A Visit To Petco Park

Our family was in San Diego last week and we took a trip to Petco Park last Saturday night to see the San Diego Padres take on the Baltimore Orioles. The Orioles had just been in San Francisco the series before we left, and we "followed" them south. We sat in the bleachers, being the cheapest seats for our budget.

Petco Park has a unique bleacher arrangement. The seats are stuck to the top of a small concrete wall, and there is grass between rows. The leg room is extra long, so you can actually sit on the grass, picnic style. Just behind the center field fence there is a huge sand box in front of the bleacher seats for the kids to play in. This was perfect for a family with three small boys. Notice our baseball fanatic five year old son in the third picture standing with a foam finger right behind the fence on the left side of the photo. He enjoyed most of the game from there, one of the best seats in the house. His description of the fly ball to deep center field included himself in the story.

Over all, Petco Park is one of the best parks I have ever visited, in terms of beauty, baseball appropriateness and other relevant characteristics. Architecturally, I believe it to be superior to AT&T Park, which is widely viewed as the best of the new parks. Petco isn't on the shores of San Francisco Bay with a grand view of the bridge and East Bay hills, but it is in a beautiful city, and a good downtown. I'm glad the Padres did something different from the now-cookie cutter throwback parks. The brick warehouse building being part of the park is absolutely awesome. The Padres team store is located on the bottom floor. The corner of the building is the left field "foul pole", the foul line taking a 45 degree angle straight into that corner. A ball bouncing left is foul, while one bouncing right is fair. What could be more easy than that?

I enjoyed our time there and will enjoy going back there numerous times in the future. The black and orange Orioles beat the Padres 5-4, even after a bullpen meltdown in the 9th. That helped our black and orange Giants in the race with the Padres. I'll probably post more pictures soon.

New Marlins Ballpark In 2012

A new ballpark for the Florida Marlins is under construction and scheduled to open for the 2012 season. The park will have a retractable roof and be built on the Orange Bowl site. There is hope for increased attendance due to the new park, but if Pittsburgh is any indication, I'm not going to hold my breath. The Marlins have fans that show up just about World Series time. Will a new stadium work? Is Miami a baseball town?

Nevertheless, it will be good to see the team play in some venue other than a football stadium. At only 37,000 seats, the small crowds won't look as small. It will be yet another park to add to my "need to see" list, which right now consists of all parks I've yet to see along with parks I desire to see again.

New Twins Ballpark in 2010

This year yet another new ballpark will open. Minneapolis has built Target Field for the Twins. It looks okay. I say this because the new ballpark rage has gotten old. But, it's another new park that I will want to add to my "visited" collection. For that reason, I like it.

Also, the Metrodome will no longer be of service to baseball. Hooray! The Twinkiedome can now be the home of the Vikings, and we'll never have to wonder again if the Twins blow the air conditioning out for them and in for visiting teams. I never visited the Metrodome, although I walked by it in the off season while in Minneapolis once. I have mixed feelings about not seeing it. I wish I could have seen all those parks that have been replaced in my baseball lifetime, so if Major League baseball is played somewhere, I want to see it.

I'll be looking for the new park on TV sometime in April.

Ballpark Drive-By's

Last weekend my family drove to San Diego for some time away. It was a bummer that the Padres weren't home, but the R&R was more important. (At the end of our trip they were up here in San Francisco. Hey, let's get home!) But, I did endeavor to make three ballpark drive-by's. On the way down, I turned off the freeway (I-5) a few blocks and drove up to the Dodger Stadium parking lot entrance in Elysian Park. The one next to the Police Academy - yes the one in the Hollywood comedy! There was a game that night, and we were a few hours early, and a line about 10 cars deep were there. We still got a good view from left field in across to the stands on the first base line.

Our four year old loves baseball, so he gawked in wonder as I said, "Here's Dodger Stadium, where the Dodgers play." Then about an hour later we passed Angels Stadium (or whatever they're calling it this year). It is clearly visible from the freeway (I-5), just a few blocks down the boulevard, but a bit obscured from recent construction. The "Big A" in the parking lot with the halo around it is very red and can't be missed.

