Category Archives: arizona diamondbacks affiliates

Ballparks currently used by minor league affiliates of the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Recreation Park, Visalia, California

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Recreation Park, Visalia, CALIFORNIA

States visited: still 38
States to go: 12

First visit: July 10, 2019 (Visalia Rawhide 5, Inland Empire 66ers 1)

Everything I knew about the Central Valley in California was pretty much what I read in Grapes of Wrath. So our drive in from

Sequoia National Park that hot afternoon was filled, for me anyway, with images of overloaded jalopies. And it was hot: upper 90s. The town itself didn’t mark me except for those two things.

And so when we got to Recreation Ballpark in Visalia, well, it was in the context of a town that still wasn’t doing much to create an impression. And then the ballpark was in a neighborhood that was not too noticeable.  I usually like ballparks that are sort of embedded into a neighborhood, were one cannot really notice there’s a ballpark around save for the lights.

But there’s no two ways about it: from the exterior, Recreation Ballpark is the most aesthetically unattractive ballpark in the affiliated minors. It is literally a crescent-shaped batch of cement poured onto the ground. It looks a little like there

was some huge spill of some sort that they had to make into a thing, and they chose ballpark. I couldn’t walk around the entire park, either on the interior or the exterior, but this is the only place I’ve ever been with so much visible concrete as a key component of its architecture.

On the inside, the ballpark is just fine looking. When I am sitting in the seats so I don’t have to face the cement, I see the beauty of any ballpark, including a barn forming a part of the outfield wall in right-center. That was cool. No view of any sort, but that’s Central California’s problem, not that of the ballpark.

And I can’t complain about the people. The people at Visalia were simply wonderful. The staff greeted us with a “welcome to the

ballpark!” that was the perfect combination of enthusiastic and genuine. This happened multiple times, with pretty much every worker I encountered. I had a delightful conversation with the guy who sold me my mini-bat. Multiple workers and fans noted my Hillsboro Hops gear I wore that day, since Visalia and Hillsboro share a Hops affiliation (I would see several players that day whom I had seen as Hops in earlier years). One fan even asked my wife if one of the players was our son. Two conclusion from that: 1. knowledgeable fans about the minor league system, and 2. man, we’re getting old.  That same woman got Steven a ball and offered to have the players she was hosting sign it for them after the game. What a nice woman! And my younger son Aaron had a fabulous time conversing with the kids behind him. I swear Aaron makes it his personal mission to meet and befriend someone at every new ballpark.

But, alas, simple infrastructure interfered. The seats we got were incredibly skinny.  I’m still a relatively skinny dude (well, when I set my mind to it), and it was tough to position myself in these seats. Also, there was something about our front-row place that I noticed:  that the row seemed to angle in to the wall to the point where, at the aisle, six-foot-three me couldn’t sit right.  We tried that for a couple of innings, then moved.  

The ballpark was also the only spot I’ve ever been that

included lockers on the concourse. There they were–high-school-gym style lockers, embedded directly into notches in the cement foundation.  What in the world?  I asked a worker who they were for, and he said they were for season ticket holder. I suppose that I could use one for the teams I am a season-ticket holder for: keep an extra sweatshirt and a backup pencil there; maybe a few granola bars. But the weirdness of it trumped the convenience as I saw it.

The Rawhide did seem pretty desperate to get butts in the seats.  Our game was a Guaranteed Win Night: if the Rawhide won, you’d get a free ticket to the game two weeks later. But, in a bit of marketing genius, a local insurance agent had a promotion insuring against that. If the Rawhide lost, then the insurance agent would give

you a free ticket to the game two weeks later.  So you had a guaranteed two-for-the-price-of-one deal at the park.  I also spotted another free-ticket offer: on Thursdays, Party City offers free admission to a Rawhide game if you come dressed in costume for the theme of that night. So, Visalia residents, if these promotions hold, you could buy a ticket to the first Wednesday game of the year and get free admission for every Wednesday for the rest of the year.  And then, if you are willing to dress a little silly, you could get in for free for all the Thursdays as well.  Seems to be a financially good move!

