Seats you buy just for admission

Citi Field is huge and steep. I can more or less follow the game play from my cheap seat, and I like the mostly open main concourse. The condiments are decent but not amazing; I enjoyed a ton of sauerkraut on my vegan slice of pizza.

But it's not a park I'll go out of my way to return to.

Fucking baseball prison

Jesus, no wonder the Rays attendance is dismal, despite their awesome performance. What a shithole.

Ballpark notes: Houston and St. Louis

Unfortunately I lost a bunch of draft text for Minute Maid Park in Houston. So some quick notes:

From the outside, it's without a doubt the ugliest stadium in major league baseball. It looks like a tornado ripped 2/3 of the roof off. Who knows what it looks like when the roof closed. I've seen better looking Little League fields.

Inside, the fan experience is one of the best in baseball. A wide open concourse with great field views all over the place. Nice people, good food, and positively the best condiment stations I've seen: pickle spears, pickle slices, onions, jalapenos, and the usual stuff.

The airport "express" bus, #102, between downtown Houston and IAH, is a miserable hour and a half long milk run, but only $1.25.

Compare Busch Stadium, which has dismal offerings: just Heinz brand pumps of ketchup, mustard, relish, ranch, honey mustard, and bbq sauce. Busch also has basically zero views from the main concourse, is huge, and features Mike's of walking to get to the upper levels. It is very well served by the Metrolink light rail, right across the street.

Tomorrow to Kansas City!

Can you guess where today's game is?

Bathroom graffiti: Minute Maid Park edition

I think the ignorant moralistic asshat means syphilis. And lifetime (which, no, it doesn't last. Either.)

It's Saturday, must be Dallas

Day two of Stadiumpalooza!

The Rangers game last night was fine, if a bit slow.

Globe Life Park is horrible: probably the second or third worst fan experience park I've been to, after US Cellular Field, home of the Chicago White Sox. Both are concrete monoliths, though at least Globe Life Park is (deceptively) attractive from the outside. Both are steep and huge - even with a front row seat in the cheap seats, I literally couldn't follow the action - I had to watch the fielders move to figure out where the ball had been hit. The railing and cables obstructed the view, the seats were small and uncomfortable, the concessions suck, and it's in Arlington, a soulless, charmless suburb convenient to nothing.

Since I could barely see the game, I walked the entire stadium, including the long, hard, tall, cold concrete ramps that are angled rather than circular, but otherwise very reminiscent of US Cellular Field. According to Wikipedia, the upper deck is one of the highest in baseball. They also note that it's one of the so-called "retro" parks; if so, it's the worst example of one I've been in.

With the good retro parks, and even some old-school parks, the main level concourse has great, close views to the field. Not so in Arlington: only the outfield concourse, conveniently located in the next zip code, looks onto the field. And they allow smoking throughout the outer edges of the concourse, so it smells like a nasty bar, even outside.

Oh, and, I'm sitting at DFW, one of my least favorite airports on the planet. Getting through the security checkpoint, with exactly four people in front of me, took a full ten minutes. Sure, not that long on balance, but c'mon: there were only four people in front of me. (And the slowness was all TSA, not the passengers.) At least the people are pleasant.

But enough complaining: I'm on an eleven day tour of ballparks in nine different cities: life is GREAT!

It's not quite like being in a prison

But a Globe Life Park, home of the Texas Rangers, is... underwhelming. Still, it's a gorgeous night to see a ballgame!

Pittsburgh: PNC Park

Really pleasant stadium: feels cozy, and empty.

Giants already up 2-0 after one half inning.

Pirates game tonight!

As my brother said, why the hell did I come all the way to Pittsburgh to see a Giants game?

Scumbags at the Orioles game. And Baltimore, generally.

These three pieces of shit screamed vile shit at Leonys Martin, the Texas Rangers right fielder, any time he was out. Martin is from Cuba.

They were sitting in the bleachers, Section 98, Row 4, in seats 19, 17, and 15. The worst was the guy in the black shirt with his Orioles cap turned back (seat 15), closely followed by the redhead in the purple shirt (which, ironically, says "LOVE") in seat 17. I didn't actually much notice seat 19, orange shirt, screaming, but he was with the other two.

They avoided obscenities, which would have probably gotten them kicked out of the stadium. Instead, they screamed ignorant (and inaccurate) bigoted shit:

"HEY MARTIN (pronounced as an Anglo male's first name would be, MART-in, not as he probably pronounces it, mar-TEEN): YOU LIKE GUACAMOLE?!?"

Confidential to the bigoted scumbags: guacamole isn't a common food in Cuba.

"HEY MARTIN! YOU LIKE SOFT TACOS OR HARD?!?"

Confidential to the bigoted scumbags: tacos also aren't a common food in Cuba. 

"HEY MARTIN! WHY ARE YOU JERKING OFF IN THE OUTFIELD!?!"

