SunTrust Park

I attended two games at SunTrust during the inaugural season. Overall I was not very impressed.

On the plus side the open concourses are nice and the monument garden is really well done. Also the entryway near the center field entrances is good. There are some excellent food options in the park. I very much enjoyed a cheeseburger from H+F [even though I had to wait 45 min in line to get it] and I had a great chopped brisket sandwich from Fox BBQ.

Some of the other features of the ballpark include the right field air conditioned seats which are part of a restaurant, the expensive seats behind home plate have touch screen monitors, and the giant bobbleheads placed throughout the park. SunTrust also has a Coke deck in the same location as in Turner Field, but the giant coke bottle is gone.

My primary complaint is the ballpark is boring. It’s shiny and new but there is nothing here that couldn’t have been renovated at Turner Field. Other complaints:

• The exterior of the park is not designed for people to walk around – they really want to funnel you through the battery shopping alley. I find this odd since there are statues around some of the entrances that are not easily accessible.
• I bought my tickets through a third-party vendor. The cell phone admission policy is asinine. You can only use tickets managed through the MLB Ballpark app.
• The jumbo screen in center field is high quality – however – the information displayed is lacking. There is nothing about the batter’s previous plate appearances. Player lineups don’t include number or position. At various point in the game the scoreboard will highlight the batters’ stats for things like ‘with the bases loaded’ or ‘with RISP’, at the expense of showing nothing else. The out of town scoreboard shows a minimal amount of information.
• On the upper level, the bathroom doors are propped open – which gives people walking by clear view of the stalls in both the men’s and women’s rooms.

 

I am also bothered by the lack of a tribute to either Turner Field or Fulton County Stadium. Other people can probably speak with more authority on this than I can but I have been led to believe that the break up between the Braves and Atlanta/Fulton County was unpleasant and A/FC refused to let the Braves take anything from the old stadiums or the statues that were outside the park.

Comerica Park

I was able to attend two games this year on a weekend series against the Royals. This is a pretty nice ballpark. The exterior has several big entrances although the grand entrance is on the first base side. There is the giant concrete tiger at this entrance along with smaller tiger statues on the roof. Along the sides of the park there are tiger busts with baseballs in their mouths. As you walk in the main entrance there is a kid’s area off to the left with a merry-go-round. Of course there are all tigers and no horses. [Are you seeing the theme yet?] The park also has statues in the outfield of people like Cobb, Greenberg, and Kaline. If you have been to Nationals Park, the statues near the left field entrance are done in the same style – trying to depict movement. [Yes, designed by the same artist.]

The field has the strip of dirt between the mound and home plate like Bank One/Chase Field. The view from behind the plate looks to the statues and an impressive brick wall which holds the names of the Tiger wall of fame. The scoreboard, which I am guessing has been updated since the park was first built, is in left field and is nice. The view beyond right field is downtown Detroit. On the downside, there is no scoreboard or indication of balls/strikes in right field.

For the two games I attended I sat in the lower level behind home plate. For the second game I was in the club section. Be aware these are the worst club seats in baseball. In Detroit “club” is code for crappy upper deck seats. There were some cool looking wooden chairs behind the field level seating. If I get back to Detroit I would like to try this section.

Despite the good seats, behind the plate hosts some of the worst fans. Generally unfriendly and the woman to my left demanded the cup holder – which was directly in front of me – was hers. As soon as any one sat in front of her seats that was just a fan trying to sit closer – she called the usher to have him removed. I thought things would be better in upper deck seating. There was a father/daughter attending to my left. A foul ball made it about 5 seats over and the dad pushed his kid out of the way and fought a woman and another kid to get the ball. Nice.

The Tigers are playing well this season and will win their division and I would not be surprised if they won the World Series. The Tigers had Miguel Cabrera, Prince Fielder, and Justin Verlander. I would not get to see Verlander pitch but I did see Scherzer on the Sunday game. They were playing the Royals who were pretty much out of the division race but were hopeful to make the last wild card spot.

 

Tigers lost the first game 1-0. Doug Fister got into a little trouble in the first inning and gave up a run on an Eric Hosmer triple. After that he settled down but Ervin Santana and the KC bullpen were outstanding. On Sunday, Scherzer pitched a gem but the bullpen gave up the tying run right after he came out. They would end up winning on an 8^th inning home run by Alex Avila. Alex’s second HR on the day.

One final note. As I was driving into downtown, I happened to look over to my left at an empty field with a fence around it. [Not your typical cyclone fence.] I was stopped at a red light and it dawned on me that this was the site of old Tiger Stadium. There was nothing to note what it was and the weeds were so overgrown along the sides of the fences that there was nothing to see. A sad end to a classic park.

Marlins Park

This year I was able to get two trips in just to see parks. The Marlins just opened this park last year and brought in some fairly high-priced talent. Expectations were high. After all, this franchise has a history of pulling together great teams for a World Series season with a fire sale the following year. The 2012 season was not kind to the Marlins so the owner had the fire sale early – mid-season to be exact. Considering what the community [taxpayers] did to get this park built the fans were angry at the sending all of their good players to Toronto or Los Angeles for a handful of prospects. The prevailing thought was the owner just brought in players just so he could get the ballpark. So now we are in late June of the 2013 season and the Marlins have the worst record in baseball. Fans are staying away in droves.

Before I go on, let’s get one thing straight: this is a mediocre ballpark. There are several reasons why I draw this conclusion.

