Bank One Ballpark/Chase Field

I grew up mostly in the Phoenix area, however the city didn’t get a home baseball team until after I moved to San Diego. Until then Phoenicians would have to settle for one month a year of baseball during spring training. When it was announced that the Diamondbacks franchise was awarded I called my good friend Gary and made arrangements to visit the city. This happened to coincide with my second BRBL (fantasy baseball) draft. We held the draft in Phoenix opening day weekend – which is not a particularly good time for baseball since the spring training teams have all left to play exhibition games in their home cities and the regular season doesn’t start until Monday. To make matters worse, it rained that weekend. 

 The ballpark, however, was awesome. The stadium was open for the public to walk through and they were still installing seats up until the last day before the first game. I saw the first three games played in the park which included an exhibition game and the first two regular season games. The exhibition game was interesting and we sat really high on the first base side. The real opening game was against the Rockies. The ticket to the game (scalped) cost more that my airfare from San Diego. We sat in the lower level on the third base side. They D-Backs were big on opening ceremonies. They had a number of former all star players, although I’m not exactly sure what their connection was to the D-Backs or Phoenix. One of the really geeky things they did for the opening ceremony was to have the groundskeepers rappel from the roof to the field, in tuxedos, to put the bases on the field. I think this made a lot of sense to the owners since rappelling and tuxedos are often associated with baseball. Not.

The stadium itself is an imposing structure that dominates that section of downtown. From the outside it has a lot of red brick in the lower half with glass and steel on the upper half. They tend to leave the roof open. The inside of the park is well laid out. The unique aspect of this park is the swimming pool in right-center field. That part of the outfield wall is clear and the pool water is flush with field level. In the few games I have attended in person, and many games I have seen on TV, the pool is one of those attractions that brings people to the ballpark that don’t want to watch the game. One of the really cool features of the stadium is the air conditioner (pun intended). During my second and third trips to Phoenix to see a game, the temperature was over 100 degrees. The air conditioners worked so well for the second game (about 102 outside) I could have worn a sweatshirt and been comfortable. Surprisingly parking is not that big of an issue in this area. The park did a great job of re-gentrifying that area. When I lived there it was known as a good place to buy drugs. The America West/US Airways arena is also in that area.


For my first two (regular season) games at the BOB, we saw a Diamondbacks expansion team made up of former good players from other teams; Matt Williams, Devon White, Jay Bell, and Andy Benes. They played the Rockies who were now in their sixth year. Both teams would finish at the bottom of the NL West. The Rockies had Vinny Castilla, Larry Walker, Neifi Perez. This was Pedro Astacio’s first full season with the Rockies after being traded in the middle of the 1997 season. This was also Todd Helton’s first full season after playing in 35 games in 1997. The opening day game was a loss for the D-Backs on a strong Darryl Kile outing. Castilla had two home runs and Helton had two doubles. The second game was another win for the Rockies on a John Thompson shutout (one of his three career shutouts). Castilla had another home run and Helton had another double.

The next time I was in Phoenix for a game was in May 2000. My friend Gary got nice seats in the loge level between home and first base (closer to home). They played the Brewers. Neither team would contend for their division but they were both out of the cellar. The Diamondbacks still had Jay Bell but since my last trip they had added Steve Finley, Luis Gonzalez, and Tony Womack. They also had Randy Johnson in his second year as a D-Back and Curt Schilling in his first. The following year the Diamondbacks would win the World Series. The Brewers had decent offense in Jeromy Burnitz, Marquis Grissom, and Ronnie Belliard. They had terrible starting pitching. Perhaps this was because they decided to only start players whose first name started with ‘J’ (Jason Bere, Jeff D’Amico, Jimmy Haynes, John Snyder, and Jamey Wright). This game was a win for the D-Backs on a fair Armando Reynoso outing. Byung-Hyun Kim got the save. He was still a year away from taking the full-time closer job. Steve Finley and Luis Gonzales had home runs.

UPDATE July 2009: I was in town and caught a game against the Phillies. Since I’m writing this before the end of the season I can’t say how either team will finish this year, however, the Phillies are coming off a World Series championship from last year and are leading their division. The Diamondbacks are not likely to contend for a playoff spot this year and may finish at the bottom of the NL West. We sat behind the plate about 25 rows up. The roof had been open earlier in the day. I knew this since my plane flew directly over the stadium that morning. This was a great game for the D-Backs. On paper the Phillies should have won just on starting pitchers alone. Yusmeiro Petit would combine with three other AZ pitchers for a shutout against J.A. Happ who had been pitching really well until this game. One complaint I have about the stadium for this game were the ushers. This game drew about 23,000 fans. There were plenty of open seats but this fat woman usher kept making people move – including a small family laterally across an aisle. (Sorry junior. You have to sit in the seat behind these tall guys rather than the same row across the aisle where you could actually see the field.) She kept at this the whole game moving people as late as the bottom of the 8th inning. I appreciate people taking their job seriously, but come on. Have another HoHo and lighten up. 

UPDATE April 2014: My roto league came to AZ for the draft and spring training games. Most of us stuck around for opening day against the Giants. [OK...technically not opening day for the DBacks as they opened in Japan earlier.] We saw Madison Bumgarner against Brandon McCarthy. MadBum had an early night after 4 unearned runs through 4. The Giants ended up winning 9-8. Two events lowered my opinion of AZ fans substantially. First, during the game my friend BoCJ was talking...a lot. About the 7th inning this guy at the end of the row goes off on him and tells BoCJ to shut the f**k up. Other people in the section agreed with the angry guy. Granted BoCJ was talking a lot, he was talking about baseball. The other event was on the trolley after the game. An AZ fan starts harassing a Giants fan just for being there. How dare he attend a game in AZ in anything other that approved DBacks gear. The double standard because it is OK to support the DBacks in other stadiums. My favorite quote was, "Why are you tainting my State?" This would have been funny if the asshole hadn't been dead serious.