4/19/2012- U.S. Cellular Field (White Sox)

Orioles vs. White Sox, 7:10pm start

Let's go ahead and get what you're thinking out of the way. Yes, we do live approximately 30 blocks from this stadium and yes, it is the fifth stadium I'm blogging about. However, this was at least the fifth time I've been there, but the first since starting the project and blog. Ok, then.

The great part about this stadium is that it's literally right off of the public transit system (red line to the Sox-35th stop), so that makes getting to the stadium really easy. In the past, I have done the driving and parking, which is also really easy and the tailgating can be pretty amazing. The only bad thing about taking public transit (aside from the fact that the station is PACKED heading back into the city after the game- good thing we were heading south!) is that all of the gates are on the opposite side of the stadium from the stop. But when you finally get to the gates, you get to see this:

Since we arrived an hour early, we headed up to the upper terraces to give you a view of the inside of the stadium:

And show you the great view of downtown Chicago:

As well as remind you, as always:

You might notice that I'm wearing Orioles gear, even though I stated that I'm a Cardinals' fan. After having such an amazing time at Camden Yards (remember the free hats?), Dan bought me an O's shirt for our anniversary. While I'll always be a Cards' fan at heart, the O's have such a great fan-base and are so fun to watch, that I'm really starting to like them. That being said, I paid good money to see Mark Reynolds screw up and even though there were 3 errors, he didn't make any of them. He is seriously the worst player in the majors and it is hilarious.

Which brings me to the Sox fans. I've got to say that I know several of them personally and while they are their own brand of... interesting, they aren't the worst fans I've ever seen. They were quite happy that they won, but not one person said anything to me in my O's gear (unlike the Nats' fans). Unlike the O's fans, who filled the stadium while we were there, even though the team was pretty terrible, the stadium last night was only maybe 1/3 full (which, to be honest, is about 10x fuller than it was on Tuesday). That's probably why were were 25 rows off the field almost behind home plate for only $13/ticket. So I'd say the fans fit smack dab in the middle of my "fan experience" ranking.

The stadium really isn't anything to write home about, but I'm ranking it slightly higher than Wrigley Field, since it is a little newer and the seating/amenities are just better. My biggest complaint is that unlike a lot of the other stadiums, they don't show you the scoring decision anywhere. Dan let me score again, but I was rusty (it's been 7 months, people!) so I had to keep asking him questions. It started raining on us in the 7th inning, so I didn't get to finish scoring anyway. But, since there were a few home runs, we did get to see fireworks:

Our pennant collection is growing, though unfortunately our wall is not...

Side note: since we visited several extremely iconic parks at the beginning, we just assumed they'd all have park pennants, but that is proving not to be the case. It's hard to find pennants at places!

9/21/2011- Busch Stadium (Cardinals)

Mets vs. Cardinals, 7:15pm start

I have to start this blog post with a disclaimer. I am from St. Louis and the Cardinals are my team, so I'm going to be a little biased. Plus, my parents gave us their super awesome (and expensive) Redbird Club tickets, so we had great seats, which helped the overall experience. The Cards were also fighting for a spot in the play-offs, so no one was phoning anything in. I'll try to be as objective about this as possible, but we really had a great time.

The park itself is actually a lot cooler and prettier than my high-school-self wanted to believe when they tore down the old Busch Stadium. It's got the same brick and steel coloring that Camden Yards had, and it also has a really nice view of the downtown landscape (something the Nats Stadium sorely lacked). After seeing the Nats and Orioles parks, I realized that the concourse area at Busch is actually really small compared to some of the other new parks. And while they now have all the gigantic jumbotrons playing their flashy games (the ball was under hat 3, by the way), they still tried to keep some of the old charm. We couldn't get a good picture, but the old hand scoreboard is still in place, with the last regular season game it ever saw (a 2005 win against the Reds).

Note the arch on the field- so cool.

The game itself was awesome! Dan even let me score most of it in this super awesome scorebook that I got him for our anniversary specifically for these trips. I got a little worried though, since the first two innings were fabulous for the Cards, but when I took over scoring in the third, they got ice cold. Luckily,  right after I complained about not being able to color in a diamond, Freese popped a long one for a seventh inning home run!

