Once a classic ballpark, now a holdover for rusting clunkers: an original photo series

Summer evenings at the old Bush Stadium — former home of the Indianapolis Indians, a minor league team — were among my childhood fondest. In memories, they are bedecked with ivy-covered brick, the San Diego Chicken, Cracker Jack and the sounds of the old-timey organist.

I can still hear the cries of hot dog vendors, and of the announcer, each time he called Razor Shines to bat. Aside from having the best sports name ever, the 1984 team MVP was the favorite among Indians fans back then — playing the better part of nine seasons in Indy. For me and thousands of kids like me, his name is synonymous with summer and home runs.

When I heard Bush Stadium was being used as a storage facility for Cash for Clunkers cars, I decided it was something I had to see. I hadn’t set foot on those hallowed grounds in about 20 years. Photographer Austin Warnock and I prowled around the grounds for about four hours. I took notes, he took photos.

Austin Warnock, 2009

Austin Warnock, 2009

Bush Stadium was opened in 1931, a masterpiece of traditional brick and deco stylishness. It was long considered one of the country’s premiere historic ballparks of any kind. The film “Eight Men Out” was shot there in part. In 1996, the Indians played their last game in Bush Stadium, relocating to the beautiful Victory Field, downtown — a contemporary throwback to the old, intimate brick parks like Bush (named “Best Minor League Ballpark in America” by Sports Illustrated). Short of a swift miracle, it was the end of an era for Bush Stadium.

The city of Indianapolis, which has owned the park since 1967, was left with a huge property on its hands that was at once uniquely purposed, historically significant, and commercially valuable. Following the Indians’ departure, Bush stadium was converted into a small-circuit race track and re-named the 16th Street Speedway.

After a few years, the race cars disappeared, too. The gates were closed for good, and for 17 years the stadium  remained empty. Bleachers and stacks of old cash registers sit and rust; wooden roofing planks have rotted through. Concrete crumbles. Garbage, old tires, and unexplained anomalies like bowling pins and old skateboard ramps litter the property. Young trees grow in what used to the infield.

And in the ballpark’s offices, newspapers, shoes and old racing fliers lie scattered all over the floors. Locker rooms are damp and musty. And in the booths atop the rotting roof, control boxes for the old scoreboard remain behind busted windows, alongside microphone cables, an antique modem, racing rosters for forgotten announcers.

Austin Warnock, 2009

Austin Warnock, 2009

Austin Warnock, 2009

Austin Warnock, 2009

Austin Warnock, 2009

Austin Warnock, 2009

Earlier this year, a cash-strapped Indy Parks departments put the ballpark to an unexpected use: as a holding space for hundreds of gas-guzzling cars traded-in as part the enormously popular Cash-for-Clunkers program. A local salvage yard, Pic-a-Part, had so many clunkers on its hands it had run out of space to store them. Indy Parks saw an opportunity to make $2,000 a month in extra income during otherwise lean times, without dipping into taxpayer coffers. A fortituitous, if unlikely, confluence of needs, belonging to no other time but our own: tradition, decay, recession, new, scavenger economies, parasitic ecologies, emerging from collapse: symbiosis, la recyclage.

A few advertisements remain: one says “Got Milk?” Another, ironically, is for a salvage yard named Wreck’s that used to lie northwest of the city, but has since been closed. It’s motto was, “We meet by accident.”

Wandering among the empty seats, I recalled the frustration as a young boy of sitting behind the old steel pillars when they blocked my view to the game. I recalled balmy Indiana summer nights, helping my father carry the cooler through the parking lot after the game. Austin challenged me to climb a rickety steel ladder to the top of one of the old lighting towers, which I promptly did to snatch a few shaky photos. It was scary.

I also stepped on a rusty nail. I hadn’t had a tetanus shot in about 16 years, so I had to get one the next day.

I have since learned that rusty nails do not cause tetanus. Their porous surfaces simply provide an ideal home for C. tetani, the bacteria that causes tetanus.  Their sharpened ends provide an ideal means of entry for the bacteria into the blood stream.

Austin Warnock, 2009

Austin Considine, 2009

Austin Warnock, 2009

Austin Warnock, 2009

Most of the clunkers on site were relatively new — not the old broken down heaps I had envisioned, but, rather, an assortment of gas-guzzling SUVs, pick-ups and vans. Though I know that each of these cars still has worth as parts and scrap, and I know each car I saw represented one newer, more fuel-efficient car on the road in its place, it still felt like such a waste.

I still owe $2,700 on a pick-up truck of my own. In spite of my environmental concerns, I confess I would have loved to have one of those perfectly good F150s whose engines were deliberately disabled — a stipulation of the Cash for Clunkers program to ensure they stayed off the road.

Austin Warnock, 2009

Austin Warnock, 2009

Austin Warnock, 2009

Paul Smith, Real Estate Manager for Indy Parks, let us have our run of the place for the morning. He said that estimates for fully renovating the stadium went as high as $10 million. To what end, he wasn’t sure. There was talk of conjoining it to the modern soccer stadium across 16th street, or even turning it into a cricket pitch.

Razor shines is still in baseball, coaching first base for the New York Mets.