Mark's Favorites and Not-So-Favorites

My Humble Ranking of the New "Retro" Ballparks I Have Visited.

• Number 1 - PacBell Park: Parochialism figured strongly, but there is something very cool about the asymetry, the right field "portals" where you can view the game for free for three innings, the location right on the bay, "splash homers" into McCovey Cove, and being able to take a ferry right to a pier at the ballpark.
• Number 2 - Miller Park: Yes, Gerry, your new hometown digs come in a VERY close second to PacBell. Loved the fan-shaped roof, the close-to-the-field feeling from all seats, the broad concourses which reduces crowding coming and going, the brats, the Sausage Haus pavilion outside the park, the easy freeway, parking and walking access, the reasonable prices, the manual scoreboard. Downgraded for not preserving the chalet and slide for Bernie the Brewer from County Stadium (looks like a little cubicle with a yellow plastic slide with no beer stein finish--Ugh!), but bravo for keeping the live Sausage Races and not knuckling under for some stupid video Dot Races! Kudos all around...too bad their ain't a view. And if you don't like Miller Beer, there ain't anything else--they could have offered Henry's or that Hiney's beer, also in their corporate family. Glass wall in the outfield very nice touch as well.
• Number 3 - The Ballpark at Arlington: Loved the TGIFriday's integrated with the ballpark to roll into early, get decently priced eats and beer before the game, then go right into the park and a greatly appointed gift shop...felt a little closed in with the offices and restaurant in the outfield, but it lent some uniqueness to the setting too...didn't hurt that we scored box seats directly above the plate at the lip of the second deck, with menus at waitstaff to cater to your every beer need! My second visit, on BIB2003, confirms this ranking, and it was fun watching "The Rookie" to pick up where they filmed Dennis Quaid in relation to to real stadium.
• Number 4 - Minute Maid Park (former Enron): The best thing about this park was that they had the roof closed, and the park airconditioned, when we were there in July on BIB2003. Another beautiful new ballpark, with wide concourses to do your eating, plenty of distractions for the casual fan (shit, some people need distractions rather than watching the game) like a kid play zone, etc. It's most striking feature is it's facade and entrance. They either attached this park to an old Union Station or made it look that way, but the main entrance is this beautiful space that reminded me of the restored Union Stations around the country. Cool train that comes out for hometeam homers. Another beautiful addition to the baseball cathedrals springing up!
• Number 5 - Safeco Field: The roof is very cool, giving a large opening above the 3rd deck (different than Miller which is much lower), but rather tight concourses make for much crowding getting around the park, but there were many great craft beers for sale. Seemed much bigger, making the 3rd deck feel remote, and the bleachers went up high too making it a more closed in feeling.
• Number 6 - Petco Field: I approached the stadium from the west, and I thought I was going to a shopping mall rather than the newest cathedral to baseball. The marble tile facade heightened the mall-ish appearance, without a brick to be seen. Our seats were high up on the first deck, third base side, and the second deck is built so close to the first that I frequently lost sight of routine pop flies. Location is nice, though they would have got more points by locating the park on the water as opposed to a few blocks inland. Getting to the park by trolley is a plus, and the food choices were good in the park, as well as the nicely emerging/revitalizing neighborhood around the park.
• Number 7 - Coors Field: Nice bunch of bars and nightclubs have sprung up around this place since it opened, but there is nothing to set the park itself apart from the rest...
• Number 8 - Turner Field: I have to agree with everyone else after our BIB2001 visit...nothing to set it above a normal ballpark, and too much Turner Commercialism and Marketing...and the $7 beers! A monument to Ted's ego, not baseball! Oy!
• I have not been to Camden Yards (Scott raves about it), Jacobs Field, Bank One Ballpark, PNC Park, Philly or Comerica Park.

My Favorite Ballpark Experiences.

