ballparks

Road Trip to Miami and loanDepot Park

Posted on by Paul

Continuing on from Washington DC, we followed the Padres on their road trip to catch a game in Miami and loanDepot park (which is named with both words starting with a lower case letter).

loanDepot park is located about 3 miles away from downtown Miami where we stayed and it’s on the way from Miami International Airport into downtown such that I thought it was the Miami Heat’s arena (Kaseya Center) when we were driving into the hotel.

After getting settled at the hotel and buying some tickets online, I received the Gameday email and I thought it was pretty cool how they encourage instruments and flags like you see at soccer matches:

It makes sense considering the large Latin influence in Miami and it would be great to see baseball games have more energy like you see at the World Baseball Classic games, including the ones that have been played at loanDepot Park in the past.

The ballpark itself is in an area that is mostly businesses and residential so there really isn’t much to do there and there isn’t really public transportation to get there so by car is the best option which means you can get stuck in traffic going to and leaving the ballpark.

Once we got to the ballpark, I noticed that the home run sculpture had been moved in front of one of the entrance gates:

The sculpture does look a little worn being in the sun all day now so I’m surprised they actually kept it versus just removing it completely.

As you walk around the ballpark, you notice the concourse area is a standard size (not small or super large) but having so many stands on both sides of the concourse along with the ropes for their lines make the concourse even smaller:

Right now, overcrowding on the concourse doesn’t seem to be an issue since the crowds aren’t large (the game I went to on Monday night only had a paid attendance of 11,128) but I do wonder if you feel like packed sardines when there’s a packed house like the World Baseball Classic.

As well, some of the food stands they set up now block some of the standing room only (SRO) areas as you can see here where they put stands right in front of the SRO rails:

So it does take away some of the standing room only areas but there are still some areas left and the field is still visible as you walk around the ballpark on the Promenade Level. And unlike other ballparks, there aren’t any suites on this main concourse level so you can pretty much see the field the whole except for the parts where food stands are partially blocking your view.

As you walk around the ballpark (and I went up the third base line going clockwise around the ballpark), the outfield area is more narrow since you’re right up against the glass panels that give the ballpark some outside light when the roof is closed.

Right when you get to the outfield coming from the left field foul pole, around section 28/29, they have The Lineup Food Hall section with some different food stands and there’s a patio area you can walk out to and get a great view of the downtown Miami skyline which I really like.

As you walk around the outfield towards the right field foul pole, you do see their well-known bobblehead museum as well as a small kids area:

In terms of food, they offer a variety of different options besides the standard ballpark fare including locally inspired food but they don’t have actual local restaurants. It seems to be all their concessionaire’s own creations but with a local flavor, similar to what ballparks first started when branching out to more than peanuts, nachos and hot dogs. So while the food is decent, it doesn’t have the high quality being many unique great testing local foods as you see at other ballparks.

For the in-game entertainment, the Rooster Race is their equivalent of the Brewers’ Sausage Race or the Nationals’ President Race where they have four people in different rooster costumes racing on the dirt track around the ballpark.

They also do try to do things in between the innings like the Simba Cam and other skits to keep fans engaged but it seemed to end pretty early, fading into music before the next half inning started. Maybe it was because of the small crowd too but the energy of the in-game entertainment was lacking a bit.

Overall views from the seat are good and what you expect from the modern ballparks with good sightlines from the respective sections. There weren’t any sections where I felt too far/high.

The one interesting spot was in right field around section 137 as there’s a standing room area with a drink rail and high top tables but the SRO area is angled so you’re facing centerfield instead of home plate. I found this odd, as though this area was left as a gap so they just made it SRO:

So overall, loanDepot Park feels very modern but like other ballparks (Chase Field and now Daikin Park in Houston come to mine), when the roof is closed, it does feel more have that warehouse feel to it with the roof so high and it being enclosed.

Also with the lack of people there, the location being by itself and not much to do in area, it’s hard to put this ballpark that high on the list. The thing is if you’re looking for a way to catch a game for cheap and be able to move around pretty easily in the ballpark (both navigating the park and moving around in your seats), then that’s one thing you can do here. Talking to some locals, they like going here when it’s a good matchup, like if the Yankees or Dodgers are in town or the Marlins are playing Pittburgh and Paul Skenes is pitching.

Road Trip to Washington DC and Nationals Park

Posted on by Paul

It’s been over 15 years since I last went to Washington DC so figured now was a good time to go to the U.S. capital and see Nationals Park as I try to see all 30 ballparks.

Nationals Park is located in the Navy Yard neighborhood of DC, right next to the Anacostia River. It’s an area that has been redeveloped with Nationals Park playing a big part in it. There are many condos and apartments in the areas along with restaurants and bars.

I actually think because of all the development in the area, the ballpark was built so that the Center Field Gate is the corridor out to the neighborhood and vice versa into the ballpark.

This gate has a really wide open concourse once you enter the ballpark:

And when you exit out the ballpark it’s wide open to exit out to the restaurants and bars:

This is also notable since as you walk around the ballpark on the outside, it looks like indescript office buildings. From far away, you might not even notice that it’s a ballpark if you were walking around going south on 1st St SE until you saw the Right Field Gate, First Base Gate or Home Plate Gate.

