Barstool Review: The Hall at Patriots Place
When the Patriots first announced details of their plan to open their own Hall of Fame right next to Gillette, I immediately saved it on my mental Palm Pilot in the most important file a father keeps. That would be the “Things I Can Do With the Kids on a Lousy Day That Won’t Bore Me to Tears, Cost a Car Payment, or Involve Movies Where Hapless Adults Get Driven Insane by a Group of Precocious, Wacky Kids” file. Seriously, from the way the Pats described this place, it had the potential to be the most elusive of all discoveries for a dad, which is to say, “fun for the whole family.” I mean, you hear that a lot, but it’s just a slogan; it almost never exists. They don’t have video game parlors with casino sports books, a liquor licence and scrapbooking. And if they did, I couldn’t afford it. So when you actually hear about something that offers even the potential for family fun, it’s like discovering the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
So when the Hall at Patriots Place opened week and a half ago, I promised myself the first chance I got to go, I’d take it. Then fate stepped in last weekend and gave me a rare Saturday with nothing to do, no commitments to keep, and Old Testament-style weather in the forecast and I was off to Foxboro like they had an open bar. (For the record, they didn’t.)
The Hall is located next to the main entrance to the stadium, beside the bridge and the “lighthouse” (in quotes because it looks less like a lighthouse than it does the Eiffel Tower built with mismatched Lego pieces). It’s just on the other side of the entrance from the rest of the ginormous shopping complex exploding around Gillette. The first thing that strikes you as you pull into the parking lot is the pure, ballsy audacity of Bob Kraft to have ever considered building this thing. I realize Kraft doesn’t need me kissing the tails of his blue, white-collared oxford shirts... he gets enough of that from CBS... but honestly it’s astonishing anyone who remembers the old Schaefer Stadium, connected to the harness track by a dirt parking lot where the only thing filling the moon crater-sized potholes was beer cans and frozen vomit, to come in here, see all these shops, theaters and restaurants and realize you’re in the same place. It’s like going to Disney World and watching one of those movies about Walt Disney’s vision; how he looked at thousands of acres of Florida wilderness and imagined the world’s No.1 tourist destination. It’s Kraft World, with Bill Belichick and Tom Brady as his Mickey and Minnie.
And Kraft has learned a thing or two from Disney. The first of which is the Golden Rule of all tourist destinations: “The only way in or out must be through the gift shop.” Which is not a knock on the place; the Patriots Pro Shop is the Patriots version of Twins Souvenir on Yawkey Way, only stocked with Andre Tippett throwback jerseys instead of Alyssa Milano designs.
You buy tickets then get on the elevator up to the Hall. And once the doors closed, you’re greeted by the disembodied voice of Kraft saying... something. I’m not sure what. I assume he was welcoming us but the sound was so unexpected it was jarring. Like hearing the Voice of God in your head. Which probably isn’t far off the mark; I mean, Kraft has three Lombardis to The Almighty’s zero.
What I don’t know about architecture could fill a library. But I know enough to know that inside the Hall seems pretty unique. First of all, there’s not a right angle in the entire place. It’s a combination of big rotundas and Isosceles triangles, like the Guggenheim meets Pee Wee’s Playhouse. And nothing in the place doesn’t do something. You’re never more than a couple of feet away from finding yourself walking across a video of a David Patten touchdown grab projected on the floor under your feet.
The centerpiece is the highlight video. And again, it’s Disneyesque. Housed in it’s own theater with a 45-foot wide video screen, it condenses the whole history of the Patriots into 15 minutes. It’s like one of those movies you see at the China Pavilion at EPCOT, only instead of showing the Great Wall and happy little Chinese kids in factories spraying lead paint onto Christmas decorations, it features Steve Grogan. And like Disney, it’s not shy about thanking the man who saved the franchise and made this all possible. But honestly, Bob Kraft deserves more credit than the movie spends on him. Were I in his shoes, the whole production would be a tribute to me like I was Kim Jong Il; nothing but stories about how I shot 18 holes-in-one, wrote six operas and had a threesome with Katherine Heigl and Stacy Keibler. Another reason why Mr. Kraft is a better man than I.
Seriously, the video itself is worth the price of admission. It could’ve been eight times longer and still not scratched the surface of the remarkable history of the Patriots. And for the 10,000th time in a row, I saw Vinatieri’s kick go through the uprights and sobbed like a Dr. Phil guest. It’s Video Pepper Spray. Of course there’s commentary from Patriots fans, and like all Boston sports videos, they managed to find good-looking, insightful people with a lot of insight into the Pats. Just kidding. They found the goofiest people in New England who all have accents as thick as canned clam chowder. Like with “Curse of the Bambino,” where do they find these morons?