Martin took the high road, and didn't respond, didn't acknowledge.

Their verbal abuse wasn't funny, wasn't witty, wasn't interesting, wasn't informed. Martin is not an especially controversial ballplayer: he defected from Cuba during the 2010 World Baseball Classic in Taiwan, and signed with the Rangers. This is his first full season in the major leagues. He's hitting .290 this season with 5 home runs and 18 stolen bases.

Confidential to the bigoted scumbags: I don't much care about money, but I bet you care more: Martin is making $3,250,000 this season. In the last year of his current contract, 2015, he'll be making $4,750,000. How 'bout you?

I started out with good seats, but I like to wander, and explore standing room areas. Oriole Park at Camden Yards is not only one of the nicer ballparks I've been to, but it has some awesome standing room just above deep right field. It was marred only by being right over these pieces of trash.

These assholes really made Baltimore look bad. They were as nasty and obnoxious as any fans I've been around in nine different MLB stadiums this season, which is really saying something, considering Oakland, Chicago, and New York. I only listed to a couple innings of it, but I assume they continued throughout the game, until they decided to go crawl back under their rocks.


Earlier in the day I had lunch with my friend K, who grew up near Baltimore, and now lives near Baltimore. We were talking about Baltimore, and I commented how the people just basically aren't nice. They don't much smile, they don't say hello if they don't have to, don't make unnecessary conversation. This is especially striking given that a good chunk of my interactions were with people in the tourist industry: restaurants, hotels, tourist attractions. That said, this was really the only vile, revolting behavior I saw.

Well, that's mostly true. When I was walking away from the game, a street vendor trying to sell some service that seemed to involve his taking pictures of people with a digital camera, said to two women who initially declined his services, but then finally acquiesced and walked back, "Whoa, you guys about as bad as they Jews!" All three laughed. I actually looked back in shock, but nobody noticed my jaw-dropped dismay.

Really the only truly nice people I talked to in my couple days in Baltimore were the guy taking tickets aboard my father's old Coast Guard ship, the cutter Taney, and a bartender (from NYC) and another customer (from Alberta, Canada) at the Pratt Street Ale House. Actually, the other bartender was nice, too.

Orioles Park at Camden Yards

Definitely the best stubhub seats I've had on this whole tour. Beautiful ballpark!

Nationals Park

It is indeed a beautiful park, one of my favorites. But what a seriously weird quite to use for a park that opened in Washington, DC, (well) after September 11, 2001.

Two striking things about the park: the concessions staff is unionized! I think it might be Unite HERE, Local 23, but I'm having a hard time figuring it out on my phone.

And there are more places to sit and drink and eat and chill in Nationals Park, inside, i.e., after you've paid to get in, where you can't see the game in any way, than any other stadium I've ever been to. Like: a dozen, at least.

Vegan BBQ, Decatur, GA

My birthday dinner at Burnt Fork BBQ. Tasty, kinda fun to get vegan bbq, but not overwhelming.

At the airport now on my way to continue the baseball stadium project in DC and Baltimore. Whee!

Week in review

Phew -- what a week that was! The Rust Belt Baseball Stadium Tour 2013 was a big success. Five games in five cities in two time zones in six days. Tasty vegan food in almost every city.

Only got seriously rained on once: the Twins game in Minneapolis was looking seriously doubtful, as they furled and unfurled the tarps over and over.

 
Got to see the retractable roof close in Milwaukee:

Roof open, beautiful day game.

Roof closing, just ahead of a torrential downpour in the ~6th inning.

Pretty cool. And Miller Field is perhaps the most beautiful stadium of the five I visited (in six days!)

Favorite ballpark: definitely Jacobs Field (aka Progressive Field) in Cleveland. Nicest people, most pleasant atmosphere, easy to get in and out of (none of this bullshit neverending ramp routine that Comiskey (aka US Cellular) does in Chicago to keep the fancy suite and box attendees away from us commoners:

Least favorite ballpark: unquestionably Comiskey, aka US Cellular, home of the White Sox. As I discussed at some length here, it just kinda sucks. Cold, impersonal, concrete, difficult location with few bars or restaurants (or anything) around, obnoxious, unpleasant fans. The scumbags a couple rows behind me were so awful that, in about the only time I can remember, I actually left to get away from them. And since they make it impossible to go to levels you're not ticketed in, I couldn't just stand and watch the game, and so actually left. These miserable people literally used "fuck" in some form in nearly every screaming sentence, lit up cigarettes (though the guest services lady pounced on them, and told them in no uncertain terms that it was their only warning before they would be kicked out), were verbally abusive to the vendors, and just generally were nasty, loud, unpleasant people to be around. When I walked away, I exchanged a look with the guest services lady, who pretty much had to post up near us for the whole game, that was one of those knowing, yeah, you know why I'm leaving kind of looks. I think she wished she could leave too.