And while in San Diego, we drove downtown and made several circles around Petco Park on the city streets. Tours were available, and the kids fun lot was open behind left field, but our plans couldn't include those. Mrs. Scott and I have a special place in our hearts for Petco Park, since we used to vacation in San Diego all the time (and I had several business trips there) and got to see the construction of it progress from dirt to a completed ballpark. We saw a game there in its opening year, 2004.

I love looking into the open end of ballparks and seeing the huge bowl of seats and decks, flags flying, light towers above. We also saw Angels Stadium on the freeway on our way home (a better view while driving north) and the top of Dodger Stadium is visible from the freeway going north. Even without a game, the drive-by's were fun.

Missed Ballparks

Since attending my first other ballpark in 1985, I've missed a number of them who have been torn down. Here's a list: [update: I was so tired when I wrote this, I missed a few. There are twelve in total.]

Exhibition Stadium, Toronto; Memorial Stadium, Baltimore; Municipal Stadium, Cleveland; Arlington Stadium, Texas; Fulton County Stadium, Atlanta; Tiger Stadium, Detroit; Astrodome, Houston; Three Rivers Stadium, Pittsburgh, Riverfront Stadium, Cincinnati; Veterans Stadium, Philadelphia; RFK Stadium, Washington D.C.; Shea Stadium, New York. Unless I go to Minneapolis this year, I will add the Metrodome to the list to make thirteen.

The Roof Was Open!

For one of the few times since the Phoenix ballpark was built did I see a game on TV with the roof open. I saw the Giants on the field in the sunshine. I forgot momentarily that they were playing the Diamondbacks. It wasn't 115 degrees, I guess. We saw one game there in 2001 against the Giants. After the game, they didn't open the roof, which is as I understand is a fan favorite in Arizona. Yep, sit after the game and watch it open. With the roof closed so often, I wonder how they get the grass to grow.

My Long Lost Ballpark Visits

With a new Yankee Stadium, the number of ballparks I've visited that are no longer in use has grown to nine. Those nine are: Candlestick Park, Jack Murphy Stadium, Kingdome, County Stadium, Old Comiskey Park, Yankee Stadium, Olympic Stadium, Old Busch Stadium and Mile High Stadium. Each ballpark has great memories for me, even if the park itself was terrible.

Equally in the negative, the ballparks I never made it to that are no longer in use kind of bothers me. I should have gone to some of these: Exhibition Stadium (Toronto), Memorial Stadium (Baltimore), Municipal Stadium (Cleveland), Arlington Stadium, Atlanta Fulton County Stadium, Tiger Stadium, Astrodome, Three Rivers Stadium, Riverfront Stadium, Veterans Stadium, RFK Stadium, Shea Stadium. The Metrodome will be added to this list next year unless I get a trip to Minnesota somehow. Detroit and Cleveland are the biggest bummers for me.

My First Ballpark Road Trip (7) - Ticket Stubs

Read entire series here.

These are the ticket stubs from my first ballpark road trip in August, 1985. Notice the "Swinging A's" logo on the Angels ticket at the right, and Mike Davis' autograph on the first ticket. The first two tickets were bought from Ticketron and Teleseat, and have no baseball design to them like the third. This played a big part in future tickets that I bought. If I could get an "official" ticket direct from the team, I always did. Heck, the first ticket looks no different than a Santana concert in Berkeley. Okay, call me a ticket stub connoisseur. I'm VERY picky about my ticket stubs.

My First Ballpark Road Trip (6)

Read entire series here.

After the Sunday doubleheader was over, I headed back to claim my motel room and take a real shower. A friend from my summer job was going to be on vacation in San Diego with his wife. He wanted me to join them at a comedy club that night in La Jolla, just a short drive away. I showed up and they didn't. I found out later that his wife had a bad case of food poisoning. Well, hungry I left for a restaurant. I couldn't find a good one open that late. I settled for a Taco Bell. Now, a Taco Bell in La Jolla was quite an experience. The parking lot was filled with Mercedes and BMW's. I had a yellow Camaro.

