Ballpark review!

Washington, HOK design -- note the 200s in right field, I believe that is upper-deck seating:





Citi Field, HOK design -- pretty sure the 300 and 500 levels in the outfield are upper-deck:



Not going to go through the whole list, but if you were trying to say that all the HOK fields have first-level bleacher seating only to take advantage of the views, you're pretty far off base on that.

 

I've only been to:

Memorial Stadium -- dump in a shitty part of town

Camden Yards -- one of the jewels of baseball helped by the location near the Inner Harbor and the personality of the ballpark itself

Turner Field -- OK, I guess. Good sightlines. Food isn't crazy expensive. Pretty easy to get in and out of, though my experience was riding the MARTA and not parking a car.

Nationals Park -- Good potential. You can see some of the historic buildings off in the distance at the top of upper deck.

RFK Stadium -- Was always a dump in an awful part of D.C. I wonder what happens to the place if United actually gets a soccer-only stadium.

Progressive/Jacobs Field -- Pretty cookie cutter, I suppose. Close to all of the good downtown bars/restaurants in the Cleve. Pretty easy to score cheap seats. I sat in the upper deck, third base line and had a really good sightline.

Wrigley Field -- 'Nuff said. Lots of history and charm. Smells like an old ballpark. Area around the yard can't be beat.

Chase Field -- It's always be the BOB to me. While it's a nice stadium, it has very little character outside of the pool in right field. Very cool place to watch a game when the roof is open, but as you know, there aren't many opportunities for that to happen in Phoenix outside of April and October.

Dodger Stadium -- Was honestly pretty disappointed. Dodger dogs are horribly overrated.

Angels Park -- the year they were doing the renovation. Looks pretty nice now, but it was still the Big A at the time and pretty much a dump.

 

Yeah. Safeco is high on my list, too. Really enjoyed that place.

 

Among new stadiums:

1. AT&T
2. PNC
3. Camden Yards
4. Comerica
5. Nats Park

*I haven't seen Target yet.

 

The attendance at Sox Park (if you really want to sound like a native) fluctuates wildly in part because, unlike Wrigley, it relies heavily on locals and local families to fill it, relies on local and local families who leave way out in the burbs to come in to fill it, and has to compete with locals' and local families' graduations, weddings, birthday parties and other summer family events, including kids' travel games. Basically, for a weekday game, the problem is getting there from Tinley Park, or getting home from the park if you work downtown (although a new suburban commuter rail stop outside the park helps immensely), and for a weekend game, it's whether you can plausibly explain to your family why you're blowing off your aunt and uncle's 50th wedding anniversary party for a game against the A's.

Also, Jerry Reinsdorf has made it clear in his ticket pricing (he was a pioneer of "dynamic" pricing) that he would rather get more out of 25,000 at the park than sell for less for the sake of a sellout. As for keeping the upper deck ruffians away from the lower deck, you can blame the Ligues for that. Also, it now makes you buy a more expensive ticket if you want your kids to be able to play in the Fundamentals area in left field.

All that said, my kids enjoy Sox Park far more than Wrigley, mainly because of the Fundamentals deck, and because there's plenty of space to walk around. Perhaps when they're 21 they'll appreciate Wrigley and the surrounding area far more.

 

As a lifelong White Sox fan, I don't have much love for "new Comiskey Park." Yes, the renovations made things better after acres of unused upper-deck seats went unused in the 1990s ... but you still have to practically shoot a ball out of a cannon to get a foul ball up there. And I have always loved sitting in the outfield for BP and the ball game, but at new Comiskey there's that damn moat between the outfield fence and the seats.

New Comiskey was blatantly built for corporate box seats first, general public (especially lower-priced seats) a distant second. They've gotten better at hiding that fact with the baseball parks built since then.

Growing up, we usually sat in the upper-deck at "old" Comiskey, and they were great seats (assuming you weren't too far back under the overhang -- usually no problem). Maybe it's because I was younger and everything seemed cooler then ... other than the softball-style unis!

Interesting that some levels of seats don't have access to the kids fundamentals area, Bob. That's really lame. Class warfare indeed!

And yeah, the neighborhood has been bulldozed/gentrified a great deal -- or at least it seemed that way to me when I went to a game a few years ago. Hopefully my old standby, Home Run Inn pizza is still there.

 

Have you been to either of them? They may look the same on a ticket chart, but the ballpark experience is vastly different.

For one, Cincinnati's upper deck is further away from the field than Pittsburgh's is. Secondly, there's a two-deck outfield in Cincinnati and just one in Pittsburgh.

The only place they look similar is in right field.

 

Not sure if it is around the ballpark, but Home Run Inn is still around Chicago. I actually prefer Giordano's to HRI, though.

 

Live on the north side. Watch baseball on the South Side.

 

Completely agree with our comparison of PNC Park and Great American Ballpark. I went to a game in Cincinnati two years ago and I was disappointed. Sure, part of PNC's charm is the location, but there is also a more intimate feel. Cinci's ballpark isn't bad, but it's nothing special either.

I haven't seen enough of the good ones in person to put together a respectable list, but until recently, the Pirates have been wasting one hell of a ballpark.

I'm not sure if everybody is doing this, but the Pirates' website has a seating and pricing map. If you click on a section, a picture of the view from that section pops up. I thought that was pretty cool.

http://pittsburgh.pirates.mlb.com/pit/ticketing/seating_pricing.jsp

 

That's pretty standard to have a view from the seats. I know Comerica, GAP and Comiskey all have it.

A lot of minor league teams even do it.