This is our second ballpark visit of the year and our 19th overall over these last five years. We now have 11 left but as mentioned yesterday, we'll knock off one more this year leaving us with 3 trips left to catch the last 10 teams.
No ballpark tour for this one...we did find RV parking and it was really quite close to the ballpark...we parked for "just" $40 which is what I've paid to park my car in some makeshift lots near Wrigley Field, so $40 didn't seem to bad for an RV.
This is one of the older newer ballparks and was opened in 1994...this was part of what I call the first wave of the old-school new ballparks along with Camden Yards, Progressive Field (formerly Jacobs Field in Cleveland), Coors Field, Turner Field, etc. which followed an era of cookie-cutter astroturf stadiums...to me, ballparks are just WAY better for baseball than the old stadiums.
This one looks pretty cool on the outside with brown brick and clean lines...there are Texas Longhorns and Stars lining the top of the outside of the ballpark which looks pretty cool. It is really close to the Jerry Jones behemoth called Cowboy Stadium and shares parking which is of course, pretty smart since the seasons hardly overlap and the schedulers for both sports can make sure they aren't hosting games on the same day at nearly the same time. Nice big TV screen above the folks in RF just like The Juice Box I discussed yesterday...quite nice, but not enough replays in my opinion.
Many of the park's features were incorporated from other famous ballparks such as Tigers Stadium (RF roof), Yankee Stadium (white steel in the OF), Fenway Park (scoreboard), and Ebbets Field (non-symmetrical dimensions in the outfield) but there are plenty of other features unique to this ballpark...4-story office building enclosing the outfield in CF and Green's Hill just beyond the CF wall where homerun balls are picked up by scrambling fans.
Going in, I had pretty high expectations...the Ballpark did not exactly live up to those expectations. Don't get me wrong...I certainly enjoyed my experience and we had fantastic seats in the Lexus Club boxes which is the lower seats in the second deck...we had a waitress come by to take our dinner order and deliver it just a few short minutes later...that was REALLY nice. We arrived early and had a chance to get to the bleachers during the Mariners' BP session, but with the wind blowing in and not many big HR hitters on the Mariners, I could count the HRs on my two hands. The Seattle pitchers were shagging balls in the OF and the kids were all screaming for them to throw a ball up to us, but finally at one point, one of them let us know that they were told not to throw balls into the bleachers...see, this is the park where a fan recently died after he fell over a railing catching a ball thrown to him by Josh Hamilton...the security there wouldn't even allow us to stand in the first row during BP without a ticket for that row. No matter, my son and I braved the 100+ heat and it paid off as my son caught a HR...pretty cool!
The food was good (I had the chicken quesadillas), the service was good, and the Rangers pounded the last place Mariners with an absolute barrage of hits. One thing that really surprised us was the lack of fans in attendance...I know the Mariners are in last place and the temps were well into the 100s prior to gametime, but these Rangers just played in the World Series LAST YEAR after winning their first ever playoff series (and second too!)...where's the local support??? They reported 27,000 but there's no way there were nearly that many people there. The crowd was quite subdued too...not much energy...I guess they feel spoiled now and will get back into baseball come playoff time (they only had a 1 game lead on the LA Angels prior to tonight's game so that's no guarantee) and come cooler temps I guess.
That was probably part of my feeling when ranking this park...no fan energy. I mean we were in Houston a couple nights ago to watch the worst team in MLB (Astros) play so I expected their crowd to be dead...but these are the 1st place Rangers...the defending AL Pennant champs...where's the love??? Speaking of the Astros...they have that retractable roof which helps keep the fans in the stands even when the outside temps are in the 100s...heck, they close the roof anytime the temps reach 85...no such technology available for the Rangers...perhaps if they had waited a few more years for the technology to better develop, they'd have an affordable retractable roof too.
The game itself was entertaining...at least if you were cheering for the hometown Rangers (we always cheer for the home team) as they pummeled the Mariners 9-2. Nelson Cruz started off the scoring with the lone HR of the game but the Rangers tacked on an unearned run following a two-base error, a groundout, and a base hit by Mitch Moreland. That would be a theme for the evening as both teams scored at least 2 runs in every inning they managed to score at all leaving the box score with 5 straight innings of crooked number scoring between the two teams. The 5th-8th hitters on the Rangers did the bulk of the damage hitting a combined 11-for-16 with 7 RBIs and 6 runs scored on the night...that's some intense production from the second half of the lineup.
So between the lack of fan frenzy, the lack of any "wow" factor at the park itself, and not having a retractable roof to keep my fan experience from burning up, I've got this park a lot lower than I expected going in.
OK, so here is my updated ball park ranking to date:
1. Comerica Park (Detroit)
2. PNC Park (Pittsburgh)
3. Minute Maid Park (Houston)
4. Jacobs Field (Cleveland)
5. Citizens Bank Park (Philadelphia)
6. Kauffman Stadium (Kansas City, MO)
7. Safeco Field (Seattle)
8. Fenway Park (Boston)
9. Miller Park (Milwaukee)
10. AT&T Park (San Francisco)
11. Rangers Ballpark in Arlington (Arlington, TX)
12. Great American Ballpark (Cincinnati)
13. Busch Stadium (St. Louis)
14. Yankee Stadium (NY Yankees – pre-2009)
15. Wrigley Field (Chicago)
16. U.S. Cellular Field (Chicago)
17. Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum (Oakland)
18. Metrodome (Minneapolis)
19. Shea Stadium (NY Mets)
Next up is our slow trip back home...in a little over a month, we'll be at it again...we're flying to Denver to catch a Rockies' game at Coors Field in mid-September. That will be ballpark #20 out of 30 on our tour leaving us with 10 parks left to visit...we figure 3 more trips ought to cover it. So come back and check out the blog update following the Rockies' game in mid-September to see where Coors Field is ranked.
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