• San Diego's Qualcomm Stadium (BIB): the stadium itself was rather ordinary, but we were treated the best by far (parking pass, stadium tour, give-away bag, going on to the field for BP, and decent seats, all comp'ed). Scott just about had a heart attack when we were introduced to Jerry Coleman, the long-time Voice of the Padres. This club knows how to treat out-of-town guests!
• Boston's Fenway Park (non-BIB): I visited there before BIB was formed--in 1988 on a family vacation. The place oozes baseball, from the time you emerge from the "T" and smell the Italian Sausage vendors cookin' 'em up, to the Green Monster, I was in baseball Nirvana, and I knew I had to see as many ballparks as I could in this lifetime.
• Cooperstown (BIB): technically not a ballpark (though we hopped the fence into Doubleday Field), this is by far the best sports museum, and rates right up there with the Louvre and the Metropolitan Museum for history.
• The Kingdome's Final Game (BIB): Kevin scored us some great seats behind the visitor's dugout, and the place was packed with a great feeling of electricity in the air. As if scripted, Griffey Jr. went over the wall and robbed Rusty Greer of a homer, then smacked his own homerun far beyond the reach of any Ranger, and to cap the day, we had a streaker run around the field during the seventh inning stretch.
• PacBell Park (non-BIB): My wife scored 4 tickets for my brother-in-law's birthday (Giants vs. the hated Dodgers), and Barry Bonds was on fire. He had hit his 500th earlier that week, and was on a consecutive home run streak--and the Giants were in first place. Every time Barry came up the place went wild. San Francisco fans were definitely in a Love mode in their constant Love/Hate relationship with Barry. Unfortunately, Barry's streak was snapped and the Dodgers eventually drubbed the hometown boys 10 - 1...
• The Oakland Coliseum Clubhouse Visit: My wife and I bid on and won a visit to the A's clubhouse at a school fundraising auction. Seems that Art Howe gets his morning coffee at this particular shop every morning when he is in town, and the owner got him to donate this tour to the school, along with two seats behind home plate, 18 rows up. This visit was timed to get us through the clubhouse just after the team dressed for the game and took the field for warm-ups (about 10:30am for the 1:05 first pitch of an inter-league game with the cross-bay Giants on June 10th.) There are four of us, my wife and I and another couple (I went to high-school with the woman...I hadn't seen her in close to 30 years, but don't we all put on a little weight), and we had a PR person take us into the bowels of the Coliseum, with a rather large security person bringing up the rear. Art met us at the door...he's a lot taller than he appears on TV, but still, he has that gentle demeanor and soft voice that makes him immediately likeable. First impression is the clubhouse has seen better days. The Raiders got their own clubhouse and locker room in the remodel; the A's kept the old one. There are several small rooms (coaches offices, meal nook, Art's office, trainers' room, video room (tapes of games and opponents for study), and the shower room (leaking showerheads abound) all surrounding the main dressing room of the players. The thing that struck me was that there was nearly as much golfing gear as baseball equipment crammed in the halls and rooms. In one of the hallways tacked up over a long row of golf bags was a sign, "Golf Bags are NOT allowed on the trip to San Diego due to Flight Weight Limitations!" If you ever wondered how ball players kill time on road trips, now you know. The dressing room was a large area with open "stalls" for each player (the security guy was keeping a close watch on us at this point), and Jason Giambi had a bunch of torn-from-magazine pictures of WWF stars tacked around his cube. We were then led down the "Hall of Fame"--literally a hall, where every Oakland A-featured Sports Illustrated cover was framed on one side of the hall, and a couple of display cases with various game balls, bats, jerseys and other memorabilia decorated the other side. They asked that we not take pictures, so that's why I have no photographic evidence; couldn't even get a picture of a Group Art Hug. After 10 minutes we were ushered out of the clubhouse after saying our Thanks and Goodbyes to Art. We had great seats behind home plate, and I decided while looking around at the stadium that the Coliseum is still a decent place for baseball...the changes the Raiders' Al Davis demanded and got don't totally ruin the place--the empty mountain of luxury boxes and nose bleed seats of "Mt. Davis" just kind of give the feeling of one of the new stadiums, The Ballpark at Arlington, with the restaurant and offices overlooking the bleachers closing in the place.
• The Tokyo Dome (non-BIB): My wife (again) scored 2 tickets from some Sybase-Tokyo folks (at 5,000 yen each) to see the Nippon Ham Fighters. We had just got to our seats when a foul ball bounces my way. I snag it, and slip it in my pocket, only to be approached by a nice young lady who could not speak English, but got across to me that I needed to hand over the ball. She gave my a voucher ticket, and somehow made me understand that I needed to turn in the voucher at a special window after the game. Cool, thinking I, I'll probably get some great gift, like an autographed ball or something. So we settled in for the rest of the game, marveling at the Japanese baseball culture. The "reserved" seats are just that, everyone quietly sits around watching the game, politely clapping for good plays and whatever. The bleachers are another matter...the right field bleachers is 100% rooting for one team, and the left field side is for the other. There are cheerleader types that get up and wave these huge flags and lead cheers and songs when their team is batting. When their half of the inning is over, they quietly sit down and the other half erupts. And everyone seems to have these plastic bowling pin shaped things that they bang against their hands or seats as part of the cheers. Another nice feature of the park was these beautiful young women strolling around the park with pony kegs strapped to their backs, politely pouring out a tall cold one when flagged down. Most civilized. Anyway, the end of the game comes, I go turn in my voucher, and all I get is one of those stupid moving puzzle pieces on a keyring, you know the one where you move the squares around to make out some picture. I was major bummed--I got my first foul ball, and all I have to show for it is a Nippon Ham Fighters puzzle keyring!
• My First Playoff Game--Game 3: The 2001 American League Division Series, Yankees at Oakland: I was part of the largest crowd ever in Oakland baseball history (55,000+), watching a classic pitchers duel between Barry Zito and Steinbrenner's latest hired gun, Mike Mussina. My wife initially had other plans that afternoon, so I got two tickets for my daughter (the Yankee fan of the family--because "Derek Jeter is soooo cute") and me in nosebleed section 303, but late that week, my wife's plans changed so she strolled up to the box office and scored one ticket in section 109, row 8--right off the bullpen mound. To benefit the website, my wife and kid were gracious in letting me use the great ticket, while they sat amongst the tattooed drunks in the upper deck. The place was packed, even Mt. Davis, the atrocious addition to placate the Raiders, and the playoff atmosphere was high. Anticipating a sweep by the beloved home team, brooms sprouted throughout the stadium (I heard that Atlanta did not allow brooms at their Game 3 against Houston--I guess they feared some terrorist might show up and use a broom as a lethal weapon). Alas, it was not to be...Zito threw a gem, but his one mistake to Jorge Posada held up in the end. Does Derek Jeter live a charmed life, or what? The stadium stood en masse as we knew there'd be a play at the plate with the heavy-footed younger Giambi brother lumbering around to score from first base, and we had a collective gasp as we saw the impossible flip from Jeter and Posada's NON-TAG applied to the NON-SLIDING Jeremy. Boom--turning point of the series. I couldn't believe what I saw, and when you are at the ballpark, they don't replay those "close or controversial" plays, so you just sit down and wonder in amazement how Jeter does it! Great game--not one of the 55,000 there sat during the final two innings, but it just wasn't meant to be for the hometown boys. Final: those damn Yankees 1, my beloved A's 0.

