MLB Ball Park Review - Safeco Field (Seattle)

Well, it was drizzling outside this morning and I wasn't too sure what the Mariners were going to do with the retractable roof. Of course as I've mentioned before, I am a big fan of day baseball, but I really didn't want to be sitting out there in a steady rain with my family either. Well, the Mariners and the weather cooperated quite nicely. The retractable roof was closed when we arrived for "batting" practice. That's in quotes because the Mariners must have either done their BP early or skipped it altogether and the Royals (second time this trip we've seen them - yippee) hit about 3 HRs combined with all of their mostly left-handed hitters which was strange considering the Mariners starter was a lefty but I guess that's how you end up in last place. What I didn't know about Safeco was that while they do have the retractable roof, it is still considered an open air stadium meaning the sides are not enclosed at all. If you remember from my Miller Park post, it was drizzling in Milwaukee that day so they closed the roof, but they kept the windows closed and it was stifling inside. Well, not at all so with Safeco...the air temperature outside was a very comfortable 65-70 degrees which meant the "inside" temperature was the same.

Right before the game started (actually during the National Anthem which was sung quite well by a local fireman), they opened the roof. It takes between 10-20 minutes to do so depending on wind conditions. Humorously, they play "I Can See Clearly Now" as the roof opens (of course, they waited a bit after the anthem to start up that song) and it looked like it might be a "sun shiny day" after all...not so, remember we are in Seattle, but it didn't rain again which is all that really matters.

I REALLY liked the combo of having a retractable roof AND still maintain the "open air stadium" effect so that really help push Safeco up my list. I also enjoyed the foot-long hot dog with grilled onions although you can put grilled onions (or bacon for that matter) on anything and I'll probably like it. My wife had the grilled brat with the same grilled onions and didn't like it too much...we're from Chicago and to me, the only place to get a good brat is in Wisconsin (Johnsonville baby!) so I hardly ever venture out on other brats...kind of like pizza outside Chicago...it just is NOT the same thing. This was the third straight stadium offering garlic fries and although I only had 4-5 (dropped them off too early with the wife and two kids apparently), these were the best and actually the cheapest at $6 for a very generous portion so I'd say the food was pretty good. The crowd of just over 24,000 was pretty subdued, but I guess when you're team is as bad as the M's, that's to be expected (although the Cubs crowd always seems to be pretty lively).

There also wasn't much to cheer about either as both teams had only 8 hits and scored a combined 5 runs. I thought the M's managing was a bit suspect feeling like they should have been running earlier in the game and instead hit into an inning killing DP when they were trying to get on the board first in the bottom of the 4th. Chone Figgins (struggling in his first season with the M's) led off with a walk; a 1-2 pitch to Casey Kotchman was the pitch to run on and it bounced well in front of Jason Kendall behind the plate for the Royals for ball 2; and on the next pitch Kotchman grounded into a DP. My thoughts were confirmed when in a similar position, the M's DID run and that led to 2 runs in the 6th. Ichiro went the other way with a 1-out single to LF and on a 1-2 pitch Ichiro was running and Figgins hit a hard grounder through the vacated spot at SS to put runners at the corners with 1 out. While Kotchman worked the count, Figgins stole 2nd to get two runners in scoring position and on a 2-2 pitch lined a single up the middle scoring both of the M's fastest base runners to take a 2-1 lead that the M's would not relinquish. Another questionable decision by the M's manager came in the very next inning with the M's on the verge of serving up a knock-out punch to the fairly punchless offense of the Royals...for whatever reason the Royals left in their starter Kyle Davies to start the 7th even after a 33-pitch 6th inning which put him well over 100 pitches for the game; he gave up a lead-off single to Franklin Gutierrez and THEN was replaced by Texeira who promptly gave up another single to Jose Lopez...so here's where the questionable strategy comes into play...Josh Bard lays down a really nice sac bunt (sounds OK so far, right?) to bring up Ryan Langerhans. Ryan was 0-2 and had struck out twice on 6 pitches total indicating to me that he just wasn't seeing the ball all that well today. Maybe he'll put in a pinch-hitter here in a tight spot...nope...suicide squeeze! Guess what? Didn't work...the Royals must have seen it coming because they called a pitch out leaving Gutierrez hanging out to dry turning 2nd and 3rd with one out into runner at 3rd and two outs. Langerhans promptly struck out on the next pitch going 0-3 with 3 Ks on 9 total pitches...doesn't get much worse than that...mercifully for him, that was his last AB of the game. The M's did get a much needed unearned insurance run in the 8th when Ichiro led off with an infield hit and advanced to 2nd when the throw from Royals SS Mike Aviles ended up in the stands. Ichiro then scored when Figgins singled to LF to make it 3-1. Royals pinch-hitter Alex Gordon hit a LONG homerun to CF in the top of the 9th to make it 3-2 of former Cub and current M's closer David Aardsma but couldn't get another base runner so the final was 3-2 Mariners over the Royals and another W for us! With today's W, we completed another undefeated vacation going 3-0 and improving our overall record to 12-5. Since that awful 1-4 start, we've gone 11-1 since...that's pretty impressive!

As you can see, I really liked Safeco as it moved in front of my favorite of the old ball parks (Fenway Park) on my list. 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. Safeco Field (Seattle)
7. Fenway Park (Boston)
8. Miller Park (Milwaukee)
9. AT&T Park (San Francisco)
10. Great American Ballpark (Cincinnati)
11. Busch Stadium (St. Louis)
12. Yankee Stadium (NY Yankees – pre-2009)
13. Wrigley Field (Chicago)
14. Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum (Oakland)
15. Metrodome (Minneapolis)
16. Shea Stadium (NY Mets)

Well, that's 16 ball parks down and 14 more to go! I can't believe we're more than halfway through our journey.