The next day I toured the beaches in San Diego, the same place where I took a shower the day before, and found some great places in Mission Beach. I fell in love with San Diego. I didn't plan it originally, but I decided to drive back up to Anaheim that evening to watch the Angels and A's. Anaheim and SD are only about 85 miles apart, barely an hour and a half drive. I bought a ticket at the park. I don't remember much of the game, but I just happened sit next to two sailors (or were they marines?) that lived only a few blocks away from me back home, and who had seen me in the bleachers in Oakland. They drove up from San Diego, just like me. Small world. I found out the following year that a cousin of mine was also at that game and had seen me.

After the game, the sailors wanted to go out, so I joined them. We went to a dive bar in Anaheim, and I played video games. Yawn. They really liked baseball and were going to go to the game the next night against the Yankees, so we arranged for them to pick me up at my motel and drive to Anaheim. They never showed, but I ran into them in the bleachers restroom in Oakland the following spring. Okay, so instead of going to Anaheim, I went out on the town to a hot club I heard about from friends back home. All in all I was there two more days before returning home. My battery also died while I was there, and had to bum jumper cables, then bought some. To me, a battery was just too big an expense for a 21 year old on vacation. I spent the other two days in San Diego, checking out beaches and clubs and Mexican food joints. Box scores for Monday's game in Anaheim.

My First Ballpark Road Trip (5)

Read entire series here.

I got to the ballpark, Jack Murphy Stadium as it was known then, before game time. The Padres were playing a double header against the Braves at 2:05pm. Fireworks were to follow the second game. I parked, and walked toward the stadium I had seen in the dark less than 12 hour earlier during a seating change. It looked different in broad daylight. Double sets of thin concrete columns arrayed around the "rounded square" shape, sloping inward as they rose toward the top of the stadium, had a distinct look. Since the lights were contained within the top row of horizontal concrete bands, there were no light towers. The overall appearance of the park was that of a spaceship from outer space. Not that it was bad, just very different from what I knew from the Bay Area. I actually liked this park and its feel.

I had an extra ticket for this day, too, so I began looking for a single who didn't have a ticket. I ran into somebody standing around outside the third base side of the ballpark. I casually approached him, fearing an undercover anti-scalping agent of some kind. He was just casually looking for somebody who had an extra ticket. So we casually agreed to casually entering the park together. He paid me on the inside. This was fine. He was a Dodger fan who lived in a coastal town half way between LA and San Diego. Nonetheless, he was good to talk to during a double header.

We had field level seats down the third base line. Not many fans were around us, as double headers had a knack for fans coming and going all day, but the seats did fill up fairly well at some point. Both games went only about 2 hours, 20 minutes. At the end of the second game, it was still very light, so the fireworks were blown off before it got dark. It wasn't nearly as much fun seeing streaks of gray smoke as it would have been to see the actual colors. It was "America's Finest City" celebration put on by Coors. I love San Diego, but they do have a knack of touting themselves as the finest city anywhere at anytime in history. I dunno about that.

Yes, this was another park I'd never seen before, but the newness of any park had worn off a bit. The awe I felt at Anaheim Stadium was superior, and I believe it would have been reversed had I seen the Murph first. But, it was still a thrill to look through that tunnel and see something completely new. After the game I left and went back to claim a room for the first time on my trip. Box scores for game one and for game two.

My First Ballpark Road Trip (4)

Read entire series here.

Oops, here's a link to the boxscore to my first ballpark visit. With the game over, I headed out to find a motel for the night. This was about 11pm. I had tickets to a double header in San Diego the next day, starting at 2pm. San Diego is about an 85 mile drive south of Anaheim. But this is where being young and extremely naive came into play in a big way. You simply don't travel to Southern California in August without room reservations. Two out of every three families in the entire USA vacation at Disneyland or Seaworld just before school starts. I learned this the hard way.

Disneyland is only four blocks away from Anaheim Stadium, and I travelled down boulevards for miles in each direction. There are thousands of motels. "No Vacancy" was all I saw. This went on for at least an hour. I finally found one motel, and it looked dark and seedy. It was run by foreigners who obviously never watched June Cleaver clean her house on TV. The room was filthy and infested with insects, so I got my money back and split. With no light at the end of the tunnel, I decided that maybe I'd have better fortune if I hit the freeway south toward San Diego and got away from Disneyland. No such fortune. I hit every exit for 60 miles looking for a motel room. There were none. I resigned myself to sleeping in my car in a motel parking lot somewhere near Carlsbad. I dozed off for a bit, and I can only conclude that it was about 2am, when suddenly I was awakened by a noise. Okay, this was a bit creepy. I heard sirens in the distance. Then a man came flying over the concrete wall and landed right in front of my car and dashed off. Cop cars came screaching into the parking lot and chased this guy down on foot. This scared the crap out of me, and I was out of there. I had no trouble staying awake for quite a while.