Which also leads to another thing that stuck out to me, which where the parking garages behind both left and right field that are part of the ballpark’s skyline. The garages are noticeable for those like me who look at the backdrop in the outfield of a ballpark (and why PNC Park in Pittsburgh is so highly rated). The Nationals have tried covering them up with banners and Garage C in right field is partially blocked by the big scoreboard but you can see the garages:

And whether on purpose or that’s how it came to be, the buildings in the skyline aren’t that tall so the parking garages block some of the view into the ballpark. We stayed at the Hampton Inn & Suites Washington DC Navy Yard across the street (it’s right across from the aforementioned Center Field Gate) that has a rooftop bar and Garage C with its solar panels blocks a good portion of the ballpark view:

With the Anacostia River being blocked by the right field seats, which is the only section in the outfield with a second level, along with the parking garages and buildings that aren’t that tall, the skyline doesn’t have that great of a view when compared to other ballparks and could have been so much better.

Once in the ballpark, the wide open concourse in center field does narrow to a typical concourse size once you get to the foul pole on either first base or third base side and start going towards home plate. The concourse doesn’t feel tight or anything but when its crowded (such as after the game when everyone’s leaving), it does take awhile to maneuver through them, similar to the problems you see at Petco Park.

It’s like other ballparks where you can see the field walking around the ballpark and on Level 1, pretty much every section has standing room only with the drink rail to stand and watch the game. The only exception, like other ballparks, is when you get behind home plate, as in this case the view is blocked both by the PNC Diamond Club and the Washington Suites.

However, because the sections behind home plate are primarily for either the Terra Club (which is their premium underground club for the lower seats right behind home plate) or the PNC Diamond Club (which are the premium seats in the sections right behind the Terra Club seats, see this map where only the back parts of 119, 120 and 126 are non-premium seats to see what I mean), it’s not as big of a deal to have to walk around to access your seats behind home plate since most of these seats are premium seating with access to these clubs. In other ballparks where they have regular seating in front of the home plate suites, you end up having to walk around several sections to access your seat.

I do like the displays they’ve done around the ballpark since being a newer franchise, you can’t just rely on all historical milestones like other ballparks, so mixing it with some history and fun is a good way to give some character:

In general when you walk around the ballpark, the view is good to see game action. I didn’t really feel any seats had a bad view and the views from each area would be what I would expect from them i.e. being in the top level has that elevated view but it didn’t feel like you were super far away.

Like Petco Park, the third base side is the shade side for day games so those who like to sit on the home side (first base) where the 100 sections are will be in the sun pretty much the whole time except for the last couple of rows.

In terms of food, they have been adding more local food options spread throughout the ballpark along with some national chains (Shake Shack and Rita’s Italian Ice & Custard) and the standard ballpark fare. I found the ballpark to have a good variety of different options and among the better food options of the ballparks that are spread out to give you a reason to go around the ballpark.

What I found interesting is they replaced the big scoreboard screen with a higher clarity screen before the 2024 season but they didn’t make it bigger.

It’s a decent size but considering how much the screen plays a part in the in-game entertainment, I’m surprised they didn’t make it larger and take up the whole area in right field (replacing the permanent ads) even if they wanted the screen to have constant ads (similar to what the Giants did where they replaced the entire area and have ads on the side of the video screen when not showing replays or hype the crowd up videos)

They have in-game entertainment during each half-inning break and most involved fan interactions, such as karaoke battle, putting challenge and seat upgrades. Of course you can’t forget the Presidents Race, doing a good amount of in-game entertainment to keep the fans engaged. I bring this up because there are some ballparks where they don’t have as much in-game entertainment and spend many innings just playing background music.

Overall Nationals Park is a solid ballpark that I would put in the middle tier. It doesn’t stand out in one area to make it super great like the top tier ballparks but at the same time doesn’t do anything bad either, making it firmly in that middle range. The standard ticket prices are pretty expensive but if you can find a deal on SeatGeek or StubHub, it’s a solid place to have a good time watching a ballgame.

Road Trip to Cincinnati and Great American Ball Park

Posted on by Paul

With the Padres in Cincinnati this weekend, this was another city and ballpark I haven’t been to so I decided to do a quick trip over the weekend to see the Padres play on the road and see the next ballpark in my quest to see all 30 (the A’s and Rays will be interesting by the time I get to them).

As I arrived at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport (CVG), I actually didn’t realize that the airport is located in Kentucky as I had assumed it was in Cincinnati. Granted the Ohio River literally separates Ohio and Kentucky so it’s still right there and ended up only being a 20-minute drive, even with some traffic due to road closures in downtown Cincinnati. I stayed at the AC Hotel, which is right across the street on the side of the ballpark where the Reds Hall of Fame & Musuem is located and I was able to get a room that had a balcony out to the street:

I like how they’ve turned this area right across the street into what they call a DORA and closed off the road so people can eat and drink before and after games, basically a small ballpark district next to Great American Ball Park (GABP):

From street level, you can see Paycor Stadium in the background as it’s four blocks down the street:

The way the ball park is built with the Reds Hall of Fame & Museum on the west side, the Ohio River on the south side (along with an underground parking garage), the Heritage Bank Center arena on the east side, and another ballpark building on the north side, GABP blends into its environment where you could easily not even notice the ballpark when driving by.