A Little Scratch-Off Card and the Ticket (beats me how we found our seats!) from the Tokyo Dome.

My Least Favorite Ballpark Experiences.

• San Francisco's Candlestick Park (non-BIB): All the horror stories are true. Night games at Candlestick were gruesome. On what started out as a nice summer Friday evening turned into the most miserably cold night at that pit of a park. Mini-tornadoes swirled through the stands all night, whipping up little twisters of hot-dog wrappers.
• Milwaukee County Stadium (BIB): The stadium itself was charmingly ancient, especially with the tween-innings Sausage Races (three guys in 10 foot tall Muppet costumes) and Bernie the Brewer sliding into the stein after hometown homers. But we were sitting close to a support beam, right under a large speaker, and the sound man has this misguided idea that he has to play a "Jock Rock" clip between EACH PITCH. That's right, EACH PITCH. And just a little 2 - 3 second clip, but at maximum spinal cord jangling volume. I had a splitting headache by the 5th inning. I hope this extremely annoying practice did not carry over to Miller Park...I'll find out later this month (July 2001). Plus, there was a sight I hope to never see again. We were following a family to our seats: a young woman with an exceedingly big butt, her mousy husband wearing a bunch of lovely tatoos and a wife-beater, and their two kids. We were curious--she was carrying about a three foot hunk of a 2" X 8"--what the heck?!?!? They go to their seats, and she plunks down this 2X8 across the arm rests of the seat, then plops her ample ass on the board. I wondered how she was going to fit into her seat--and now we know--she never intended to! Eeeewwwwww! She then proceeded to eat mass quantities of everything all through the game. Now we know how she keeps her slim girlish figure!

Jose Canseco: Hall-worthy or Buffoon?

Jose Canseco finally called it a career in May, 2002. What started with such promise in his rookie-of-the-year season at Oakland at the start of his 17 year career ended with a whimper, 38 homers shy of the 500 mark he hoped to reach, which he thought would assure his election to the Hall. Some of the more amusing anecdotes included:

• Early in Canseco's career, Sparky Anderson raved, "I'll tell you what, this kid is going to be something. Just look at him. He's built like a Greek goddess."
• After a few years with the A's, Jose predicted he would become baseball's first 50-50 (steals-homers) player, but said he couldn't unless the Coliseum's fences were moved in. Qwipped then-A's General Manager Sandy Alderson, "We'd be happy to shorten the basepaths, too."
• He blew out his arm in an ill-advised relief stint with the Rangers, and when he joined the Red Sox the next year, he asked Boston manager Kevin Kennedy, who also was his manager in Texas, "Can I continue my pitching career?"
• And who can forget the ball that bounced off his head and went over the fence for a homer when he played outfield for Texas in 1993. Said Keith Olbermann, "This makes you think there's something to this lively ball theory. In the old days, if guy got hit on the head, it would have just dropped to the ground. Now it goes over the fence."
• And in Jose's own words, "If I'd played all of my career in the outfield, I'd have 500 homers and 600 errors."
• And, "I see myself as a common person, I watch cartoons just like everyone else."
• And more Jose baseball wisdom: after hitting a drive to Tropicana Field's left field, the ball got hung up on a catwalk 300 feet out and 140 feet up. It was the first time anyone did that in that dome. Thinking he had a three-run homer, he was disappointed to find out he only had a ground-rule double. His take was, "I think if a ball gets stuck up there, you should take as many bases as you can get. You might get 10 or 12 runs until they figure out how to get up there and get the ball."

And More Stuff for Mark