So I kept going down toward San Diego, still hitting each exit. Finally I made it there, and with nowhere to go and wide awake I decided to go see where the ballpark was located. It was 3:30am. The stadium lights were on at Jack Murphy Stadium. Hmmm. I figured out that they were changing the stadium over from football to baseball. Back in those days the Padres shared the place with both the NFL Chargers and the San Diego State Aztecs college team. Sometimes the Padres' three game weekend series would have a Friday night game, then a football game on Saturday, followed by a baseball doubleheader on Sunday. I settled in to yet another motel parking lot. By this time I really had to relieve myself, so I went in the bushes in front of the car parked next to me, and fell asleep in my car.

I awoke in the early a.m. to daylight, about 7am. I looked around me and noticed that there was a family asleep in the car next to me. Whoa, was I embarrassed. I went inside the motel to see if by chance they had some kind of room. The clerk said I could wait for cancellations but that it might take a while. There were several people in line in front of me. Hours later, somebody cancelled for four days. Wahoo! I wanted to stay there longer, but it was a break. I took the room. BUT... It wouldn't be available until 2pm when maid service was done. But I had to be at the game before then. I broke down in the desert, sweated a lot and slept in my car. I needed a shower bad. I asked the clerk if he knew of any place I could shower. His only suggestion was at the beach using the shower heads to wash sand off. It was better than nothing, so I went to the beach and showered, wearing my bathing suit. How humiliating. I went to the ballpark to see the games. To be continued...

My First Ballpark Road Trip (3)

Read entire series here.

During that first game of my road trip, I just had to take a tour of the park during the game to get a flavor of the fans and different vantage points around the place. A bleacher bum just has to go sit out in the bleachers. So I headed for left field. What I found didn't resemble anything I knew of bleachers. They weren't wooden benches (I knew this from games on TV) and they weren't even called "bleachers" either. They were like "outfield reserved" or something. I forget whether they were even general admission. All of the outfield stands at Anaheim Stadium were an afterthought, being added in the 70's for the football Rams. So the left field seats were essentially football seats, extending all the way down to ground level behind the outfield fence. Nobody could sit in the first ten or fifteen rows because they couldn't see the field over the fence.

The fans out there weren't any more enthusiastic about the game that the fans in the box seats. They just had less expensive tickets. In Oakland, I was used to fist fights several times per game, fans starting chants, heckling the visiting outfielders, etc. This was obviously not happening here. I yelled to the A's left fielder, Dave Collins at the time, just like we did in Oakland. He was "our guy," no matter how good he was. He didn't seem to much more than acknowledge that an A's fan was there in Anaheim. Oh, well. I did talk to one fan for a bit, then returned. Overall, the left field section was a major disappointment.

Anaheim Stadium was a big memory for me my first visit there. It was a large ballpark, three decks high, completely enclosed, seating 65,000. It was shaped similar to Candlestick, and the outfield enclosure was similar in that it was done for football in the 70's and the left field stands were in the end zone. Both parks' right field stands rolled in to the side line, covering right field.

After the game, I remember heading to the players exit to see the A's come out. I vaguely remember this, but I have a Mike Davis autograph on my ticket stub. I must have hit him up. It was a great night and I headed out to find a motel for the night. I will write about that, plus my time the rest of the week in San Diego, and a return jaunt to Anaheim for another game on Monday in future posts.

My First Ballpark Road Trip (2)

Read entire series here.