The ballpark does nice with this history. First, they tried to make the most of that damn cement by painting California League history onto it, kind of like

a kid with a broken arm asks friends to sign his cast. It’s nice, but it’s still an injury. I really liked the plaques along the inside, which celebrated Visalia baseball both great and small, with Kirby Puckett (whose number is retired by the Rawhide) sitting alongside a woman who hosted a ton of families and fought hard to keep affiliated ball in Visalia.

So I hope that the excellent people in Visalia don’t take this score too personally. You were fantastic. But a cramped, difficult seat, a desperate vibe, and a seating bowl that Steven said would be a motorcyclist’s dream (to ride up and down) win the day.  I will happily go back to see you all, but I would hope that we could meet in a new place.  This is old, but not the charming kind of old. You deserve better.

BALLPARK SCORE:

Regional feel:  5.5/10

Barn was nice, and I like the plaques, but that’s about it.

Charm: 2/5

The people were all quite charming, but the park was simply unattractive and run-down.

Spectacle:  3/5

Did this well: could have done a little more at this level, and doing so would have foregrounded the fine people.

Mascot/name:  4/5

Here is Tipper with me. A great mascot and a very appropriate name.

Aesthetics 1/5

Would have been a zero were it not for the barn.

Pavilion 2/5

Not a lot going on. But there are lockers.

Scoreability 1.5/5

Good on quick scoring decisions, but frequently had the wrong batter listed on the scoreboard.

Fans 5/5

Some wonderful, welcoming, fine people.

Intangibles 2.5/5

Had a great time on the whole, but I was physically uncomfortable. This ballpark is the wrong kind of old.

OVERALL:  26.5/50

BASEBALL STUFF I SAW HERE:

Rawhide pitching, led by Josh Green (two hits, eleven strikeouts, no walks in 6 innings) completely owned the 66ers. 17 strikeouts overall.

Luis Basabe goes 3-for-3.

Written July 2019.

Hillsboro Hops Ballpark/Ron Tonkin Field, Hillsboro, Oregon

Hillsboro Hops Ballpark/Ron Tonkin Field, Hillsboro, OREGON

Click on any image to see a larger version.

Number of states: still 31
States to go:  still 19

Number of games: 73
First game: June 17, 2013 (Hillsboro Hops 12, Eugene Emeralds 0)
Most recent game:  July 4, 2023 (Vancouver Canadians 8, Hillsboro Hops 2)

I went three years without baseball anywhere close to where I live.  Three.  Long.  Years.  When the AAA Portland Beavers bolted town in order to allow the charming, perfectly-serviceable PGE Park to be made into a soccer-only facility and

rechristened Jeld-Wen Field, the closest professional baseball to my Vancouver, Washington home was the Salem-Keizer Volcanoes, who play in lamentable, ugly surroundings and are an hour drive without traffic (which isn’t often).  But I knew the Portland market would not stay empty—it was the largest market in the US without professional baseball, and someone had to figure out a way to make a stadium to make some money out of that vacuum.

For a short while, it looked like that would be Vancouver, as the Yakima Bears Northwest League team looked for an upgrade from Yakima County Stadium.  A good plan for a gorgeous stadium within walking distance of my house came into being.  The Bears would pay a good chunk of the

money, but wanted taxpayers to foot some of the bill—and (in what I liked most) the county would own the stadium, with the minor league team leasing the ballpark for their 38 days a year.  I walked the site of the potential ballpark with my wife, and we anticipated being regulars there.  Alas, the never-tax-me-for-any-reason-whatever crowd won the day.  Hillsboro, Oregon, a suburb west of Portland, pounced, and as a result they became my “home” minor league team, about a half hour drive away (in good traffic).

The result is Hillsboro Hops Stadium, and I like most of what they’ve done with the place.  The ballpark is the center of a high school sports complex, right next door to the football

 stadium.  The designers did a fabulous job of integrating the colors and designs of the football stadium right into the baseball stadium.  The bleachers for the football stadium actually form a canopy above the pavilion down the left field line: a welcome feature in the event Oregon gets a little rain.  The concession stands for the football stadium double as concession stands for the baseball stadium.  It was a smart little maneuver, and it leads to a nice, integrated experience.  The field is surrounded by active softball fields–if a spectator goes up to the concourse and cranes a neck in nearly any direction, he or she can watch a coed slow-pitch game in progress.  Then, to get back to the car (quite a hike, by the way), one walks past several softball games into the night.  I like that.

