IBC

I did this in another league, but thought it might be a cool feature for this league as well.


PETCO PARK - San Diego Padres

As some of you know, I'm in San Diego to see the Mets take on the Padres.

Last night was the first time I went to Petco Park...and I was not too impressed.

For a new stadium, it was very plain and boring.
You had to leave the stadium (and get your hand stamped) if you wanted to grab a smoke & Beer was 8.50 a pop.

That being said...the fans were great. They were passionate, stayed to the final pitch, and gave me a good razing the all the way out of the stadium and 4 blocks away after my Mets lost.

Much more refreshing than the impase Braves fans I usually contend with.

Back to the stadium:
The OF is huge. It's not as bad as the old Tiger stadium, but the power alleys are almost the same as dead CF...that's what makes the power numbers so limited there.

There's actually a short porch directly down RF. It's about 315, and extends from the foul pole for about 20 feet, then it dips back to 345 or something, and frustrates hitters all season long.

One thing that the stadium got right is the seats are actually angled toward home plate, which saves the neck muscles a little.

Also, the count is angled right behind both batters box, so when your watching a hitter from either side of the field, you can see the count directly above his head (between the field/Mezzanine levels).

The scoreboard also showed replays of the away team making good plays, which most stadiums will NEVER do. My theory is good baseball is good baseball, and some plays deserve to be shown again regardless of which team performed it. I am in the minority as a fan of the away team usually though.

The view beyond the batters eye of the downtown area is similar to Camden yards, littered with abandoned warehouses and lofts. Kind of nice, but nothing special.


Ratings: (1-Bad...10-Great)
Parking: N/A (I'll fill this in Wednesday when I park there)
Concessions: 6 (nothing special, California inflated)
Fan Passion: 9 (they were also very knowledgeable)
Restrooms: 7 (nice and clean, but always packed)
View from seats: 7 (20 rows behind the dugout doesn't hurt)
Ticket Prices: 7 ($50 for field level is par)
Ball Park music: 5 (plenty of country music? in SD)
Jumbotron: 9 (not the biggest screen for a new park, but they didn't feel the need to litter it with a bunch of crappy special features like "kiss cam", etc. like some stadiums that feel their fans have the attention span of a 3 year old. Also showed plenty of replays, good and bad)
Overall Experience: 7 (B-) (not a bad place to watch a game, but I wouldn't put it in the top half of the league, or the bottom half...It's somewhere in the middle, much like a team that 15th in the power rankings, or a B- student.

I'll be going to the games tonight and tomorrow as well, so if anyone has a specific question, let me know and I'll check it out for you.

I think we might have enough GM's to get similar reviews for most of the stadiums.

Other stadiums I can do:
Turner Field
Shea Stadium
Yankee Stadium
Pro Player (Marlins)
but someone might be able to do a better job than I on those...especially Shea and Yankee stadium since I am biased.

Miller Park

Last year saw Brewers vs Cubs in Milwaukee. Probably the nicest stadium ive seen. It was the only ballpark ive seen where it had a football atmosphere outside. Huge parking lot with thousands of people with the grills out and tailgating. I had seats in the mezzanine between home plate and the 3rd base dugout. It was still a great view, a lot closer then yankee stadium thats for sure. The food was fairly cheap, on a ballpark scale mainly because its in the midwest. The bathrooms were very accessible and there were no lines. And the ballpark itself was amazing, it was huge, it has the big slide out in left field, the roof itself was its own attraction, and they have sick fireworks when a homerun is hit. Also cant leave out the best feature which was the sausage races in the 7th inning, the fans go nuts over it.

Ratings

Parking-10-Just like a football stadium right in the middle of a huge parkinglot
Concessions-7-Concessions were great but they were limited to mostly bratwurst.
Fan Passion-7-Fans dont fill the seats everygame but the ones who do come especially against the cubs are passionate.
Restrooms-9-Clean, No lines.
View From Seats-7-For the mezzanine it was a great view.
Ticket Prices-8-Cheap and affordable
Ballpark Music-8-Standard music
Jumbotron-8-Big nice jumbotron which I could see clearly
Overall Experience-10-Best ballpark ive been to yet.

I forgot all about this thread and figure I'll review New Busch. I should have a review up of GABP next month sometime after I get up there.

Busch Stadium

The outside of the stadium is awesome. On one corner is the giant statue of Musial that I'll have to get a close up look at later this summer. In front of the gift shop is probably 10 small statues of various Cardinal and Negro League greats like Dizzy Dean, Cool Papa Bell and Bob Gibson. The Jack Buck statue is off by itself and constantly plays clips of Buck's greatest calls. Of course being there with Gabe, he didn't want to look at these things because being a Cub fan his history is one of failure and he was jealous.

The inside of the stadium is very nice. We had nosebleed seats but they were still very good seats and you could see everything great. Food is really expensive but that's pretty much the norm anywhere you go for a game anymore. Lots of nearby parking, though we walked to the game so that wasn't a problem. Definatly going to have to go back this summer