Stadium Preview #6

Stadium: Yankee Stadium
Date Opened: April 18, 1923
Date of Visit: June 19th
Game: San Diego Padres @ New York Yankees

This visit is the whole point of the trip. It has been 85 years since Yankee Stadium has first opened, and in those 85 years, it has hosted famous boxing matches, papal visits, 26 World Series champion teams and countless Hall of Famers. And after this season, the Yankees will be moving across the street into their new stadium. So, since we have never been to Yankee Stadium, we decided to take a trip up here to see it in its final season.

The House that Ruth Built was opened in 1923, which was the first season the Yankees won the World Series. Since then, it has been renovated numerous times, to upgrade the seating, change the field dimensions and add capacity to make it the Yankee Stadium we know today. As one of the oldest parks in the league (ranking behind Wrigley and Fenway), it contains a lot of history. Monument Park is a section of the stadium dedicated to the history of the Yankees players and other members of the organization. 17 numbers have been retired and 26 people are honored with monuments or plaques. We will definitely stop by Monument Park on our way to our seats to learn more about the Yankee greats.

Another aspect of the stadium that will be fun is the fans. There is a reason that ESPN focuses a lot on the Yankees...they have a lot of passionate, die-hard fans. The "bleacher creatures" in the right-field bleachers are especially rowdy. After the first pitch in the top of the first inning, a fan in Section 39 starts the roll call, where they chant the name of each Yankee starter in order until the player acknowledges the fans. The fans are also well known for harassing members of the opposing teams as well as fans of the opposing teams. One of the schedules I had drawn up included a Rangers/Yankees game at Yankee Stadium, but I didn't feel like going there and supporting the opposing team. I figured if the Rangers won, the fans would give us crap because their team lost, and if the Rangers lost, the fans would give us crap because our team lost. So we went with a Padres/Yankees game and will be cheering whole-heartedly for the Yankees (with as much energy as a Yankee-hater as myself can muster up).

All in all, it will be a great experience and this is one of two stadiums I am really looking forward to visiting. (#2 is Fenway Park, which will be previewed next)

Stadium Preview #5

Stadium: Oriole Park at Camden Yards

Date Opened: April 6, 1992

Date of Visit: June 17th

Game: Houston Astros @ Baltimore Orioles

Regarded as one of the most beautiful parks in all of baseball, Camden Yards houses the Baltimiore Orioles. It is similar in style to our home ballpark (Rangers Ballpark in Arlington) which will be sure to make us happy.

An interesting quirk of this stadium is that over the 25 foot wall in right field, there is a huge warehouse that looks on to the field. It is the most reconizable part of the park and gives the stadium more of the "old time" feel that the designers were looking for. This park started the trend of placing ballparks with old-time feels in downtown areas.

Though the stadium has a nice feel, the scoreboard just seems a little bit too small for my liking. We are sitting in the upper deck though, so we will be able to see pretty much everything nicely. Also, the out of town scoreboard is good for us because the Rangers will be playing and we need to know the score!

The game may be an interesting one between two teams that no one really knows too much about. They are both playing well now, but are they for real or fluking?

Overall, this stadium is reviewed as one of the best in the MLB and i can't disagree. It seems like a great place to watch a baseball game and we should enjoy ourselves a lot. Let's hope the food is good!

Stadium Preview #4

Stadium: Rogers Centre
Date Opened: June 3, 1989
Date of Visit: June 15th
Game: Chicago Cubs @ Toronto Blue Jays

At first, I was going to say that Rogers Centre was simply another boring park and the only reason we were going was because it's in a different country. Then, as I started to research the Centre, I found out that although it looks bland on TV, it could be very fun and entertaining in person.

First of all, there will not be that many fans there (most likely, I could be wrong since it's interleague and the Cubs) so we can move down from our original seats to some that are closer to the action. This is a nice perk which will make the experience that much more fun. Also, there is a Hard Rock Cafe inside the stadium, which is pretty cool. Random sports tidbit: I remember when Frank Thomas hit a homerun off one of the windows one time.

Second, if the roof is open (i really hope it is) then you have a pretty cool view of the CN Tower, the trademark building of Toronto. I had no idea that the building was that close to the stadium.

The downside of this stadium is the actual playing field itself. The Blue Jays had stuck with the AstroTurf from it's first game all the way to 2004, but finally they switched in 2005 to....FieldTurf. In my opinion, they should have gone to grass, because baseball needs to be played on a natural surface. It is a big injury risk to play baseball on turf. Sure, football does it, but that's a different sport. Also, they do not have a real infield, just little patches of dirt around each base, which frankly is quite dumb. I don't like watching baseball games without the teams playing on a real baseball field.

The teams playing in the game will make it interesting, though. Both are teams who could either be really good or underachieve greatly. It should be interesting to see which team shows up. The Blue Jay fans are not the loudest by any means, but with the Cubbies in town that could change for this series.

The field is not the best, but going to Toronto should be fun and seeing this stadium will be an experience. It might be one of the worst we go to, but it will still be fun, eh? (A little Canada reference there in case you didn't notice)

Last Schedule Update

Well, we've finally got tickets for all the Major League games, and with only a month or so to go, we're getting everything finalized. For Christmas and our birthdays, we've been getting a lot of helpful giftcards, which is awesome. It's nice to know that a bunch of our meals are already taken care of, and we've got some money to spend at Academy for sunglasses, coolers, or whatever we think we need. Kyle and Jason also got some baseball statistics books (2008 Baseball Prospectus and 2008 Bill James Handbook) so we will be able to know a little something about the teams that we're seeing but don't know too well.

Here's the final schedule:

6/11 - Nashville Sounds [Milwaukee AAA] at Oklahoma Redhawks [Rangers AAA]
6/12 - Texas Rangers at Kansas City Royals - Outfield Plaza next to the Rangers' bullpen
6/13 - Philadelphia Phillies at St. Louis Cardinals - LF Upper Deck
6/14 - Los Angeles Dodgers at Detroit Tigers - 3B side, 5 rows behind the dugout
6/15 - Chicago Cubs at Toronto Blue Jays - Upper Deck, 1B side
6/16 - Baseball Hall of Fame
6/17 - Houston Astros at Baltimore Orioles - Upper Deck, behind home plate
6/18 - off-day in New York City
6/19 - San Diego Padres at New York Yankees - RF Upper Deck
6/20 - St. Louis Cardinals at Boston Red Sox - RF Rooftop Box
6/21 - Texas Rangers at Washington Nationals - LF Outfield next to the Rangers' bullpen
6/22 - Toronto Blue Jays at Pittsburgh Pirates - 3B side, infield
6/23 - off-day in Pittsburgh
6/24 - San Francisco Giants at Cleveland Indians - OF bleachers
6/25 - Baltimore Orioles at Chicago Cubs - LF Upper Deck
6/26 - Beloit Snappers [Twins low-A] at Clinton Lumberkings [Rangers low-A]
6/27 - Frisco RoughRiders [Rangers AA] at Springfield Cardinals [Cardinals AA]
6/28 - wedding in Louisville, KY
6/29 - Philadelphia Phillies at Texas Rangers - Unknown, but Jason gets free tickets from working at the ballpark