Next up is the White Sox vs. Yankees at U.S. Cellular Field (Chicago) at the end of August. That's not part of this trip but since we live in Chicago, we can see this game without being part of the baseball trip...this one is through my dad's company and several family members will join us but I'll still report on it as I have done each of the other parks the last two years. So that will make 17 parks out of 30 leaving us with "only" 13 left...not sure what we're going to do next year either but we'll start talking about it after the start of 2011.

Since we're nearing the end of our trip, I just want to use this last little part here to AGAIN thank my wife for setting this up and really outdoing herself with a great trip plan. This was one of our longest baseball vacations to date and there were only 3 baseball games meaning there was LOTS of time to fill with other activities and boy did she ever fill that extra time. We still have one more day left in Seattle tomorrow before we head home and I've had a great time so far sweetie…THANK YOU!

MLB Ball Park Review - Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum (Oakland)

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.

MLB Ball Park Review - AT&T Park (San Francisco)

Well, we have officially started our 4th annual baseball vacation! Our first stop was in San Francisco to see the Giants take on their arch-rival LA Dodgers. We walked around the outside of the entire park starting behind home plate located on 24 Willie Mays Plaza. The outfield walls are bordered by a sidewalk that allows visitors of the park to walk around near the bay and local marina storing LOTS of sailboats.

From the outside, the ballpark is quite impressive with lots of outdoor area for fans to mingle before/after games. You can also see the backs of some of the park's amenities including the large Coca-Cola bottle and old-fashioned baseball glove. There are a couple of statues that we saw; the first was of Orlando Cepeda but the best one was of Willie Mays near the 3B entrance. There was a mural of Giants' accomplishments painted on high up on a wall near the RF entrance which was perfect as this was where we were planning to enter the park since our seats were in the famous "arcade" area. There were several impressive facts displayed on the wall including all the pennants and division titles the team has won throughout the many years of their existence. One interesting note was that the Giants have gone 0-for-California as far as World Series titles as their last title came in 1954 which was 4 years before they left NY for the west coast.

The Giants beat their hated in-state rival LA Dodgers in front of a capacity crowd of over 42,000 people including many using standing room which I just don't get. There was not much offense by either team as the Giants scored 2 runs on a 2-out triple by Edgar Renteria. Some minor "controversy" on this play as the Dodgers' CF Matt Kemp clearly lost the ball in the sun that in another couple minutes would have been hidden completely behind the stands. I don't believe Kemp would have caught the ball but he may have limited Renteria to a double and kept one of the runs from scoring. I think the ball was going to the wall regardless though and while you never know what might have happened had one thing changed, the Dodgers still scored ZERO and you can't win a baseball game with no runs.

The crowd was definitely into it...reminded me of a Cubs vs. Cardinals game. There were quite a few brave Dodger fans but they were pretty quiet throughout the game as their team didn't give them much to cheer about other than the pitching of Kershaw who was stuck with the loss. I was quietly cheering for one new Dodger - former Cub Ryan Theriot had just been traded to the Dodgers the day before along with LH starter Ted Lilly (Lilly was the main piece of the trade, but wasn't pitching, plus The-Riot used to be my favorite Cub). Theriot went 0-4 with 2 Ks but played some solid D at 2B for his new club.

The park itself was pretty nice; MUCH better than Candlestick for baseball or so I'm told as I've never been there. As I mentioned at the beginning, we sat in the Arcade area which consists of only 3 rows of seats followed by some standing room (filled to capacity!) and a walkway before you're looking at a railing and then the sidewalk and bay outside the stadium. We were there pretty early so we saw both teams take BP (the Dodgers even looked pathetic during BP). While my wife and daughters went to tour the park, my son and I hung around. One ball screamed over us (no chance unfortunately to catch that one) and several went into the bay but we never had a real chance to catch a ball. My son, however worked himself into getting a ball thrown up to him which he caught and kept as a proud souvenir so that was a nice highlight. The scoreboard was very large, but didn't show as many replays as I would have liked; the in-park announcer was a female with a piercing voice that had my youngest flinching nearly every time; and the unique angles particularly in RF made the park somewhat unique. The Stalag 13 security attitude was a bit disturbing as we had to present our tickets on return to our seats following a run for the famous garlic fries (a little too greasy even for me) and then again once we were seated. With so many people in attendance, this seemed a bit excessive to me as anyone that may have been sitting in the wrong seat certainly would have been quickly discovered by the real seat holder pretty early on as there seemed to be very few empties. The weather was a factor and although it was a sunny afternoon, it was hardly a comfortable "shorts day" even in the bleachers...remember this is early August! The Coca-Cola bottle and baseball glove were unique but the park really just didn't knock me out. As such, I have ranked AT&T ranked 8th on my list so far. I doubt it is in any danger of moving down following our next game in Oakland, but it certainly could get pushed even further down the list.

With Sunday’s win by the Giants, we have started up a new winning streak at 1 and are now 10-5 overall. There are only 14 ball parks listed below because we actually saw a double-header which my youngest was very nervous about during our first trip but was happy to learn that a double-header means two games, not two heads.

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. Metrodome (Minneapolis)
14. Shea Stadium (NY Mets)

Next up is Oakland Coliseum in Oakland, CA on Wednesday when the A's will host the KC Royals. Both teams are not very good, but who am I to say since I am a stupid Cubs' fan. Is it worse to have a team you're not spending $140 million on losing badly night after night or a team you're not spending much money on losing night after night...maybe it's a wash for us fans. Anyway not exactly expecting a big crowd for a Wed afternoon game in Oakland with these two teams facing off, but we'll see.