Continuing on the quest to see all 30 ballparks, we made a trip to Cleveland to see the Padres play the Guardians at Progressive Field.

Located at the south part of downtown Cleveland, Progressive Field is right next to Rocket Arena (where the Cavaliers play) and is accessible by rail (train) from the airport on the Red Line. You get off at the Tower City station and then it’s about a 1/2 mile to the ballpark. The ride is close to 30 minutes from the airport so we ended up taking an Uber which was only a 15-minute ride since we arrived on Friday later afternoon and wanted some time to explore the ballpark.

The ballpark has been around since 1994 and was the first wave of new ballparks (with Baltimore’s Oriole Park) and they’ve done a nice job of maintaining and continually renovating it including recent renovations finished before the 2025 season. The capacity has been reduced from a peak of 45,569 in 2010 to the current capacity of 34,830 which can have higher attendance numbers when you include the SRO tickets they sell.

Walking around the ballpark in the infield, at first I only noticed the enclosed concourse that’s blocked by the different stands and club areas from seeing the field but then I realized that there’s a parallel walkway right in front of the stands/clubs as well.

For example, in this picture below where I was near the right field foul pole going towards home plate, you can see the two walkways, the one on the right that has a view of the field and the one on the far left that’s behind the stands:

Here is what it looks like walking the inner concourse (the one you go to on the left from the picture above):

And what it looks like walking on the right one that has a view of the field:

And another example where you can see the two parallel walkways (with a sweet Cleveland mural and the Guardians from the Hope Memorial Bridge):

First time I’ve seen this where you had both walkways, which helps to avoid having too much traffic on the concourse. The one negative is there really isn’t standing room only in the infield as they draw yellow and blue lines so people know where they can walk and to keep moving:

The yellow line is behind the seats, generally behind accessible seating, while the blue line is where you can line up for the stands. Talking to one of the ushers near 1st base, he said you can stand behind the blue line for standing room only (SRO) but this sign says otherwise:

And during the game I didn’t really see people standing in the infield except for waiting in line to get food and drink.

So there really isn’t standing room areas in the infield, but down near the foul poles and in the outfield on multiple levels, there are an abundance of places to stand with drink rails. From going down to left field to center field behind the bullpens to right field and then going up to the Terrace Garden and Terrace Hall as well as right field on the top 400/500 level, you can usually find a spot to stand.

While it’s missing the infield SRO, it’s still nice there are a lot of options down near the foul poles and in the outfield on multiple levels and I really like how they’ve built out many group and social areas like the Right Field District. This combined with $1 hot dogs and $2 Miller Lite beer cans pregame specials in the Right Field District for the Friday and Saturday night games I went to and it creates a great atmosphere and tons of energy at the ballpark. They’ve really made Guardians games a place to go which is a great recipe for big crowds regardless of how the team may be doing.

In terms of the outfield seating, left field underneath the massive wide videoboard is still bench seating and you walk underneath the bleachers with no view of the field here. Center field to right field is wide open with views of the field along with the aforementioned SRO.

As well, in center field is Heritage Park, honoring past Cleveland greats. It’s a really nice touch to see all the different players throughout Cleveland’s history and definitely worth going through to look around. Because it is in center field right next to the Right Field District, you do tend to get a lot of people hanging out in this area as part of the pregame activities (the $1 hot dogs and $2 beers previously mentioned).

The SRO right behind the bullpens in center field is nice and gets you really close to the bullpens as you’re literally on top of the visitors bullpen which is stacked right behind the home bullpen. There is the Lower Reserved Bullpen sections right in front of the bullpens, four small sections with 2-3 rows of padded seats that feel kinda private since the ushers check your seats and give you a wristband to go in and out of the sections.

In right field near section 113 there’s the Field View Bullpen, which allows you to go down stairs to where the visitors bullpen used to be (before they moved it to the aforementioend stacked level in center field as part of renovations before the 2015 season). There’s a line for it and they allow 25 people to watch a full inning there before switching out for the next 25 lined up. It’s definitely a nice touch and a cool thing to check.

