BY JOHN ERARDI
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Where the Reds ballpark is sited will have a lot to do with ''the feeling'' it projects to fans.

Reds officials have not talked publicly about what their new ballpark would be like on the river, beyond saying they want a ''retro'' ballpark like Camden Yards, Coors Field and Jacobs Field.

The shape and contour of Broadway Commons would be defined by the streets that border it (Broadway, Court and Reading), similar to the way York, Findlay and Western defined Crosley Field in the West End - the home of the Reds before they moved to the river.

Proponents say a ballpark at Broadway Commons would be like Crosley Field (renowned as one of the major leagues' most intimate parks) without the parking and traffic hassles that plagued it in the 1960s, the last decade of its existence.

This feeling of ''naturalness'' that a ballpark has with the surrounding area - and the experience fans are provided once inside the park - has a lot to do with their fondness for a park.

Peter Richmond writes of this in his book, Ballpark: Camden Yards and the Building of an American Dream, about the original drawings and models of Camden's architect (HOK of Kansas City). That design did not include saving the warehouse that is now Camden Yards' most memorable feature. The warehouse was saved at the insistence of the Orioles through their on-staff architect, Janet Marie Smith.

''Without the warehouse, they would have been left with a nice ballpark just trying to look old, asymmetrical when it didn't have to be, at the expense of bad sightlines for several thousand fans,'' Mr. Richmond writes. ''With the warehouse, though, Camden Yards is something more than a paean to the old; it is old. . . . With the warehouse, the beauty of the ballpark's steel-and-brick confines has a context. It's the house that makes Camden Yards a home.''

At ballparks whose contours are not defined by streets or such ''period'' pieces as old warehouses - such as the parking-lot oriented Comiskey Park in Chicago and The Ballpark at Arlington and Riverfront Stadium/Cinergy Field - idiosyncrasies have to be artificially created.

There are not the site-specific nuances that give an urban neighborhood park its charm.

Part of what gave Crosley Field its cozy feeling was the five- and six-story manufacturing buildings across York Street (beyond the left field fence) and Western Avenue (beyond the center field and right field fences).

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