As a continuation to Part 1 of this series, I'll pick up with the game in Anaheim. I had made it to Anaheim before the game started despite my car troubles. I was wearing my A's hat and I had field level seats down the first base line. They were pretty good as seats went, as they were purchased much earlier in the year. I collect ticket stubs, and the ticket wasn't an Angels ticket; rather it was a Ticketron ticket (their phone order ticket service), so it didn't even look like a baseball ticket. There was no Angels logo, and the ticket taker was kind of clumsy on the tear. He missed the perforation and ripped the ticket right down the middle. If I didn't know what the ticket was for, I'd have a tough time identifying it.

Anyway, I was alone at the game, so I had an extra ticket. I tried to sell the other one outside the park (face value was all I was asking), but it just didn't feel right, so I went in alone. The concession stands had a different feel, and sold some different (and better) items than back at home. I got a hot dog and went to my seat. I don't know if this was the trip to Anaheim where this occurred, but after putting condiments on my dog, I dropped the wrapper on the ground, just like any baseball fan would where I was from. In a half of a second, there was a worker behind me with one of those old scoop broom deals and whisked my wrapper up and scurried off. Anaheim Stadium was extremely clean and uncluttered.

As the game progressed, I couldn't help but notice the crowd. I've always loved people watching, and I always take note of the feel of the crowd at a game. Angels fans were extremely tame. There were no loudmouth fans, no hecklers, nobody pounding beer after beer. Yes, there were people drinking beer, but no drunks, nobody even a bit loose. It was relatively quiet for a baseball game, even though I would have expected Saturday night to bring out the rowdies. People dressed conservatively, and it seemed that there were relatively few people wearing Angels hats, jackets and other items. They just sat there. They were very attentive to the game, but just seemed to stare toward home plate. I did my usual and cheered wildly and loudly for the A's, but even though I was very loud, few people seemed to even care. There were no strange looks or evil eyes.

One huge difference between the Angels crowd and the A's and Giants crowds that I was used to was in the women. Okay, maybe the Orange County/Southern California stereotype was true, but there were amazingly beautiful women all over the place. There wasn't just one in the left field bleachers and one over there in the box seats, but there were hundreds of them. I saw probably more beautiful women that game than in all A's and Giants games in my entire life combined. Maybe it was just the thing to do down there in LaLa land. Who knows, but a single 21 year old male didn't complain.

More in my next post.

My First Ballpark Road Trip (1)

Read entire series here.

My first road trip to another ballpark outside the Bay Area came in 1985 as I ventured out on vacation to Anaheim Stadium and then Jack Murphy Stadium in San Diego. I went south in late August, the week between the end of my summer intern job and the beginning of college classes in the fall. The future Mrs. Scott and I had broken up earlier in the year after dating for two years after the first time we met. We had planned a trip early in the year. I had turned 21 in the spring. She wanted to go to Disneyland, etc., and I wanted to go to baseball. She wasn't a fan yet. I wrote to each team for their schedule, and bought tickets for the late summer trip in advance.

She didn't accompany me on the trip, so I went alone. It was a defining time in my life, my initial adventure as an "adult." I drove south on a Saturday morning, planning on making it to Anaheim (440 miles) by late afternoon so I could see the A's play the Angels. But I was confronted with roadblock number one. Making it through the Grapevine, my car overheated in the mountains on the downhill side heading toward Los Angeles. I was stuck in the desert in 105 degree weather, after pulling off under the freeway to escape the sun. I called for a tow truck. It didn't come. A freelance roadside helper came across me and stopped. He checked under the hood and figured that I blew a radiator hose. For 40 bucks he would drive me to the nearest gas station, get the part, install it and add water to the radiator. Good deal. It took about two hours, setting my schedule back. Just as he fixed it the tow truck driver showed up and was ticked off that I told him I didn't need his services. Anyway, back on the road.

I got to Anaheim I guess about an hour before game time. Seeing the stadium for the first time was an experience. Unlike the Oakland Coliseum, which is sunk into the ground, or Candlestick Park, which is built into the side of a hill, Anaheim Stadium was built up from ground level, so appeared much higher than what I was used to. The colors were so much more pastel as well.

