116 replies to this topic

[wsox8]

I am very interested in the major league ballparks. My goal is to go to all of them and I have been to about 16 of them so far. I am going to my first White Sox game of the year on friday and I thought it would be cool to have a stadium reviews place. How did you like the stadium etc?

[timwakefield]

If you haven't been to Fenway Park, get there. It's incredible how close you are to the field, even in the last row (well, don't sit in the last row of the bleachers). Yes there's columns all over the place, but they're really not that bad. The atmosphere there is just incredible....so many of the fans pay such close attention to every pitch.

[MDXS]

timwakefield, on Wednesday, April 12th, 2006, 10:31 PM, said:

If you haven't been to Fenway Park, get there. It's incredible how close you are to the field, even in the last row (well, don't sit in the last row of the bleachers). Yes there's columns all over the place, but they're really not that bad. The atmosphere there is just incredible....so many of the fans pay such close attention to every pitch.

Wow....this is full of half-truths. If you're under the awning in right field and far back, you can't see the ball if it goes higher than 15 feet in the air. Actually, if you're in right field, you can't see any of the first hour of the game thanks to the sun. The columns suck. Suck hard. I had forty dollar seats for a game against the Cardinals and there was a column between me and home as well as a column between me and the scoreboard. Thankfully my sister left the game in the seventh (had a five year old to take home) and gave me her seats. The game went like 13 innings, so I got my money's worth. The atmosphere is incredible and the fans are great in the right areas of the ballpark. All the good seats are taken by yuppies and corporate-types who couldn't tell OPS from LSD or Coco Crisp from Count Chocula. Your best bet is the bleachers for about a million reasons...first being that they are the only seats that go for less than 30 bucks if you're lucky. There's a good chance your seats won't face towards home plate and it's a certainty that they'll be too small, but at least you'll no longer have to pee in a communal trough should you have to hit the can.

[timwakefield]

MDXS, on Wednesday, April 12th, 2006, 10:46 PM, said:

Wow....this is full of half-truths. If you're under the awning in right field and far back, you can't see the ball if it goes higher than 15 feet in the air. Actually, if you're in right field, you can't see any of the first hour of the game thanks to the sun.

You're right, I completely forgot to mention JUST DON'T SIT IN RIGHT FIELD. Standing is better...you have to stand, but you can get a pretty good view. Many times in High School me and a friend would get standing room. It's pretty much the only way you can get walk-up tickets. Only go on sale 1 hour before the game, and there's pretty much never a line. They used to be like $8, but I assume that now, they're probably like $40 (I'm only sort of kidding).The best seats I've ever had were when I got standing room. Just have to hope it rains for a little while, and you can take your pick of the empty box seats. Also the 18-inning game I went to (on like a Tuesday night), I got beautiful seats by the end. 3rd row behind the visitor's dugout.

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The columns suck. Suck hard. I had forty dollar seats for a game against the Cardinals and there was a column between me and home as well as a column between me and the scoreboard. Thankfully my sister left the game in the seventh (had a five year old to take home) and gave me her seats. The game went like 13 innings, so I got my money's worth.

It's true they can be bad, but most seats are okay. It is pretty annoying though when, for example, you can't see the pitcher and the batter at the same time. But shift your body and you can see either one.

Quote

The atmosphere is incredible and the fans are great in the right areas of the ballpark. All the good seats are taken by yuppies and corporate-types who couldn't tell OPS from LSD or Coco Crisp from Count Chocula. Your best bet is the bleachers for about a million reasons...first being that they are the only seats that go for less than 30 bucks if you're lucky. There's a good chance your seats won't face towards home plate and it's a certainty that they'll be too small, but at least you'll no longer have to pee in a communal trough should you have to hit the can.

You can still get grandstand seats, and there's certainly no yuppies there. Bleachers are pretty awesome, but I dunno if I'd bring little kids there. Definitely gonna see some fights.

[aadams_22]

I'll be at one in a few hours in St. Louis. I may be a Cub fan, but I have no problem saying that the best fan atmosphere in all of baseball belongs to the city of St. Louis, I have been to games where the Cardinals were down by 6 runs going into the bottom of the 9th and something as simple as a single to left field will get that stadium rocking again. This will be my first game at the new stadium.Here is a photo of the last game I ever saw at the old Busch Stadium. 8-06-2005, Braves 8-Cardinals 1, packed house as usual.