One benefit I like is they do have a re-entry policy at Progressive Field where they will scan your ticket so you can come back in, similar to Petco Park. The norm around the league tends to be to not allow re-enter so places this I find very useful, especially if you’re staying nearby like we were in a hotel only a block away.

One thing I didn’t notice until reading up on the ballpark more before going on Saturday is the Family Deck section in right field on the 300 level that you take an escalator to from the ground (100) level. This area has a good number things for kids to do including a small batting cage, playground, a home plate to 1st base timed sprint, pitching cage as well as tables and SRO drink rails. It’s definitely a good area for the kids to play. But being on the second level I can see this as a place that’s easily missed (I didn’t notice it all at the first game we went to) unless you know about it or do the exploring that I did.

While the ballpark does have downtown Cleveland in the background, the skyline isn’t that populated since there aren’t as many tall buildings in the area. I went up to the upper level briefly but wasn’t able to really see too far into downtown or Lake Erie. So it doesn’t have the skyline of some of the other downtown ballparks.

The massive wide video board and the accompanying ribbon boards around the ballpark provide good stats and good clear replays. For someone like me that cares about the ballpark technology, these video screens are top-notch and provide good information and they repeat the information throughout the ribbon boards (i.e. the counts and pitch information like pitch type, horizontal break and vertical break show on ribbon boards in right field, 1st base and 3rd base) so it makes it easy to find and see from most places in the ballpark. For the first game, we sat behind home plate and the second game in the outfield and it was easy to keep up to date in either sport. The one thing is they only show out-of-town scores on the ribbon underneath the big video board and only in between innings. Left field would be a place I’d avoid since besides bench seating, there isn’t another video board in the ballpark so you wouldn’t be able to see the videos and also the ribbon board underneath with the out-of-town scores.

In terms of the seating, the views are good throughout the ballpark as nothing felt far as I tried different vantage points. For the most part, the seats are slanted towards home plate, though there are weird quirks, such as section 519 where the seats are angled in a weird way (I’m surprised they didn’t remove these seats as part of the renovations).

For food, they do have local options like Happy Dog, Momocho, Barrio and Perry’s Ice Cream along with ballpark fare. The Slider Dog from Happy Dog with pimento mac and cheese, crumbled bacon, and froot loops was interesting to try but wasn’t the best exotic hot dog I’ve tried. Getting a hot dog and putting ball park mustard on it is definitely something I would do as I found the mustard to have a good flavor to it. After you get your hot dog from a stand, go to the nearby condiments stand and you’ll find the mustard there with ketchup, regular mustard, napkins and utensils.

Otherwise the rest of the food was decent but the surrounding area has good food options, including East 4th Street, which has many restaurants and bars. The area around the ballpark is somewhere you can hang out before a game when coming downtown with a variety of food and drink options and the type of scenes you’re seeing other ballparks try to replicate but in that they own all the surrounding entertainment (like in Atlanta with the Battery). I prefer areas like this in downtown Cleveland (and similarly in downtown San Diego with the Gaslamp Quarter) where it’s more organic versus something the team is controlling. And my preference would be to go eat at one of these areas before the game versus eating at the ballpark.

During the game, they try to keep the crowd involved with things between innings like the flex cam, trivia and other contests. It’s not every inning but pretty often so it keeps the crowd involved. The biggest thing was the Hot Dog Derby race, their version of the mascot race on the field with hot dog condiments that the crowd got really excited for. They do “Get Loud” and “2 Strikes” on the board to get the crowd going in key moments of the game as well. One interesting thing is they do the cap shuffle before the game.

Overall, Progressive Field is a nice ballpark and I really like how they’ve continued to renovate it to make it a place to go to. Even though the ballpark is now 32 years old, it doesn’t feel or look old as they’ve done a great job maintaining it. In terms of amenities they’ve done everything to make it the place to go to for everyone, whether its for those who want to go with groups or social areas, bring their kids, the corporate (with the suites and club areas) or those who there to just watch the game since the capacity has been made intimate with most seats having good sightlines.

Progressive Field is how I hope other teams want to maintain their ballparks to keep them modern and places people want to continue going to, versus deferring maintenance and expecting a new ballpark/stadium to be built as you’ve seen with other teams and other sports leagues. It’s definitely a place I would recommend visiting.