As espn.com put it well: "New Comiskey Park: A monstrosity trapped between the ageless classics and the new wave of retro parks."

Favorite city: without a doubt, Minneapolis. Great people, fantastic bicycle infrastructure including a wonderful bike share program, great public transit, great vegan food, great bars, great beer, a great museum. Just great. (Though I did come very close to getting doored by some asshat while biking.)

Here are a couple neat bikes at the Walker Museum:

Least favorite city: without a doubt, Chicago. What the hell do people see in Chicago, anyway? Besides the so-so transit, and a few vegan places in the Loop, the place basically sucks. The South Side (which I walked around extensively) has none of the gritty charm that I love about Rust Belt cities, but all the sadness and unpleasantness. Oh, and the cops are stupid thugs. And the taxi drivers suck.

Walking up Cermak, I did remember a trip a long, long time ago, taking the Greyhound across the country when I was 17. We had an eight hour (or something) layover in Chicago, so when the bus arrived at Union Station, I had nothing better to do than walk all over the city, including all over the South Side. I wandered in to a diner a little after 4am, and ate breakfast with the cabbies and truckers, walked over bridges, looked at buildings, watched people throw trash bags out of tenement windows, forming huge, squalid trash piles on the sidewalks below.

Ah, memories, light the corner of my mind. Back to topic...

Ballparks, in order of how I liked them:

1. Jacobs Field (Progressive Field), Cleveland
2. Target Field, Minneapolis
3. Comerica Park, Detroit
4. Miller Park, Milwaukee
5. Comiskey (US Cellular), Chicago

Jacobs, as I said, is just wonderful.
Target is big and beautiful, but just jam packed with corporate commerce, and a little too damn big.
Comerica is pleasant, and nicely located, but doesn't much stand out.
Miller is a gorgeous facility, and reasonably pleasant to walk around, but is horrifically located. It's out in the eastern suburbs of Milwaukee, not well served by public transit, and a bit of a pain in the ass to walk to.
US Cellular is probably my least favorite baseball stadium I've ever been to.

Alright, an empty fridge, a visit to Hell, and a long to-do list await!

Target Field

Rain delay. They pulled the tarps on and off the field three or four times.

It's Friday, must be Milwaukee

Random dude with board shorts, headphones, backpack,  and flip flops wandering across the active tarmac at MKE, Milwaukee Int'l Airport. Weird.

Overall MKE feels extremely overbuilt for the very few people actually here.

On my way to Minneapolis for the final installment this week in the Rust Belt Tour of the Baseball Stadium Project.

Whee!

Upon leaving the Brewers game:

Where everyone i was around was quite polite and courteous. Apparently this guy and his buddy (not pictured, in front, also handcuffed) were the exception.

The most amusing part was when some guy with an Orioles cap heckled him, and he tried to posture and glare, and the cop had to scoot him along. Unknown if Orioles Cap had anything to do with the arrests.

Miller Field

Gorgeous stadium, incredibly loud, the stubhub ticket i sold next to me isn't here. Great seats, despite a slightly obstructed view of deep left and center. But it means I'm in the shade for a hour day game, so I'll take it.

On ballparks and souls

Ok, that's too deep. I don't mean to call US Cellular Field, home to the White Sox, soulless. Maybe... Cynical. Corporate. Hulking. Generally unpleasant.

It's as though the designers got the checklist for how to build a modern, neo-retro throwback stadium, and checked all the voices that would make money, while skipping the boxes for charm, for warmth, for integrating with the neighborhood.

In fairness, they destroyed Comiskey Park and turned out in to a parking lot across the street in 1991, just before the wave of retro-classic ballparks that are so much more pleasant to go to (Jacobs/Progressive, Coors, Jack Murphy/Petco.)

One of the most alienating things, aside from having some of the highest seats in baseball, is how the 100+ luxury suites are sealed off from most everything: it's one of the only stadiums in baseball that do not allow fans sitting in the upper deck to walk anywhere else in the park. Yes, luxury pods make more money, which is a major reason they destroyed Comiskey in favor of surface parking. No, it doesn't make for a good experience when you access your seats exclusively by a concrete ramp and escalators, with signage and attendants standing at every intersection to ensure the lesser classes don't dare mingle with those passing $200-$400 per ticket for luxury and exclusivity.

BTW, worst fans so far in the major leagues. Granted it was a small sample size in the nearly deserted upper decks, but their behavior made the Yankee and A's/Giants fans look like kittens frolicking on youtube.

Amtrak Detroit to Chicago

Guy behind me having loudest conference call in the history of loud conference calls (despite his telling the other people on the phone he had to talk quietly so he doesn't annoy the people around him on the train.) Good way from keeping anyone from wanting the empty seat next to you, though.

Dave Alvin is perfect train traveling music.

White Sox tonight if it's not rained out!