coverage: “No league dies with exposure like that.” Local growth has buoyed soccer’s base: Monroe child/adult players top 45,000. 

An amateur complex may soon dot Greece, northwest of the city.  “It’s quality of life,” said Rhinos CEO Steve Donner.  “How do we keep young people here? One way is sports.  Only through soccer can we gain the sports term ‘major-league.’”

Can we afford to try?

We can’t afford not to.  Rochester lacks any big-league franchise. 

By contrast, Green Bay, Buffalo and Indianapolis - smaller or marginally larger than Rochester - reap coast-to-coast coverage.  Rochester is already major-league in music, art and imaging. 

A multi-purpose soccer park would add athletics - but where?

Last August, the Rhinos forsook Brown’s Race for Kodak’s ex-Elmgrove site at Gates’ Rochester Technology Park. 

Gantt cried offsides: His bill mandates downtown Rochester.

Paradise, said the 16th-century painter Tintoretto, must thrive on Earth. 

”I’m not sure,” he said, “I’ll reach it in the next.” Paradise will likely less embrace a suburban than urban park.

Few hotels or eateries have bloomed near suburban stadiums: Soccer wouldn’t alter Gates - or help Gates revive the city.  Its site, off Route 531, would be less accessible than downtown to points east and south. 

”Look at Camden Yards,” said Orioles Hall of Famer Brooks Robinson.  “You can get to it.  It produces jobs.  It’s part of the city - and the city part of the park.”

In Baltimore, dads and sons walk hand in hand past shopkeepers. 

In Cleveland, Jacobs Field has reshaped downtown. 

In San Francisco and Pittsburgh, new urban parks have greased real estate and development. 

The past third-of-a-century tells us that won’t occur in Pleasantville USA.

”Build it, and they will come,” says the movie “Field of Dreams.”

Not building it - now, downtown - will slight Rochester as a coming force for good.

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