[wsox8]

I enjoy going to Fenway. I sat about 12 rows behind the right field foul pole. The stadium looked very nice and it was fun watching Pedro get 12 strikeouts against the Devil Rays. I'll load some of my ballpark pics in later. I'm still disappointed that I lost all my pictures from Detroit, Cleveland, and Cincinnati.

[MDXS]

aadams_22, on Thursday, April 13th, 2006, 4:26 AM, said:

I'll be at one in a few hours in St. Louis. I may be a Cub fan, but I have no problem saying that the best fan atmosphere in all of baseball belongs to the city of St. Louis, I have been to games where the Cardinals were down by 6 runs going into the bottom of the 9th and something as simple as a single to left field will get that stadium rocking again. This will be my first game at the new stadium.

I can vouch for the quality of St. Louis fans. At the game I went to above, the stadium was at least 1/3 Cardinals fans, which is something that never, ever happens at Fenway. Even the Yankees don't get that many seats and they have far less distance to travel. While they were rooting for the other team, there was a mutual respect thing going on so it never turned ugly.

[kers2]

aadams_22, on Thursday, April 13th, 2006, 8:26 AM, said:

That stadium was pretty beautiful for being one of the old "cookie cutter" stadiums

[Mercury69]

I recal being in Boston and going to see the BoSox play the White Sox, doubleheader, I think. I'm about 20 years old or so and I'm drinking cup after cup of whatever the lite beer was. Got to chatting with this real nice couple who seemed intent on drinking as much as me. Around the 6th inning or so, second game, I head down and get us all a beer. I get back to my seat and, forgetting that liquid won't stay in a vessel unless the vessel is upright, I spill a bunch of beer down the back of the neck of the guy in front of me. I'm very apologetic, but the guy won't let it go and offers to fight me, right then and there. The guy of the couple says "If you fight him, you can fight me, too". Clearly, this crossed the line for the angry guy, so he went and got security to throw us out. *******! I hope his *** smelled like **** and stale beer for his wife.

[KowboyKoop]

Mercury69, on Thursday, April 13th, 2006, 2:54 PM, said:

I recal being in Boston and going to see the BoSox play the White Sox, doubleheader, I think. I'm about 20 years old or so and I'm drinking cup after cup of whatever the lite beer was. Got to chatting with this real nice couple who seemed intent on drinking as much as me. Around the 6th inning or so, second game, I head down and get us all a beer. I get back to my seat and, forgetting that liquid won't stay in a vessel unless the vessel is upright, I spill a bunch of beer down the back of the neck of the guy in front of me. I'm very apologetic, but the guy won't let it go and offers to fight me, right then and there. The guy of the couple says "If you fight him, you can fight me, too". Clearly, this crossed the line for the angry guy, so he went and got security to throw us out. *******! I hope his *** smelled like **** and stale beer for his wife.

So...I'm confused. Are you the douchebag in this story...or is it the other guy?? Lol...I kid, I kid.

[wsox8]

This is a pic during the offseason when they were setting up for a soccer game. RFK StadiumMiller ParkCamden YardsI'll post a few more stadiums later....

[aadams_22]

I just got home and we were treated with a hell of a game. Our seats were three rows up from the field right next to the Brewer's bullpen. I was able to get a batting practice ball and decided to be nice and gave it to a little kid. The Brewers won the game in the 11th on a Carlos Lee homerun. Speaking of Lee, he saved the game in the bottom of the 9th when he robbed Edmonds of a game winning homerun directly in front of us. The stadium still isn't 100% complete yet, but it still is gorgeous.The old manual scoreboard is in the hall way down the first base line. It was kept exactly as it was on the last day of the 2005 season with all of the scores shown from the out of town games. I will definitely go back. Since I only live 90 minutes from St. Louis, it doesn't take much for me to get there...unlike the 5 hours I have to drive to Chicago. When I go back though I have to make sure that I get seats that will have some shade to them...I am the color of a fire engine right now. Some of the pics that I took from the game are in the "New Busch Stadium" thread.Oh and Kers, the reason that the old Busch Stadium looked nice is that the Cardinals sunk a large amount of money into it after the football Cardinals moved to Tempe. Without the football team the Cardinals didn't have to worry about keeping the stadium football ready. With the exception of a few Rams games in 1995 no football has been played in there since the football Cardinals left.