Alas, there are negatives with any positives, and the artificial turf on the field are the negative.  Since the ballpark will be used by high

 schools during the 327 days a year the Hops are not around, they wanted a resilient surface, and the ground-up tires therefore made a lot of sense.  While I’d have made the same decision myself, what is gained in utility is lost in attractiveness.  With the exception of the  pitcher’s mound and the area around home plate, the infield “dirt” is simply the same rubber turf as the outfield, only painted reddish-tan.  It’s a bit off-putting, and I wish there were another way.

Opening night was a nice, cathartic experience for me.  I was pleased to see that the Hops understood the importance of the night to those of us who would care to show up for it.  They had several nice touches:  a display honoring the Portland Beavers, for instance (including lineup cards for their final game: a rare case where I saw a display for a game that I was actually present for).  Local kid baseball players had dug up home plate at

 PGE Park after the final game, and they returned with the same home plate at Hillsboro, actually running it around the bases to put it into the ground and be used in Hops Stadium.  The team hired Rich Burk, the very able radio announcer for the Beavers, for the same job with the Hops, and he donned a tux to do all the pregame duties.

Once the game got going, it appeared that the Hops could have used a little more rehearsal.  The scoreboard had a few problems:  for starters, they could have figured out how to do better than the

 generic “Hops” and “Guest” on the scoreboard.  Also, at least twice as the Hops crushed the Emeralds 12-0, the scoreboard operator put up an incorrect number of runs in a half inning.  The only way he/she could fix it was to reset the entire linescore and put in all the numbers yet again, even running through the outs.  It was rather funny to watch.  Also, the PA system was far too loud.  (To be fair, many of these were fixed by the time I attended the team’s third home game two nights later.)

But I still am glad this is my home park because there’s a lot right with it.  The game can be seen from nearly anywhere on the concourse.  The history of Portland baseball is very much on display and

valued.  There is an honoring of veterans from all branches of the service at every game (who cares if they called it “a Hillsboro Stadium tradition” at the very first game…if it hasn’t happened yet, it’s not a tradition, right?).  And, as if to reward all of us for our patience in waiting for a baseball team to return, the inaugural game featured a full double-rainbow past the left field foul pole and a fantastic sunset past first base.

It’s possible my perspectives on my home ballpark will change over the course of the chunk of games I’ll attend per year for the forseeable future, but my first impression is that the team mostly got it right.  They’re local, unashamed of being in the low level minors, and unashamed of being small.  That’s enough for me to overlook the negatives of the ballpark and look forward to quite a few games here over the years.

BALLPARK SCORE:

Regional Feel:  7/10

The celebration of Oregon baseball makes a big impact here–looking back at the Beavers and tying it all together with past teams.  Plus lucking into a rainbow on opening night spoke to me.

Charm: 2.5/10

I like the nestling next to the high school stadium, being surrounded by local softball leagues, and there’s plenty to like here architecturally.  But oh, oh, oh…that turf.

Spectacle:  4.5/5

Lots going on between innings, but no interference with the game.  Marvelous.  Even if, on the very first day the park opened, they mentioned a “Hillsboro Hops Stadium Tradition.”  I only wish they’d said “We started this tradition at the beginning of this sentence, and have done it ever since.”

Team Mascot/Name:  4/5

Barley the Hop is the mascot.  I like the idea of a kid high-fiving the main component in beer.  The name “Hops” may have been a little bit of a slap in the face to the team’s predecessors in Yakima, where they grow a lot more hops than near Hillsboro, but what the hell.

Aesthetics:  3.5/5

Would be 5 without the turf, but hey.

Pavilion area:  4/5

Quite nice.  Tough to watch the game from the outfield, however. (But possible to watch nearby softball games if you get bored with the Hops.)

Scoreability:  1/5

This may improve eventually, but the first two games I attended were really weak in this area.  The scoreboard operator would make really basic errors (like the number of outs in an inning), and I could see the umpire demonstratively displaying outs to counteract the incorrect scoreboard.  In fact, we in the stands started signalling outs to each other as if we were players on the field.  (“Two down, everybody!  Two down!  Play is at first!”)

Fans:  5/5

All that pent-up baseball love came out nicely.  I was glad to be a part of it.