I can't really say too much about the fans- I mean, they were awesome, don't get me wrong. But it's not like there was a huge Mets presence at the game for any kind of bantering. And since we were in the club seats, everyone around us was in Cards' gear. The great part, though, was that even then, everyone was really into the game and we didn't see anyone get overly drunk (the fact that beer is $8 might have something to do with that). Everyone was just really respectful of the game and the people around them (Dan might beg to differ, since he had a horny teenage couple to his left. Ces't la vie- this is my blog and I didn't have any problems).

If you ever get a chance to enjoy the Redbird club, I highly recommend it. The food is good (though stadium priced), the seats are padded and it's right behind home plate. Plus, a few foul balls were hit into our section. Which reminds me, don't forget:

We also got to see fireworks since the Cards won. This is not a picture of fireworks. This is a picture of the cool new multi-light water fountain thing that they put in in an area that used to be an overgrown volley ball court between the stadium and our car. :) Fireworks are hard to capture when you've got no notice and your camera is safely packed away in its bag for the trip home.

Finally, you're wondering about our pennant. We must have stopped at every kiosk in the stadium, but no luck. It sounds like the sold out of Busch pennants early in the season and never got new ones. If we wanted a Pujols, Berkman, or other star player, they had those coming out the rafters, but nothing with the stadium and nothing with just the team on it. So what did we do? Give up in defeat? Do you know us? We got this:

Yes, that is a 300 piece pennant-shaped puzzle. Yes, I'm going to glue it all together and hang it on the wall. Yes, the cats are going to have oh-so-much-fun driving me crazy by trying to steal pieces. It will be fun. I will love it! And should anything else be the case, I will come on here and update. For now, I'm freaking stoked about this thing.

One last note- even though this stadium is gorgeous with lots to do around town, plenty of cheap parking, great food, even better fans, and a fabulous team, I'm still keeping Camden as my favorite ballpark. If I hadn't already known what Busch looked like, my opinion might have changed, but I did and there was something just so grandiose about Camden that Busch just didn't have. Sorry folks, it's actually number three on my list, behind Camden Yard and National's Stadium, but well above Wrigley Field (and Sox Stadium, which we've been to, just haven't blogged about).

6/14/2011- National's Stadium (Nat's)

Cardinals vs. Nationals, 7:05pm start

There's something I need to say before I start the post about the stadium.  If you ever feel the desire to drive to the National's Stadium, don't.  I say again, DO NOT.  The only way to get there is to charter a helicopter and drop in.  We started our day at the National Zoo (which is gorgeous, but there's very little parking- it was the theme of the day).  We then hopped over to the stadium, giving ourselves 2 hours to do the 6.5 mile drive.  Our first mistake was driving, our second mistake was leaving the zoo around 5pm and heading straight for downtown DC.  Yeah, the worst drivers in the world+ rush hour+ DC+ not knowing exactly where we were going meant it took us an hour and a half to get to the stadium.  Then it was time to find parking.  If you decide to not heed my warning, then bring cash!  Parking isn't *too* expensive, but all lots are cash only.  We had no cash.  When we finally found a card lot, grabbed our stuff and ran to the stadium, we had just missed the 2-run home run by Pujols, still hadn't eaten, had had our first real snapping fight of our marriage and were just plain pissed off.

I'm going to try to not let that color our experience of the stadium, because it's actually a really gorgeous place:

(Note Dan in my Matheny jersey- this is why I love him)

(You can see the Capital Building under the lights)

As you can see, it's a newer stadium, but their "park mall" seems to have more large restaurants than places to raffle off cars or entertain your kids for hours.  We didn't have a lot of time to see it, since we got there at the bottom of the 1st (see above), but what I saw, I liked.  Because it's a newer stadium, park prices were a little outrageous.  Our seats, up just shy of nose bleed, were originally $28 (and that was about the cheapest you could get).  Thankfully, Dan found tickets on Stub Hub for way cheaper (side note, if you go to events a lot and haven't heard of Stub Hub, hear of it!  It's where people sell their season tickets for games they can't go to.  It's cheap and safe.).  The great thing is that the stadium designers realized that tickets were going to be expensive, and made sure that even the nose bleed seats were great.  Dan and I commented several times about just how good our seats were.