I really had to pee after such a long trip, so I ran in and found a men's room. What I saw in there really blew my mind. My OC culture shock had begun. There was a worker with a spray bottle polishing the urinals. Polishing urinals? What kind of place was this? I mean Candlestick's restrooms were slime pits; places to go get rid of things. Rusty plumbing, troughs full of sunflower seed shells and cigarette butts, paper towel and toilet paper strewn all over the floor, stalls you wouldn't dare sit in. But Anaheim was sparkling clean, like Disneyland, which is only four blocks away. The contrasts were startling to somebody who only knew one way of baseball things. The parking lot had rules against tailgate parties and alcohol! A game without a tailgate party? Were these people communists? But inside, there was a saloon, and you could buy hard liquor by the shot. Go figure.

I walked all around, getting a glimpse of other-worldly ballpark sights, sounds and smells. More in my next post.

Ballpark Grandness

There's a moment unlike any other in baseball for me. It's when I walk into a ballpark for the very first time. Coming through the tunnel, or through the doors, or out from underneath the overhang of the deck above. It's the moment when I can see the inside of the park from the inside of the park. All of it.

Each of my 18 times I've entered a ballpark for the first time (Oakland Coliseum excluded since I grew up with it), I had previously seen the park on TV or in photos a million times. I had developed a flavor for the feeling of the park - a grossly distorted one. But a distorted feeling that only lends to the grandness of the park itself from how it really looks and feels. Television and photographs give a distorted sense of the horizontal. Especially the depth dimension. The vertical dimension isn't distorted much at all. So the overall sense is that the stands of the park are tall, yet far away. Fans sitting on the other side of the park look like ants.

But upon entering, the horizontal distortions are immediately corrected. The distant verticalness of the stands are suddenly brought up close and personal. Two opposing feelings are generated simultaneously, and mixed together. The vertical suddenly becomes more vertical, giving a feeling of extra largeness, yet the corrected closeness brings the vertical toward me, giving a feeling of greater intimacy. The mix is far more wonderful than can be expected.

My first experience with another ballpark outside the Bay Area was at Anaheim Stadium in 1985. The exterior facade from the parking lot was one thing, but entering the park was another. I will never forget walking into that tunnel. I caught a glimpse of the stands on the opposite side of the park. But all I had was tunnel vision of that group of seats. It was so much closer than I could have imagined! Then, breaking out of the end of the tunnel brought the whole ballpark into my sight, overwhelming me with a grandness and intimacy that would be experienced another fifteen times to this date. I love ballparks.

Ballparks From The Air

Yesterday, I flew to our firm's San Diego office on business from the Oakland airport. It was a down-and-up trip, same day. San Diego is about 500 miles south of the Bay Area. (When you consider that we are still six driving hours south of the Oregon state line, it shows just how big California is). The flight starts out curving over the bay, then over San Fransisco out to the ocean. It follows the coast all the way down to San Diego. It is important to get a window seat on the left side of the plane.

From the air, I saw Dodger stadium, just to the east of all the huge buildings in downtown, from 35,000 feet. Then I saw Anaheim Stadium, or whatever they were calling it at 10am yesterday, just a few minutes later (it is 30 miles south of LA). I also saw our firm's San Diego office from the air. The approach to the San Diego airport, under normal wind conditions, is from the southeast. So I was able to see Petco Park close up amongst the downtown buildings. Nobody else on the flight would have been interested, so I got to see all these things in quiet wonder.

I had several meetings in San Diego, and didn't get any normal work done. But knowing that I was there while the Padres played a day game (I couldn't go to the game), was a bit of a downer. On my return flight, which was just after sunset, I had an aisle seat on the right side, so the view was extremely limited. But, I did get to see Dodger stadium again - in the dark with the stadium lights on. They were playing the Mets at 8pm when I flew by. It was an awesome view from the air.

The only thing I missed was seeing Pac Bell/SBC/AT&T/eHarmony Park on the takeoff out of Oakland. Usually, the flights go over downtown SF, making the park visible. But we veered off to the south, and it was foggy anyway.

Seeing parks from the air was really cool, and these were a couple of flights to remember.

The Missing Piazza Trade

Back in May of 1998, I spent a week in the Caribbean with no access to baseball news. I flew through West Palm Beach (very close to Miami) and my return flight into Florida required an overnight stay. Obviously, I scheduled a Marlins game for that night. The Dodgers had just traded Mike Piazza to the Marlins before my trip. I was looking forward to seeing him play for his new team against the Mets.