Intangibles:  4/5

Pleased for this to be my home ballpark.

TOTAL:  35.5/50

BASEBALL STUFF I’VE SEEN HERE:

The debut game was a blowout for the Hops.  Jordan Parr hit the first home run in ballpark history while young Jose Martinez led four pitchers to a three-hit shutout.

I “see” my first inside-the-park-home-run ever here in July of 2013.  I say “see” because I lost the ball in the sun.  When I heard no response around me, I assumed a foul ball, and was then confused to look up from my nachos and see the runner crossing home plate.  It turns out the the Hops’ left fielder, Yogey Perez-Ramos, also lost the ball in the sun. It landed about 50 feet behind him near the left-field foul pole.  By the time center fielder Brian Billigen got to it, Everett’s Jack Reinheimer was crossing home plate.  Not a lot of excitement in the ballpark: mostly confusion (I had to check the news accounts to figure out exactly how that happened and how I missed it).

Both the 2014 and 2015 Hops won the Northwest League, and I had the pleasure of watching the clincher of the South Division series over Boise in 2014. I liked how businesslike the team was about it–they weren’t done. An already-scheduled trip took me away for the Northwest League Championship series that same week, but it was still a pleasure to watch.

In 2019, the Hops feature a stud 18-year-old ballplayer named Kristian Robinson. It felt like he hit a home run, drew a walk, and stole a base every time I saw him. He is the first non-pitcher I have seen at the short-season level where I could say “damn, that guy’s gonna make it.”  So here in 2019, I am making the call. Kristian Robinson is going to make it.

In 2021, the Vancouver Canadians called Ron Tonkin Field home because of the difficulty of international travel as we pulled out of COVID that year. I headed to my first of those games and loved it. No ads. Not much between innings. A few cardboard cutouts behind the Canadians’ dugout, but not many actual bodies there. Loved it! Also, Everett AquaSox right fielder Zach Deloach tossed my son Aaron a ball. And a great game to boot: Luis de los Santos has a walk-off sac fly in a 2-1 win for Vancouver, the “home” team.

First-round Mariners pick Emerson Hancock picks up his first professional win, striking out 8 in 5 innings in a 12-4 win over “home” Vancouver in June 2021.

Adam Kloffenstein of the Indians gets the win for Vancouver against Spokane. I had a great time chatting with Adam’s mom for some of the game, so I was rooting for the dude.

My first cycle since I started recording stats! Alex de Jesus of Vancouver got the triple first, the homer second, and the double third, so he had the easy part last. He struck out in his fifth at-bat. I do know that I saw Lloyd McClendon cycle for the Denver Zephyrs, probably in 1985 (as he had only one triple in 1986, odds are it was then). But I wasn’t scoring then: so de Jesus is the official first! Rooting for him down teh line.

Written July 2013. Updated July 2021.

 

Ogren Park at Allegiance Field, Missoula, Montana

Ogren Park at Allegiance Field, Missoula, MONTANA

Number of states: 29
States to go:  21

First game:  July 2, 2009 (Missoula Osprey 14, Great Falls Voyagers 9)

(Click on any image to see a larger version.)

Looks great–sounds awful.

For our seventh-annual 4th of July Minor League Baseball Road Trip (and our first with spawn), Michelle and I headed out to Montana for my first Pioneer League game.  We were quite impressed with Missoula as a city–a nice university town surrounded by

gorgeous mountains.

Ogren Park at Allegiance Field is located almost perfectly within that gorgeous town–just off of downtown and in the shadow of the Rockies.  You can’t do better than that for location.  There’s a view of a little bit of downtown, but not much; mostly, the ballpark feels sunken into the ground.  This hardly matters, however, since the mountains are so beautiful.  Watching the last of the sun reflect off of the mountains between pitches is as good as it gets.  If you ever go to the ballpark, please sit on the third-base side.  Not only is it the shady side, but you can’t go wrong with that view.

