By Howard Wilkinson
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Debris litters the field in an otherwise barren stadium being prepared for implosion Dec. 29. (Glenn Hartong photo) | ZOOM |

Shed no tears for Cinergy Field. The spirit of the place where the Reds played five World Series and won three World championships flew to baseball heaven Sept. 23 when a hefty Pete Rose belly-flopped into third base in an old-timers' softball game.

All that will come tumbling down on the morning of Dec. 29 is an empty shell, a pile of concrete and steel that was long ago stripped of anything that made it a living, breathing place. The pieces that made the memories are long gone.

"You wouldn't recognize it now," said Mike O'Rourke, president of O'Rourke Wrecking Co., the Cincinnati firm hired by Hamilton County to bring down the stadium that was considered a state-of-the-art facility when it opened only 32 years ago. "It's completely gutted."

The last weekend of Reds games in Cinergy Field took place the weekend of Sept. 20-22, followed by a Monday night extravaganza that featured a reunion of the Reds' 1975-76 Big Red Machine team that drew more than 41,000 to the oft-maligned, cookie-cutter stadium that, in its final season, found the love from fans it never had in its heyday.

The following Tuesday morning, after the echoes of the cheering had died, O'Rourke Wrecking went to work on the laborious process of stripping Cinergy Field bare.

That day, O'Rourke's heavy equipment lumbered into the interior of the field through the southeast corner, and a 300-ton crane was moved into place to begin removing the large panels that formed the roof hanging over the red seats.

Then, a work crew of about 20 O'Rourke employees began a process that took several weeks to complete - the unbolting and lifting out the 40,007 blue, red, green and yellow seats.

Come Christmas Day, many a Tristate Reds fan will find some of those seats sitting under the family Christmas tree. Thousands of collectors and holiday gift-givers bought most of the seats from O'Rourke in public sales in October at the demolition company's headquarters near Lunken Airport.

O'Rourke property

In fact, everything that was in the stadium when O'Rourke wrecking took control - from dugout benches to advertising signs to the restroom fixtures - automatically became the property of O'Rourke Wrecking under its contract with the county. It is a standard clause in demolition contracts.

The grass field itself is being sold in doormat-size chunks. In October, O'Rourke crews stripped the field of turf and dirt, leaving the concrete surface that once lay underneath Riverfront Stadium's Astroturf.

Debris in the upper level. (Glenn Hartong photo) | ZOOM |

One of the biggest jobs for O'Rourke has been dismantling the surrounding parking garage and the plaza that, for Reds fans, was the gateway to the ballpark. Unlike the stadium, which will be imploded at 8 a.m., removal of the parking garage has been a conventional demolition job using heavy equipment to knock down the structure one piece at a time. It is that process that made it necessary to close Mehring Way to traffic temporarily.

For weeks now, dump trucks have been rumbling in and out of the site, hauling what ultimately will amount to 100,000 cubic yards of concrete and tons of rebar from the parking garage demolition.

"That's the key to the game for us," Mr. O'Rourke said. "Getting rid of the debris is the big job. We're really in the material-handling business."

Inside the stadium, subcontractors were brought in to do a substantial amount of asbestos removal.

Mike Sieving, Hamilton County's construction manager who is overseeing the demolition and implosion contractors' work, said asbestos was present in the roof tiles, floor tiles and some of the thermal insulation and drywall.

Also, Mr. Sieving said, the mercury in the stadium's light fixtures had to be removed.

"We're satisfied that the removal was very thorough," Mr. Sieving said. "Everything is out of there that should be."

This week, Mr. O'Rourke said, crews have been making cuts in the steel columns that hold the stadium up and that, on Dec. 29, will be blown with explosives in rapid succession from the northeast corner to the southeast corner, where right field used to be.

"We need to make those cuts so the stadium will fall in on itself in a nice, neat pile instead of all stacked-up," Mr. O'Rourke said.

All of the internal fixtures that made Cinergy a ballpark - things like concession signs, dozens of broken baseball bats, the infield dirt and outfield grass - are long gone, and much of it will be sold at public sales Thursday and Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. at O'Rourke's headquarters at 660 Lunken Park Drive.

Larger items will be sold by auction at a later date, Mr. O'Rourke said.

"We've got the Reds' lockers, dugout benches, the retired number jerseys that used to be out on the outfield wall," Mr. O'Rourke said. "We've got some pretty big pieces of Reds' history."

What's left of one of the old press boxes in Cinergy Field. (Glenn Hartong photo) | ZOOM |

Protecting Great American

Between now and the implosion, the biggest jobs remaining are the continued dismantling of the parking garage and the protection of the Reds' new home, Great American Ball Park, only a few feet away.

Arnie Rosenberg of Parsons-Brinckerhoff, the firm overseeing the new ballpark construction for Hamilton County, said the principal protection for Great American Ball Park will be huge netting of "geo-textile" material that will be hung over the side of Great American facing Cinergy.

"It's a very strong curtain, like very heavy burlap, that is used all the time for just this purpose," Mr. Rosenberg said. "It should catch any debris that flies that direction."

Mr. O'Rourke said his company has removed two large bay areas closest to Great American Ball Park to make it less likely that debris will hit the new ballpark.

The gutting that has been done to Cinergy Field has, in one sense, been nothing special for O'Rourke Wrecking; it is, after all, what they do for a living.

But for Mr. O'Rourke and many others on the Cinergy site, it has been work tinged with sadness.

"It's not just another building; I've spent a lot of time there myself over the years," Mr. O'Rourke said. "There are a lot of memories there."

E-mail hwilkinson@enquirer.com