I arrived back in Florida and was the only passenger on the shuttle from the airport to the car rental agency. The driver asked about my trip and I said I was going to the Marlins game. He said, "Oh, you'll get to see Piazza on his first trip back into town" after the trade. I replied that I knew about the trade, but what did he mean by "back" into town. I agreed that I knew that Piazza was traded, but what I didn't figure out for a few minutes - and what I had missed while in the Caribbean - was that Piazza had been traded a second time, to the New York Mets. The wild scenario in this case was that the Mets' first series after getting Piazza was a road series - back into Florida! He basically remained there, just changing uni's. I was shocked to discover this trade from the shuttle driver.

I made it to then Pro-Player Stadium. The Marlins had that infamous fire sale after winning the Series in '97, so the fans re-named the stadium "Semi-Pro Player Stadium" after the talentless team. This was hilarious. There were only 14,000 fans there that night, 10,000 of them Mets fans. They were rude and, well, New Yorkers. They owned the call-in show that night and spoke of the game as if it were a home game for the Mets. After a week in poverty stricken Haiti, I never felt so good to drink a Bud and have a sausage.

Ballpark Ages

Here's a list of all the major league parks and the year(s) they were either built or introduced to the majors.

Fenway Park, Boston (1912)
Wrigley Field, Chicago (1916 - built in 1914 for the Federal League)
Yankee Stadium, New York (1923, remodeled 1976)
RFK Stadium, Washington D.C. (1962)
Dodger Stadium, Los Angeles (1962)
Shea Stadium, New York (1964)
Anaheim Stadium, Anaheim, or whatever it's called right now (1966)
Oakland Coliseum, Oakland (1968)
Kaufmann Stadium, Kansas City (1973)
Metrodome, Minneapolis (1982)
Skydome, Toronto, or whatever it's called now (1989)
Comiskey Park/US Cellular Field, Chicago (1991)
Camden Yards, Baltimore (1992)
Dolphins Stadium, Miami (1993, built in 1987)
Jacobs Field, Cleveland (1994)
The Ballpark at Arlington, or whatever it's called now (1994)
Coors Field, Denver (1995)
Turner Field, Atlanta (1996)
Tropicana Field/whatever dome or whatever, Tampa (1998, built in the 80's)
Bank One Ballpark/Chase Field, Phoenix (1998)
Safeco Field, Seattle (1999)
Pacific Bell/SBC/AT&T Park, San Francisco (2000)
Enron/Minutemaid Field, Houston (2000)
Comerica Park, Detroit (2000)
Miller Park, Milwaukee (2001)
PNC Park, Pittsburgh (2001)
Great American Ball Park, Cincinnati (2003)
Citizens Bank Park, Philadelphia (2004)
Petco Park, San Diego (2004)
Busch Stadium III, St. Louis (2006)

Coming very soon:
Nationals Park, Washington, D.C. (2008)

Is The A's New Stadium For Real?

A good question to ask is if the A's new stadium is for real. Is it? The owners seem to impress upon the media that it is. Unlike the Nationals, Yankees, Mets and Twins, the A's have no definitive date for the opening of their new yard, Cisco Field. Sometime in 2010 or 2011, I guess.

Upcoming New Ballparks

With the construction of Skydome in Toronto, opening in 1989, a flurry of new ballparks have been built. A majority of teams have built new parks since then. There are a few more on the horizon for the next several years.

In 2008, the Washington Nationals will have a new park, followed by both New York teams in 2009. A new Yankee Stadium is being built in the parking lot of the existing one, and the same thing is happening for Shea Stadium. I'm not sure it's new name will be Shea. The Minnesota Twins just broke ground this week on their new open-air downtown park which is scheduled to open in 2010. The Oakland A's are planning Cisco Field in Fremont, and the schedule is a bit sketchy, but it looks like it will open in 2010 or 2011.

Once these parks are built, all but six teams will have a new or newish park. Wrigley Field and Fenway Park are quite old and the classics of classics, and many want never to build new ones. The Dodgers and Angels each have older parks from the 60's. Then the two Florida teams each have parks built in the 80's, but not specifically for baseball, so I don't really place them in the "new ballpark" category.