[wsox8]

aadams_22, on Thursday, April 13th, 2006, 6:03 PM, said:

I just got home and we were treated with a hell of a game. Our seats were three rows up from the field right next to the Brewer's bullpen. I was able to get a batting practice ball and decided to be nice and gave it to a little kid. The Brewers won the game in the 11th on a Carlos Lee homerun. Speaking of Lee, he saved the game in the bottom of the 9th when he robbed Edmonds of a game winning homerun directly in front of us. The stadium still isn't 100% complete yet, but it still is gorgeous.The old manual scoreboard is in the hall way down the first base line. It was kept exactly as it was on the last day of the 2005 season with all of the scores shown from the out of town games. I will definitely go back. Since I only live 90 minutes from St. Louis, it doesn't take much for me to get there...unlike the 5 hours I have to drive to Chicago. When I go back though I have to make sure that I get seats that will have some shade to them...I am the color of a fire engine right now. Some of the pics that I took from the game are in the "New Busch Stadium" thread.Oh and Kers, the reason that the old Busch Stadium looked nice is that the Cardinals sunk a large amount of money into it after the football Cardinals moved to Tempe. Without the football team the Cardinals didn't have to worry about keeping the stadium football ready. With the exception of a few Rams games in 1995 no football has been played in there since the football Cardinals left.

Thanks for the review. I really want to go there soon.. Looking forward to it

[kers2]

aadams_22, on Thursday, April 13th, 2006, 7:03 PM, said:

Oh and Kers, the reason that the old Busch Stadium looked nice is that the Cardinals sunk a large amount of money into it after the football Cardinals moved to Tempe. Without the football team the Cardinals didn't have to worry about keeping the stadium football ready. With the exception of a few Rams games in 1995 no football has been played in there since the football Cardinals left.

Loved the trip report, just deleted it to save some space.Yea I'm glad they put the money into the old stadium, because it looked fantastic. I cannot say the same about its contemporaries of that period. Veterans, Riverfront, and Three Rivers all looked like dog poop their entire existance. Riverfront especially. I cant wait to see the new stadium

[forumjp]

kingdome and safecokingdome feel very smallbut safeco is really cool~ huge space, train horns, cool place~

[Hobbes]

I've been to all the California stadiums except Petco. I did see a '98 playoff game at the old San Diego stadium though and that was a lot of fun. PacBell, or whatever it's called now, is definitely the best stadium, but my favorite is Dodger Stadium. (I could be a little biased about that though being a Dodger fan.) It's just a really nice place to kick back and watch a baseball game, especially day games. Oakland actually had a similar feel to it until the Raiders came back and they constructed Mt. Davis in the outfield. Now it sucks. I've also been to Safeco, which is a prety cool place, and Kauffman, which is a great little ballpark. If I could go to any stadium right now to watch a game it would probably be Wrigley and I'd sit in the bleachers. Seems like a good time.

[aadams_22]

kers2, on Friday, April 14th, 2006, 12:53 AM, said:

Loved the trip report, just deleted it to save some space.Yea I'm glad they put the money into the old stadium, because it looked fantastic. I cannot say the same about its contemporaries of that period. Veterans, Riverfront, and Three Rivers all looked like dog poop their entire existance. Riverfront especially. I cant wait to see the new stadium

You're right, those stadiums were painful to look at.

[mk]