The ballpark is pimped out a little more than I’d like.  For starters, I think the name is backwards…shouldn’t the field be at the park rather than vice versa?   Local car dealer Kathy Ogren bought the naming rights to the park (although apparently not the field)…but then named it after herself rather than after her business, Bitterroot Motors.  I suppose that name choice is better than Bitterroot Motors Park would have been (although not nearly as graceful, beautiful, and locally appropriate as Bitterroot Park).  And once inside, there are a few too many corporate reminders for my tastes.  I worry a little about a

ballpark viewed as a promotions transferrence device.  But to sit underneath those mountains, I can live with some of that.  (Who looks at advertisements when there’s baseball and a fantastic foothill view?)  Although one cannot see the mountain marked with the letter “M” (for the University of Montana), one could see the mountain marked with what was a mysterious “L”.  An usher informed me that said “L” is for Loyola High School.

As I poked around before the game, I found a lot that I liked.  For starters, the place is appropriately quirky.  The right-field line is really short–only 297 feet to the pole, so the team compensates with a particularly high Monster-like wall there. Unlike some

ballparks of recent vintage, this isn’t a forced attempt at character.  There are railroad tracks and a bike/walking path there that compel them to cram right field into very little space.  The idea that a railroad, including a gorgeous railway bridge one can see from the pavilion area by the right field foul pole, would be so prominent in a Montana ballpark helps this place.  I was also impressed that the locals who were biking and walking the path could stop and watch the game from the distance in center field…for free.  Alas, they would be denied the “bats and balls” offering in the concession stand…which, the concession worker told me with just a bit of a blush, are french fries (“bats”) and, as she directly put it, “buffalo balls.”  Um…no thanks.  But I’m glad they’re available.  Adds to the local color.

Speaking of local color, the name “Osprey” is locally appropriate–in spades.  Most impressively, an actual Osprey lives in a nest perched atop a giant wooden pole just past the wall in right-center field.  A telescope sits on the third-base side of the pavilion, trained full-time on the nest. By the telescope stands a wildlife expert who can answer all of your actual small-o osprey questions.  It’s hard to take a picture through a telescope, but I tried…how often does one get a opportunity to take a picture of osprey young in their nest?  The baseball club doesn’t just name itself after these birds, but they make them into what I think is as gorgeous a logo as you’ll ever see on a minor league hat–the outline of a flying bird holding a fish in its talons.

While the place was pimped

out to the gills, it did give me a sense that baseball was valued.  I appreciated the large tributes to former Osprey who had made the major leagues, both with the parent Diamondbacks and with other clubs.  I’ve never seen quite such a large display, and that’s something I always enjoy, particularly at the lowest level of the minors like this.  And on top of that, they had a promotion that I was quite looking forward to because of its baseball-relatedness.  If something highly unusual were to take place in a specific inning (a triple play, for instance, or the team hitting for the cycle, or nine pitches for three strikeouts), a fan would win $10,000.  I figured that, while unlikely, would be fun, so I entered my name. (Alas, my name was not selected.  And I do mean “alas,” for reasons that will become clear later.)

Happy we had made the trip, I bought one of the team’s gorgeous hats and prepared to enjoy a game in gorgeous, unquestionably-Montana surroundings, alternating my night focusing

on my wife, son, baseball, and foothills.

What could possibly go wrong?

Well, as it turned out, quite a bit.

The front office of the Missoula Osprey have a Rolls Royce of a ballpark.  It’s a shame that they believe that the purpose of a

Rolls Royce is to gun the engine, blast the bass, do some donuts and leave as much rubber as possible on the pavement.

It’s not an exaggeration to say that the way the Osprey presented their game left me feeling as disappointed as I’ve ever felt in a ballpark.

It all started in about the 6th inning.  The peanut inning.

The PA announcer didn’t even announce it–or if he did, he announced it so quickly that I didn’t catch it.  (Not quietly, mind you.  Quickly.)

Next thing I know, the PA man was shouting at us.  The ushers were shouting at us.  And the citizens of Missoula, Montana were shouting alongside them like trained seals.

Here’s what it sounded like:

“I SAY PEA!  YOU SAY NUTS!  PEA!” Nuts! “PEA!”  Nuts! “NOW I SAY NUTS AND YOU SAY PEA!  NUTS!” Pea! “NUTS!” Pea! NOW I SAY PEA, YOU SAY NUTS!  PEA!” Nuts!

“NOW JUST THE WOMEN! PEA!” Nuts!

“NOW JUST THE MEN!  PEA!” Nuts!

“NOW JUST THE KIDS!  PEA!” Nuts!