My only real complaint about the stadium (aside from it's location...) was the jumbotron.  Now, I love having all the info about everything, but I also kind of like having to search for it.  Most stadiums have a separate screen for things like pitch speed, or pitcher stats.  Not here- everything was on one screen:

If you can't read that, it has (from the bottom up): the game score (with inning breakdowns, hits, runs, and errors), pitch count, pitch speed, the scoring of each play, the pitcher stats, the batter stats, the full lineup of each team (with a red line to show you who is up), a picture of the batter and his in-game stats. All of this, surrounded by 4 ads, lights, and a clock.  Whew.  It was a LOT to look through to find what you wanted.  But if my only real complaint is that they needed more than 1 jumbotron, well, you're doing pretty well.

And how were the fans, you might ask?  I for sure repeat my statement that Cards fans are some of the best in baseball.  They were there in force!  The stadium was probably 75% full, and Cards fans took up almost half of that.  We even had people saying "Go Cards" at the zoo in the morning!  Now to the Nats fans.  I'm so conflicted about this!  During the whole game, we noted how much we liked the fans- they cheered after every out, every strike, every decent at-bat, every everything.  The guy in front of us was loud and obnoxious, but not to us- that was just how he was.  The only real comment that we got directed at us was a lady kind of tipping her hat to something I said (they decided to walk Pujols in his 2nd at-bat, to much boo-ing of the Cards fans.  I commented with sarcasm that it's not like he'd done anything to warrant them walking him.  haha).  They were very into their team and very supportive, but were just great sports about it.  That is, until we left the stadium.  The Cardinals, one of the best teams in baseball at this point, lost.  And they lost to a team that is one of the worst in baseball at this point.  Understandably, the Nats fans were thrilled.  But as we walked back down from the stratosphere, we had the misfortune of walking right in front of 4 very drunk frat-type boys who decided they'd talk to each other about us.  I did pretty well about holding my tongue... until about half way down.  It's a shame that 4 drunk idiots who weren't even wearing Nats gear and had clearly come straight form working at Douchebag, Inc. completely tainted our view of Nats fans.  *sigh*  Oh well.

Overall, it was a very nice park.  It wasn't quite a great of an experience as Camden Yards, but I for sure enjoyed it more than Wrigley and US Cellular (which we've been to, but before this project started, so I'm not counting it).

Here's the sign for foul balls.  Not nearly as adorable or creative as the one at Camden Yards.

Here's the current pennant collection!  You may be wondering why the Nationals one is different.  Well, they didn't sell anything but this at the stand that was open after the game, and you apparently can't get these online!  So that's what we have.  It was only $3 and I can color on it if I feel so inclined, so maybe not such a loss.  Just would have been nice to find a matching one that had a pic of the ballpark on it.

6/12/2011- Camden Yards (Orioles)

Rays vs. Orioles, 1:35pm start

Maybe it’s because I’ve lived in Chicago for so long, but I feel like there just wasn’t much to say about Wrigley: the stadium is old-school and covered in ivy, the team is an upper-level ball club, and their fans love the game almost as much as they love drinking during the game.*  But regarding our trip to Oriole Park at Camden Yards, I don’t think it is physically possible to sum things up in so few words.  So let me break it down:

The Park: This park is GORGEOUS!  The entire downtown Baltimore area has sort of a Boston, original colonies feel, but with modern, uniform red bricks.  The stadium is no exception and for sure feels like one of the newer baseball parks (I can't believe the park is nearly 20 years old!).  It’s surrounded by a pretty large “ballpark mall” on 3 sides which is technically inside the park, but they’ve set it almost lower than most of the stadium, so it really feels like a separate unit.  I loved it, because it had all the amenities of a newer stadium, with the feel of an older one (I wish the new Busch Stadium had taken Camden Yards’ lead).  Dan and I both just thought the place was breathtaking, but let’s see what you think:

(This isn't from our seats, but it was the best view of everything)

The Team: Let’s be honest, neither the Orioles nor the Rays they had the misfortune of playing are great teams.  I mean, in a game where the first hit is a home run, there are 3 errors and 1 inside-the-park home run, you aren’t talking about World Series-quality baseball here, but they really did try and their colors remind me of Halloween, which is awesome.  Also, their mascot is hysterical, which is a plus in my book!

