Last Friday brought the good sporting news that the Red Sox AAA minor league team, the Pawtucket (RI) Red Sox (a.k.a., the PawSox) would be exiting the state of Rhode Island and jaunting up Route 146 to Worcester.
A new stadium will be built in the downtown-ish area, in Kelley Square which is part of what is now called the Canal District. The ballpark will be called Polar Park after (and big-buck sponsored by) Worcester’s own Polar Soda. So I’m guessing the mascot will be a polar bear which, given Worcester’s winter weather, sounds about right. Conveniently, the existing PawSox mascots are also polar bears.
The ballpark site is the old Wyman-Gordon factory which, when Worcester was an industrial city, built parts for aircraft engines. The company, having decamped to suburban Grafton, is still around, but it’s now owned by an outfit in Texas. Kelley Square itself is pretty well known as a traffic nightmare: the convergence of a bunch of heavily-trafficked streets all crossing willy-nilly, alongside a couple of highway off/on ramps, without benefit of traffic lights or even a rotary. Maneuvering through Kelley Square – named (I looked it up) for some poor bastard, Cornelius Kelley, who had the ill luck to die at Verdun a few weeks before WWI ended – was where you earned your driver’s chops when I was a kid, and nothing has changed. Perhaps Polar Park will bring with it some drivability-improvements.
The team – but of course – will be called the WooSox, after one of Worcester’s nicknames: The Woo. (Other nicknames: Worm Town and, more sedately, The Heart of the Commonwealth and, step aside Rome, The City of Seven Hills. I do hope the polar bear mascot wears a heart on its sleeve. Or something.)
Way back in the day, Worcester had a team called the Coal Heavers. But that was well before my time – as were coal heavers. I believe Casey Stengel, who, in my childhood was the ancient manager of the NY Yankees, had played for them.
A few years back, Worcester had an unaffiliated minor league team, the Tornadoes, named – quite peculiarly – for the 1953 tornado that destroyed a good swath of the city and took nearly 100 lives, including, as it turned out, the grandparents of one of my high school classmates. Strange name for a team. Kind of like the Johnstown Floods or the New Orleans Katrinas, no? Anyway, I always meant to get out to The Woo to see the Tornadoes play, but never got around to it. I always meant to get down to Pawtucket to see the PawSox play, too, for that matter. Oh, well. When the WooSox arrive in a couple of years, I will definitely make an occasional visit. And will no doubt buy some gear.
The good citizens of the Heart of the Commonwealth are mostly welcoming this news, the main exception being the owners of the Worcester Bravehearts, which is part of a college summer league (similar to the Cape Cod League). They’re concerned that the arrival of the pros will cause the collapse of their fan base.
But while most Worcester-ites welcome the news, the comment section in the Boston Globe article on the move is full of Bostonians and near-Bostonians – such nasty coastal elites! - sneering about what a dump Worcester is. (The commenters have apparently never been to Pawtucket, Rhode Island.) Commenters are also taking the opportunity to crap on PawSox Chair Larry Lucchino, who’s the former CEO of the Boston Red Sox; rail against taxpayers funding sports stadiums (I’m with them there); and make fun of Rhode Island for having invested in former Red Sox Curt Schilling’s failure of a gaming company.
Sadly, ardent Red Sox fan Stephen King tweeted “Say it ain’t so” when he heard the news. I like and admire Stephen King, but what up with someone who lives in Bangor, Maine, looking down his nose at Worcester???
I love the idea of the Red Sox AAA team coming to Worcester. Not exactly the big leagues but, then again, Worcester ain’t exactly the big leagues either.
But it has heart. It has grit. It has a charming small-town boosterism about it. And it has Polar Soda. And Table Talk Pies, which I assume will be the Official Pie of the WooSox.
Can’t wait to take the train out to The Woo to catch a game.
Can’t wait to hear that first cry of “play ball.”
Woo-hoo!
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