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Ballpark review!

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by Bubbler, Aug 13, 2012.

  1. JackReacher

    JackReacher Well-Known Member

    Ohhhhh. They have a Wet Willie's? Impossible for me to visit a city with one of those and NOT go in and get completely shithammered. During my 3-day bachelor party in Miami, we went there at least once every night.

    Noted.
     
  2. Present parks: Wrigley, US Cellular, Great American Ballpark, Progressive Field, Comerica Park, Busch Stadium III, Miller Park, Kauffman Stadium, Tropicana Field, Target Field, Rogers Centre, Turner Field, Nationals Park, Citizens Bank Park, Camden Yards, PNC Park.

    Past parks: Riverfront Stadium, Busch Stadium II, Shea Stadium, Yankee Stadium.


    I've had this argument before with people and some people early in this thread were echoing a lot of what some "ballpark" reviewers have to say: the stadiums of today are just HOK (now Populus) cookie cutters. There's no question there are major similarities and you can almost just tell by visiting what order many of them were built. But most, certainly not all, have enough distinguishable characteristics to make them different enough. Plus, they are major upgrades and the point (aside from making a lot of money and having lavish club/suite areas) was to give a better ballpark for locals to go to everys night or at least 5 or 10 times a summer. GABP in Cincy is pretty bland, but it's still light years better than Riverfront, even Riverfront when they broke open left field. Same for the new version of Busch Stadium. It's certainly kind of drab in places, but the old Busch Stadium sucked, even when they put in natural grass.

    Even though I've played baseball since I could walk and even played for a short spell in college, ballparks have always been more interesting to me than the game itself. I carried a tattered copy of Green Cathedrals with me in elementary school and would design my own stadiums as early as the 4th grade. I've been to my fair share of minor league parks, too. And again, even though HOK/Populus is repeating a lot of things now, these newer stadiums are, in fact, better places to spend an evening. Someone mentioned Nashville's park earlier...that place does suck. I love Fort Wayne, Indiana's new ballpark. The old place sucked...even though it's where I took my wife to her very first ever professional baseball game a couple days after we graduated from high school (saw Oliver Perez pitch that night and saw Oliver Perez pitching a few weeks ago on my 30th birthday, again with my wife). There's really not a bad place, in my opinion, to see a game in those ballparks that I've been to that were built from Camden Yards to now.

    Biggest dump ever was Shea Stadium. Though Yankee Stadium sucked too...the chipped and cracked concrete made me nervous as I climbed to my upper deck seat. Tropicana Field sucks ass now. I was there a few weeks ago. Seriously, it sucks...glad it has a roof though or I'd have gotten rained out on my birthday.

    Wrigley is Wrigley. I don't argue with those that say it's a dump, but it will always be the most magical place to me because A.) it's the first park I ever went to and I'll never forget getting to my seat when I was 8-years old, B.) I am a longtime Cubs fan (by Indiana geography and thanks to summer afternoons at my Grandma's house, who actually got WGN). So, I never include it in my rankings of best.

    My top three:

    1. PNC
    It's more intimate than the other new parks since they put the press box up top and the club seating is actually just the lower five or so rows of the upper (2nd) deck. View is great. Food is great. Team sucks, but I'm usually just there to watch the opponent or to enjoy my favorite ballpark.

    2. Camden Yards
    It's main flaw is that it was built before the full, in-view wraparound concourses that pretty much everyplace has now. But the brick and green seat scheme, universally copied at all levels since, is still beautiful. The Warehouse is great. I didn't have the BBQ, but the crab cake was amazing...albeit ridiculously priced.

    3. Kauffman and Target Field share this spot. I like them both a ton, for different reasons.

    Really want to get to San Francisco, and obviously a journey to Fenway is very necessary and will probably be done within the next year.

    Nationals Park and Progressive Field strike me as the most bland. They're functional and I'm sure major, major upgrades over what was there before. But I have no great memories of the places. I just went to Progressive back in June and it's still a nice play 20 years later, but just sort of boring.

    US Cellular and Turner Field are most alike to me. Both places I have zero desire to ever see a game again, despite having ok times at both places. One note about US Cellular, I hate being relegated to only where your seat level is. After all, I'm like 99 percent the jackasses who beat up the first base coach were actually sitting in their purchased seats, or at least they had 100-level tickets. That was such a knee-jerk reaction.
     
  3. JackReacher

    JackReacher Well-Known Member

    Speaking of Camden Yards, there's some sort of hot dog topped with crab meat, old bay, and mac and cheese there that I need to try sometime soon. It's $9, but looks pretty awesome.
     
  4. BitterYoungMatador2

    BitterYoungMatador2 Well-Known Member

    House of Blues is Barefoot Landing, which is about 15 minutes north on 17.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 1, 2015
  5. JackReacher

    JackReacher Well-Known Member

    Gotcha. Thanks.
     
  6. BitterYoungMatador2

    BitterYoungMatador2 Well-Known Member

    As is Barefoot after a quick Google search. Had many a beer at the HoB back when my parents had a place in North Myrtle.
     
  7. Smasher_Sloan

    Smasher_Sloan Active Member

    That's the nature of St. Louis people. Even though they drink gallons of Budweiser, they're polite and reserved.
     
  8. Michael_ Gee

    Michael_ Gee Well-Known Member

    X-Hack's assessment of Fenway is as accurate and fair an assessment as I've ever seen. I would add one thing. Fenway's structure, with the stands mostly facing east, means that the prevailing winds in early spring, late summer and fall blow right in your face, while they don't enter the stands in the rest of the season. Meaning it's cold as hell until past Mother's Day, and extremely stuffy in the summer.
     
  9. Armchair_QB

    Armchair_QB Well-Known Member

    And mullet-headed, jort-wearing douchebags.
     
  10. Smasher_Sloan

    Smasher_Sloan Active Member

    No one ever mistook St. Louis for San Francisco.
     
  11. doubledown68

    doubledown68 Active Member

    I'm provably, demonstrably biased on this.... but Bubbler is preaching the truth. And while we're at it... Boulevard>Anheuser/InBev Busch.
     
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