Alright, my first trip to the ballpark last night was fantastic: the weather was a bit chilly here in Chicago, but not brutal. The White Sox beat the Royals 9-0, keyed by Contreras' nasty, nasty stuff--he had a no hitter through 3, and ended up pitching 7 innings, giving up 1 hit and 1 walk. He could've easily gone the distance, but his pitch count hit 100 in the seventh and Ozzie decided to let him take the rest of the night off. He had pin-point control, throwing first-pitch strikes to almost every Royals batter. Said Royals slugger Mike Sweeney after the game, "[Contreras] was dirty...Guys were coming back shaking their heads. He was throwing his fastball at 95 from the side with his slider and 95 over the top with his split-finger." Our trademark exploding scoreboard erupted early, when Konerko and Crede both went deep in the first inning. It would be all we needed. As for the ballpark, I'm certain that many who live outside the midwest hear ten times as much about dirty, old Wrigley Field as they do about beautiful, fan-friendly U.S. Cellular (or The Cell, or Comiskey to those of us who can't call it anything else), but as someone who goes to at least 10 games at each park every year, I would much rather go to Comiskey. Wrigley is fun if you get bleacher seats, but you might as well just go to a bar and watch the game. No one pays attention to what's happening on the field. But back to Sox park. The food is second to none. The recent renovations have made the park much more pleasing to the eye (they got rid of those ugly blue seats and replaced them with green ones, and the exterior got a nice facelift last season as well). The World Series trophy is on display in the terrace behind home plate. And people will tell you that all the hot girls are at Wrigley, but there's no shortage here either. The eye candy on a hot summer day is actually better than at Wrigley, imo. The one downside to Sox park (I'll give you this one, Cubs fans) is that there aren't any bars close to the stadium to go to before or after the game. Tailgaiting pre-game is a great time if you drive, however. The bullpen bar in right field is fun if you get to the game early as well. Silly suburbanite Cubs fans will try to tell you that the park is in a dodgy area, but that is nonsense. I've been going to the park for 20 years and I've never once felt unsafe anywhere around the park for even a microsecond. If your A.L. team is visiting US Cellular this summer, a baseball weekend in Chicago would be a great quick vacation. If you stay downtown, you will have a short (10 minute) train trip to either Wrigley Field or US Cellular. Just watch out for your cornhole up on the north side. Just kidding, just kidding!

[aadams_22]

mk, on Tuesday, April 18th, 2006, 7:24 AM, said:

Alright, my first trip to the ballpark last night was fantastic: the weather was a bit chilly here in Chicago, but not brutal. The White Sox beat the Royals 9-0, keyed by Contreras' nasty, nasty stuff--he had a no hitter through 3, and ended up pitching 7 innings, giving up 1 hit and 1 walk. He could've easily gone the distance, but his pitch count hit 100 in the seventh and Ozzie decided to let him take the rest of the night off. He had pin-point control, throwing first-pitch strikes to almost every Royals batter. Said Royals slugger Mike Sweeney after the game, "[Contreras] was dirty...Guys were coming back shaking their heads. He was throwing his fastball at 95 from the side with his slider and 95 over the top with his split-finger." Our trademark exploding scoreboard erupted early, when Konerko and Crede both went deep in the first inning. It would be all we needed. As for the ballpark, I'm certain that many who live outside the midwest hear ten times as much about dirty, old Wrigley Field as they do about beautiful, fan-friendly U.S. Cellular (or The Cell, or Comiskey to those of us who can't call it anything else), but as someone who goes to at least 10 games at each park every year, I would much rather go to Comiskey. Wrigley is fun if you get bleacher seats, but you might as well just go to a bar and watch the game. No one pays attention to what's happening on the field. But back to Sox park. The food is second to none. The recent renovations have made the park much more pleasing to the eye (they got rid of those ugly blue seats and replaced them with green ones, and the exterior got a nice facelift last season as well). The World Series trophy is on display in the terrace behind home plate. And people will tell you that all the hot girls are at Wrigley, but there's no shortage here either. The eye candy on a hot summer day is actually better than at Wrigley, imo. The one downside to Sox park (I'll give you this one, Cubs fans) is that there aren't any bars close to the stadium to go to before or after the game. Tailgaiting pre-game is a great time if you drive, however. The bullpen bar in right field is fun if you get to the game early as well. Silly suburbanite Cubs fans will try to tell you that the park is in a dodgy area, but that is nonsense. I've been going to the park for 20 years and I've never once felt unsafe anywhere around the park for even a microsecond. If your A.L. team is visiting US Cellular this summer, a baseball weekend in Chicago would be a great quick vacation. If you stay downtown, you will have a short (10 minute) train trip to either Wrigley Field or US Cellular. Just watch out for your cornhole up on the north side. Just kidding, just kidding!

The same can be said about U.S. Cellular when it comes to people not paying attention. I went to my first game at U.S. Cellular last year. It was an interleague game between the White Sox v. Dodgers...the one where Pierzynski hit the walk-off homerun in extra innings. I can personally tell you that not a single peep was made in that stadium until that homerun was hit. The fans in our section were too busy heckling the guy wearing a Cub hat (no it wasn't me). The stadium is nice, but dull. The fans are quiet and seem preoccupied with everything but the game itself.

[76clubs]

I sat on the green monster at fenway yesterdayabsolutely incredible