In all sincerity though, the video is great but the exhibits in the rest of the Hall are a lifelong Patriots nerds dream come true. They made an effort to have it be interactive with stuff like a touch-screen where you try to match the Pats player to the record he holds (where I embarrassed myself in front of my Sweet Irish Rose and our little Tax Deductions by not remembering that Jimmy Hitchcock once had a 99 yard interception return). And there are touch-screens where you can call up a highlight reel of every Hall inductee. There are teenage boys not as excited posting their skateboard stunts on YouTube as I was showing my family the tape of John Hannah pancaking two New Orleans Saints on the same play.
If you knew nothing about the Patriots, you’d quickly pick up what the team considers it’s iconic moments. Mark Henderson’s snow plow hangs from the ceiling as a tribute to Unfair Competitive Advantages, which is kind of like the Cleveland Indians doing a tribute to Gaylord Perry’s spit ball or Albert Bell’s corked bat. (They don’t, however, show a tape of the Rams walk through. Sorry, Sen. Specter.) There’s an entire area dedicated to the Snow Bowl, including a video screen where kids can try re-attempting Adam Vinatieri’s kicks while disco-ball snow is projected around them. Next to that are referee replay review booths, where you can watch the Tuck Rule play get reversed over and over again, just for the satisfaction of knowing somewhere a Raider fan in spiked shoulder pads and a Skeletor mask weeps.
But it’s not all interactive whistles, bells, dogs and ponies. There’s some good old fashioned Historic-Stuff-Behind-Glass exhibits too. Unis from when they had the tri-cornered hat logo. Pictures from the day the stands burned to the ground. By boyhood hero Tim Fox’s playbook, featuring his Safety reads, which looked like they were drawn by hand. Bob Kraft’s check for $15 million as down payment for the team, which was obviously written in the days before the credit collapse. (Or maybe we’ve always just trusted checks the size of a sheet of plywood, like Publisher’s Clearinghouse or the Greater Hartford Open.)
But mostly the stuff they present is the kind of thing you can tell the kids to go wild on because it’s all kid proof. (Unlike that unfortunate business at the MFA... stupid Greecians and their stupid urns.) They paw through a replica of Brady’s locker (the condoms with the holes Bridget poked in them removed). Sit on a heated bench with Mike Vrabel. Or at least, Vrabel’s uni placed on a Macy’s mannequin. There’s a scale where Vince Wilfork will tell you whom you compare to. One of my sons weighs the same a cheerleader. His little brother, a duffle bag. I weigh as much as Wes Welker. My Trophy Wife took a pass, but we’re both certain she registered as “Giselle.” Next to Wilfork was a “Can You Jump as High as Laurence Maroney” meter that wasn’t open yet. And it looked as though they just removed the “Do You Know as Much of the Playbook as Chad Jackson” exhibit. Beside that is the actual Pats trainer’s cart from the 2007 season. Looking it over carefully I found a hundred Band-Aids miles of surgical tape, but nothing that looked like Rodney Harrison’s HGH or Nick Kaczur’s >ahem< “evidence.”
One of my favorite attractions was the Patriots huddle. It doesn’t look like much... more Macy’s mannequins meant to look like the Pats offense, if Logan Mankins wore a Size 2 dress. It’s not much more than a photo op place except the Bradyquin is actually calling plays. Recordings taken from real, in-game huddles. I could listen for weeks and probably not make a damned bit of sense out of them, but it’s still X’s & O’s Geek Heaven. Honestly, it sounds like Tourette’s. I literally heard him call “Y-Cross. 24 Blast. FIG! F-I-G. Stay tight on the right. On one. Ready, break!” “Fig?” What the hell could that mean? But you listen, and because it’s Tom Brady he could make anything sound like it’s a TD waiting to happen. “Narwhal! Dingleberry cupcake. Moon. Nerf gun. Dwight Shrute! Mt. McKinley with a Raisin! On one. Ready, break!” and I’d buy every syllable.
Another favorite involved Belichick breaking down plays on coaches tape. But a thousand of those isn’t enough and one would be too many. So we moved on to the Lombardi trophies, which sit behind glass like something Ocean’s 11 would try to swipe. They also have all three championship rings on display, which Hall employee Buddy told me belong to public relations guy Stacey James. That was a relief because I was semi-worried someone like Bethel Johnson was down on his luck or something and was hawking his gear.
That was at the end of the tour and I told Buddy what I’m telling you. The Hall at Patriots Place is a Patriots addict’s crystal meth, without the messy side effects. My expectations were high and still the Pats exceeded them. He told me they plan on rotating the displays things don’t get stale. I hope so because I’ll be back. Only this time I’ll stay until I figure out what the hell Bradyquin and VideoBelichick were talking about.