The Fans: I’ve always thought Cards fans were some of the best fans in baseball (especially after coming to Chicago).  I’m changing my mind.  Cards fans are some of the best fans of their team.  Whether the Cards are winning or losing, the fans seem to stay loyal, filling the stadium and wearing their gear to games where the Cards aren’t even playing (seriously, we saw a handful of people in Cards gear at Camden Yards).  Orioles fans are some of the best fans of being at the ball park.  While the park was nowhere near full on a sunny Sunday afternoon, the fans that were there were wonderful, and what they lacked in numbers they made up for in orange/black gear and support!  I only saw 2 people in our entire section get a beer, they all yell out the “O” in the “Oh say does that...” part of the National Anthem, everyone got into all of the mini-games and stadium camera thingies, and the wave went successfully around the stadium twice!  The only thing we thought was a little odd is that there was no organ, and the 7^th inning stretch song was “Thank God I’m A Country Boy” instead of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game”.  But neither of those things were really the fans’ fault.  I don't really know why the fans are this loyal.  I mean, it's not like the team is any good these days (see above).  My guess is that in an area where it's acceptable to be a fan of at least 5 other teams, everyone picks their poison and sticks with it.  They might not be perfect, but they're ours!

Overall, this was a great experience.  There was something about the ball park that felt so tension-free.  Everyone was just there to have fun- if the O’s lost, drat; if they won, all the better.  There was something about that attitude that really made us as stranger feels oddly welcome.  Plus, we got to see 5 home runs and an error Dan had never really seen before (a ball was overthrown into the stands, giving the runner 3^rd base and home).  I can’t say enough about how great the experience was, and so far, it’s my favorite park.  It only pushes it higher that it was free hat day:

Dan wants to get a picture of every park's "beware of foul balls" sign, so here's the O's:

*I will not apologize for this comment.  Several of you are die-hard Cubs fans, I know.  But those of you that I know are great, nice people.  The fans I sit next to at EVERY SINGLE GAME and on buses throughout the city are terrible.  They are the first to rub it in your face if the Cubs are up by a run and the first to go completely sullen the moment the Cubs are down a run.  It's not a pleasant feeling for those around them and I don't make these comments on Cubs fans without much experience with said Cubs fans.

5/10/11- Wrigley Field (Cubs)

Cardinals vs. Cubs, 7:05pm start

We got really cheap tickets for really great seats at Wrigley Field, so we kicked off our stadium tour with a stadium in our own backyard.  It was a gorgeous night and with a Cardinals' win, it couldn't have been much better!

This is the outside of the stadium- it kind of sneaks up on you from the surrounding bars, restaurants, and apartment buildings.

The thing I love about this ballpark is that it is so old-school: there are no ostentatious sky-boxes, no "mall" taking up the bleacher area, and no children's area making noise during the game.  It's so open that the buildings outside the stadium have put up bleachers on their roofs.  The one thing I miss about this old stadium is that there's no jumbo-tron.  It was kind of nice, because you really paid attention to the game, but I missed all the stats and games the jumbo-trons provide.  That being said, there's a small screen where they played, at the very beginning of the game, the hardest game of baseball-under-solo-cup game I've ever played (the ball was under cup 1, if you're interested).  It's a shame the ivy on the back wall hadn't started to bloom yet.

Because of the lack of a jumbo-tron out on the field, under the terrace area they had these old score boards.  When the Cards are the visitors, this is what I like to see at the end of the game :)  It doesn't show hits, but there were 24 total!  It was crazy, especially since the final score was so low.

Our idea is to get a pennant from every park we visit.  Here's the one from Wrigley.

Overall, I loved the old feel to the ball park and the final score made it all the better.  A great way to start off our tour!

The Deal

Dan and I decided that we really want to hit all of the major league ballparks together over the next few years.  Sometimes, it might only be 1 ballpark per year.  Other times, we might hit a few.  We're really excited to post some pictures and experiences of our trips!  The goal would be to follow either the Twins or the Cards to these destinations, but that can't always be the case.  As for this year, here's our goal:

- May 10: Wrigley (Cubs)
- June 12: Camden Yards (Orioles)
- June 14: Nationals' Park (Nationals)

It'd be nice to also hit Target Field (Twins), Busch Stadium (Cards) and US Cellular Field (White Sox) this year, but some might have to wait until next year.  I hope you'll follow us on our journey!