I didn't have a lot of hope for this park coming into this game having seen some games there and reading a bit about the park before we arrived. Yes, "Mount Davis" as they call the "bribe" the city/county paid for to entice Al Davis to stay in Oakland is an ugly monstrosity that turns the stadium into more of a football stadium. And yes, the upper decks are completely closed off with Oakland A's tarps, but the park itself was better than I expected. No, it still doesn't outrank any of the other new parks, but it wasn't that bad either.
We sat right behind home plate in the MVP section which was the recommendation for best value. The seats were NICE - a little wider than I am used to and we had a really nice view from there as well. Of course, there were plenty of "oooooos" when ANY type of fly ball happened. I've been to enough games to know you have to watch the outfielders, not the ball from that spot.
The fans were totally into it too even though there was only about 22,000 in attendance. That was MUCH higher than I would have thought considering it was a Wed afternoon game against the last place Royals. What's "funny" is that we were thinking we were going to be watching two lousy teams but then I checked the standings and found out the A's are actually in 2nd place and 1 game over .500 while the Royals were well below .500 but still better winning percentage than the Cubs. Anyway, the fans were similar to those in Wrigley such that they boo the fans that fail to catch foul balls...I like that!
The A's started out slowly and I mean really slowly...starter Brett Anderson walked the Royals lead-off hitter (former White Sox Chris Getz) on 4 pitches. Then on a perfectly executed hit and run (hear that Lou?!?), the #2 hitting Mike Aviles hit a grounder right through the newly vacated 2B position for a base hit to put runners at 1st and 3rd. Aviles stole 2nd and advanced to 3rd on Billy Butler's sac fly that scored Getz. Aviles later scored on a grounder to 3B although the A's tried to get that second out at home. The A's escaped with no further damage but didn't do any of their own damage until the 6th inning when they plated 4 runs with the help of some poor fielding by the Royals. The big knock of the inning was a 2-run double off the right-center field wall by Kevin Kouzmanoff. A solo shot by Royals' SS Betancourt was the final tally of the game and the A's won the game 4-3. That W brings our record to a pretty impressive 11-5 and 10-1 in our last 11 after a bit of a slow start.
The field was in nice condition (they have those built-in "chalk" foul lines that the grounds crew only needs to sweep) and the weather was MUCH nicer than the weather in San Francisco so those were both pluses in the ranking. It was $1 hot dog day and Root Beer Float day too with the money from the celebrity-made root beer floats going to Ron Santo's favorite charity - JDRF. The hot dogs were rated #1 in MLB by the guys that wrote the book we've been reading. I'm from Chicago and like to think I know hot dogs...these were pretty good but the grilled dogs at Wrigley are THE BEST in the majors. The vendor area underneath the stands was pretty newish in that there were LOTS of places down there and a decent amount of room to make your way through. They did have Wrigley Field style troughs in the mens' bathroom which made me feel right at home (still the most efficient way to allow lots of guys to do their thing quickly). They had a nice enough out-of-town AL (left field corner) and NL (right field corner) scoreboard but the rest of the amenities you see at the newer ball parks were not present here in Oakland like a jumbo-tron (I'm sure the pair they have used to be considered huge back in the day, but not by today's standards).
So the Coliseum didn't surpass any of the newer parks but rose to the top of the list of older parks besides "the big three" - Fenway, "old" Yankee, and Wrigley. OK, so here is my updated ball park ranking to date:
1. Comerica Park (Detroit)
2. PNC Park (Pittsburgh)
3. Jacobs Field (Cleveland)
4. Citizens Bank Park (Philadelphia)
5. Kauffman Stadium (Kansas City, MO)
6. Fenway Park (Boston)
7. Miller Park (Milwaukee)
8. AT&T Park (San Francisco)
9. Great American Ballpark (Cincinnati)
10. Busch Stadium (St. Louis)
11. Yankee Stadium (NY Yankees – pre-2009)
12. Wrigley Field (Chicago)
13. Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum (Oakland)
14. Metrodome (Minneapolis)
15. Shea Stadium (NY Mets)
Next up is Safeco in Seattle where we get to see the Royals play again, this time against the Mariners. It is another day game which will be good too as I really do enjoy day baseball much more than night baseball.
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