This may have been done on purpose since a ballpark or stadium is a large structure but it doesn’t provide the artistic look you see of other ballparks that blend into their environment like how PNC Park really blends into its location. I still remember seeing PNC as my Uber was pulling up and being in awe of how great it looked.

Once in the ballpark, on the Terrace level, which is the level you enter the ballpark on and gives you you access to the 100 seating sections, you don’t really have a view of much in the ballpark’s background being that it’s on the Ohio River and since Covington across the river doesn’t really have a skyline of tall buildings.

I entered the ballpark from Gate A and went left, so I was going up the third base side and wrapping around clockwise to see the sights and sounds of the entire ballpark. The concourse on the third base side felt pretty large and easy to get around even with it being crowded since there was a Big Red Machine 50th Anniversary Cap giveaway:

And like a lot of the ballparks built in the early 2000s, many parts of the Terrace Level allow you to see the field as you walk the concourse and the sections that allow you to see the field have standing room only areas in the back of the section which I like since it gives all fans access to see a great view if they want to walk around and stand.

But like many of these other ballparks, the sections around home plate have suites so you can’t see the field from the concourse. At GABP there are the World Series Suites behind sections 113-118, a gap to enter at section 119 and then the Founders Suites from 120-123. So besides not seeing the field you also have to enter around to go down to the seats in those sections.

As you walk towards center field, the walkway goes behind the batter’s eye but then after passing the batter’s eye, you get a nice standing room mist area (especially needed this weekend where it was low 90s at game time) underneath the smoke stacks:

And then from there it goes behind the right field seats which don’t give you a view of the field. They do have a cutout near section 140/141 where you can see the visiting team’s bullpen which was pretty cool:

Once I got to the foul pole and was heading back towards home plate on the first base side, I noticed that there were stairs (along with an accessible ramp) to continue:

The picture above is someone walking down the first base side and then reaching right field and wanting to continue so they would go down the stairs. In my case, since I was going from right field over to first base (walking clockwise around the ballpark), I had to go up the stairs.

I know people complain about Petco and how it can feel like a maze since you can’t just walk all the way around the ballpark without going up stairs or ramps so these stairs at GABP felt weird since you’re able to make it around the Terrace level smoothly without going up and down except for this part.

The other thing I noticed is once I walked down the first base side towards home plate, the concourse there was extremely crowded and hard to walk around. I contribute that to more people sitting on the first base side since for day games the sun hits the third base side pretty hard (the first base side has shade) and the fact that they put additional carts and stands on both sides of the concourse, making the walkway even smaller. I’ve seen this to be an issue at Petco as well with all the carts they’ve added over the years.

Food wise I noticed they had food stands for local food places like Skyline Chili, LaRosa Pizzeria, Montgomery Inn, Wings and Rings and Graeter’s Ice Cream along with Chick-fil-a.

I tried the Frybox that’s known as a GABP specialty, going with the Ballpark Favorite Frybox that had fries, chili and cheese. This one was pretty good and I would recommend trying Frybox as they have a variety of different Fryboxes including building your own. It’s located right where the stairs I mentioned before that go to right field,

In terms of views of the action, the seats have a good view of the action like most modern ballparks:

And if yo down the line in left field near the foul pole, you can see the Roebling Suspension Bridge:

As I walked around the ballpark, what I noticed is GABP tends to be more no-frills. They have the local Cincinnati food, some different alcohol options but you don’t see a lot of different group and social areas or a bunch of other attractions (or some might say distractions) around the ballpark. There is the Fioptics District on the 400 level near the left field foul pole but it’s easy to miss unless you specifically go up there like I did and walk around the entire ballpark:

People tend to look at these other amenities on the main level (in this case GABP’s Terrace level) since this is where most people enter a ballpark. The Reds have the great Hall of Fame & Museum but it is an additional cost and it’s located on its own right outside the ballpark. As well, the main team store is attached to the Hall of Fame & Museum outside (there are smaller stores and stands in the ballpark) so even going to the team store you would do that before or after the game.

So when you’re inside the ballpark, you’re really just looking to get food and drink and head to your seats to watch. There isn’t a lot to do as you can see with other ballparks whether it’s kids’ areas with rides/games, social/group areas to hang out, other attractions, etc.

Some may prefer to just watch a game but for others, all these different things that make up the ballpark and its experience play a part in how people rank their ballparks and why I can see people not ranking GABP as high. If you’re just looking to come watch a game and get some good local Cincy food, then GABP has you covered.

If you’re looking for everything the way some of these other ballparks offer (all the extra amenities, the view, many things to do in the area, etc) or there’s something really sticks out in a ballpark (like the view in PNC) then I can see why you wouldn’t rank GABP as high. I fall in the latter crowd, so I consider and value all the additional things when ranking ballparks and would put GABP in my middle tier when comparing it to other ballparks.