On April 10, the Boston Red Sox will open their 86th season at Fenway Park, which, along with Detroit's Tiger Stadium, is the oldest ballpark in Major League Baseball. In 1999, Fenway will host its third All-Star Game, its first since 1961. But if Red Sox ownership has its way, by 2010 the Red Sox will be playing in a brand new stadium, probably in South Boston, while venerable Fenway will go the way of Ebbets Field and the Polo Grounds.

The Red Sox cite Fenway's small size, cramped seats, meager parking, lack of luxury suites and outdated facilities to justify the proposed departure--all uncontestable claims. Fenway's comically slender seats are comfortable for only the sveltest Sox fans, and tickets are often hard to come by, especially in the summer, and especially for games against the hated Yankees. The wise spectator learned long ago to take the T, and the rich one learned he might have to brush up against the commoners to see the Sox.

Fenway's first and probably strongest line of defense against this proposal is, of course, nostalgia and sentimentalism. Fenway Park is the mecca of baseball, one of the sport's most sacred shrines. As the misty-eyed Bob Costases of the world constantly remind us, Fenway and its charming idiosyncracies inspire the current generation of throwback stadiums, and the park is the standard against which all others are judged.

But the proposed move to a new stadium should trouble not just sentimentalists. Fenway occupies a unique niche in Boston, and is a part of the community that residents should actively try to preserve.

A walk from the Kenmore T station to Fenway on game day offers an experience unfamiliar to many sports fans today. Too many modern ballparks sit dismembered from the communities which support them, connected to their cities by thin ribbons of asphalt. Missing from these suburban landscapes is the mix of eclectic shops, restaurants, scalpers and bums that makes the walk to Fenway worth taking.

Fenway Park presents a rare treasure for the city of Boston. It is a ballpark well integrated into its environs, an historical and architectural landmark and a classic fixture of the American cityscape. Should the Red Sox go through with their threats and move to a new site, Boston would lose not just a beautiful ballpark. It would lose a part of itself.