On the plus side:

The stadium has free Wi-Fi. This is probably the direction all stadiums should be moving towards. I had a good connection. Of course most of the seats were empty, but it was still nice.

The seats were comfortable with adequate legroom.

The retractable roof was closed. At first I was a little outraged to be watching indoor baseball when it wasn’t raining. However, considering how hot and humid it was – I had no complaints about being in air conditioning.

On the downside:

The exterior is exceptionally bland. There is no grand entrance. I asked a few employees where the best place to get a picture would be. No one had an answer. Finally one person said, “The only sign outside the park that says ‘Marlins Park’ is on the roof. You can see it from the freeway. But when you go inside, there’s a huge sign that says Marlins Park.” Inside it does say Marlins Park, but the letters aren’t that big plus they’re right under a bank of floodlights making it difficult to see. I suspect they might be trying to keep the walls clean for when they sell the naming rights.

The prevailing interior color is a God-awful lime green. It’s like they painted it to be the green-screen similar to what they use in TV. Perhaps the local broadcasts put an entertaining background up for viewers since what’s on the field isn’t.

The seats don’t angle towards home plate. This is a stadium built primarily for baseball, not dual-purpose. There is no excuse for this.

Lastly the ushers and vendors are hit and miss. We had a great conversation with two ushers, but later I asked a guy selling cotton candy if he liked the new park. He replied, “I don’t give a f**k about this place.” 

Some other unique features about the stadium:

They have a bobblehead “museum”. This is essentially a large display case on the lower level concourse on the first-base side.

They boast a large…thing in center field that has cartoon Marlins jumping [rotating] after a Marlins home run. It is as ugly in person as it appears on TV.

The fish tanks behind home plate are only accessible to persons with tickets in the first 7 rows behind the plate. We got there as gates opened for the second game and they wouldn’t let me get close. It is hard for me to judge if the tanks are nice as I was not rich/famous enough to have access.

There is a Clevelander Club in left field. We tried to go in there before the game and they wanted a $10 cover charge just to walk in a look. “We’re a full-service club sir!” This is just another place for people who aren’t interested in the game to hangout and be seen. 

I flew down on a Tuesday morning and attended the game that night. I met up with my friend John in Boca Raton so we could get to the new Marlins Park and take a day trip to see Tropicana [which was a new park for John]. I usually buy tickets in advance but we didn’t know how many people would be attending the game. To be prepared I went to the online ticket resellers and didn’t see many tickets available. Just out of curiosity I went to the Marlins website to see what was available and saw that everything was available. We ended up scalping tickets but probably over-paid just a little bit. After we got inside we found out it was 2-for-1 night. But the good news is we got into our seats by the first pitch. The Marlins were 25-50 entering the night. Odds of seeing 2 victories for the home team: about 11.1%. This was going to be my lucky trip as the Marlins won both games. 

The Tuesday night game was against the Twins and then we came back on Saturday night for another game against the Padres. Minnesota was expecting to be competitive but not a dominant team. They have Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau but that’s about all you can say for “star power”. The Padres were over-performing when we saw them. Meaning no one expects them to contend for the division, but they were in second place at the time. 

The second game was “Venezuela night” When the usher told us this we asked what were they going to do to commemorate this? “Nothing” But Oscar D’Leon was there who I understand is somewhat popular [el diablo de la salsa!]. They let him throw the first pitch. Later they tried to interview him between innings and he spoke in Spanish [which is fine] but the audio was so bad that no one understood him. His post-game concert was in the pavilion near the home plate entrance, not in the park. Meaning you didn’t have to waste your money on a baseball ticket if you just wanted to hear Oscar.

The park was empty on a Saturday night – even for Venezuela night. Two rows in front of us remained empty the entire game. One section left of that [towards home plate] there were three rows that were empty until the 5^th inning when four 21 yo’s showed up. Two stayed for half an inning then proceeded to go back and forth to the bar for more drinks. I would be surprised if they knew which teams were playing – or cared.

When you leave the park, we must have picked the worst entrance/exit for the freeway. Once you get onto the freeway, you need to cross four lanes to get into the left-exit for 95-north. I’m guessing a popular route for many fans. Of course the far left lane is stop & go while the lanes you need to cross are moving at 60 mph. If the Marlins get popular, someone is going to get killed trying to merge.

One more thing I want to mention. During BP a guy got hit in the head with a foul ball while he was talking on his cell phone. He never missed a beat with his call. The usher took him to first aid [after his call] and he came back with better seats, a Marlins T-shirt, and an autographed baseball. Darwin was wrong.

UPDATE July 2016: I attended SABR 46 in Miami and attended two games. The first was the SABR outing. Before the game they held a Q&A session with Don Mattingly, Barry Bonds, Andre Dawson, and Tony Perez. This would have been awesome except for the idiot asking the questions. For example, he managed to avoid asking Andre Dawson any questions about Andre Dawson. Additionally the guy who designed the stadium talked about that process. For the games, they were poorly attended by any standard. When considering that Ichiro Suzuki was at 2998 hits the crowds can officially be called pathetic. Sadly Ichiro did not get to 3000 while I was there. The Cardinals were in town and neither team was expected to make the post-season. St. Louis took the first game 11-6. Miami took revenge the next night winning 11-0. Of note in the second game, newly acquired pitcher Colin Rea made his first and only start for the Marlins. He left the game after 3+ IP. It turned out the Padres neglected to tell the Marlins about his injuries. He was sent back to SD the next day. 
wrong.