“OK!  NOW THE FIRST-BASE SIDE SAYS PEA, AND THE THIRD-BASE SIDE SAYS NUTS!  GO! ” Pea!  Nuts!

This is the point where I might say “You get the idea…” except that you absolutely have no idea the depths of hellishness this crap sank to.  Between every single pitch of the entire inning, this clown of a PA announcer shouted “PEA-PEA-PEA!!!” or some variety thereof.  Meanwhile, the ushers stood at the front of the rows and raised up their signs like elderly cheerleaders.  I felt like they were demeaned, to be honest.  I do not believe it is their job to lead cheers. I believe it is their job to help spectators.  I also do not believe that the public address announcer’s job is to shout out garbage through the game, but rather to provide information to enhance our enjoyment of the game and to take care of advertisers. Apparently the Osprey disagree.

Plus, when the dude shouts “PEA!!!”  it sounds like he is ordering us to urinate.  (Although I would imagine peeing nuts would be far

more painful than any kidneystone.)  Which led me to wonder…as readily as everybody was going along with this guy, would they have gone along with such an order!  If he’d have shouted out–“HEY!  FIRST BASE SIDE!  EVERYBODY TAKE A CRAP!  DEFECATE, EVERYONE!  SHIT ONTO THE SEATS!”…and had the ushers demonstrate…well, I do believe everybody would have followed orders.

Thankfully, the Osprey did not score in the inning.  I’m worried I’d have heard the PA guy pull a Meg Ryan from When Harry Met Sally while the ushers imitated his every sound.

And then–well, then it got worse.  By which I mean more bizarre.

Remember that promotion where someone could win $10K if something strange happened in the inning?  The 7th inning promotion would award a woman named Martha $10,000 if the Osprey scored exactly 7 runs in the inning.

Well, that was the inning that the Great Falls Voyagers, leading by a score of 8-1, suddenly lost the ability to pitch a baseball.

After a leadoff strikeout, the following transpired:  walk, single, single, error, HPB, walk, walk, walk, double.

With each Great Falls Voyagers screw-up, the music became more frequent, to the point where it was nearly between every pitch.  Any time the music subsided, the PA guy repeatedly ordered the brainwashed crowd around, saying hey, everybody shout, everybody up on your feet, everybody go crazy.  Saying hey, the Osprey need you to help them out.  Saying let’s all put our hands together.

PA guy, I have an honest question for you.  Do you believe that the citizens of Missoula are comically stupid?  Or is it tragically stupid?

I do believe that, particularly in a university town, that people are smart enough to know that a late seven-run rally to tie the score is exciting.  Additionally, the people know that Martha has $10,000 on the line.  That’s also exciting and fun to watch.

So, given that only someone with absolutely no sense would be bored by the developments on the field, why do you feel the need to blast your voice all over the ballpark between nearly every damned pitch???  Especially in an inning that lasted about a million pitches?

In the midst of all of this, my son, who normally sleeps through baseball games–even dramatic, ninth-inning rallies–could stand it no longer.  I took him up to the pavilion (where it was slightly quieter, albeit still too loud).  I watched the brunt of this lamentable inning from there.

Before long, seven runs were in.  The Osprey had tied the score 8-8. Men were on second and third.  There was one out.

“Now remember,” the PA guy said.  “The Osprey have to score EXACTLY 7 runs for Martha to win her $10,000.”

And at that moment, a hilarious thing happened.  The Osprey let their priorities show.

The PA guy shut up.  The music stopped.  After a million sound clips in the inning, and with the lead runs on second and third, the Osprey suddenly stopped audible expressions of support for the home team.  Oh, there may have been the occasional rhythmic-clapping clip.  But the PA guy stopped talking, and the loudest of the music stopped.

To the team, the promotion mattered more than winning the game.

To confirm this, I sidled up to an usher and asked the obvious.  “So, at this point, are we rooting for Great Falls?”

He looked at me and said “Don’t tell anyone, but right now, yes, we are.”  I promised not to tell anyone.  (As this post shows, I lied.)

The Osprey’s next two batters were retired before the 8th run could score, so Martha won her $10,000.  I’m glad she did, but the whole experience would have been far more exciting if they’d simply announced it at the start of the inning and treated the rest of the inning like normal (by which I mean normal for ballparks that value baseball, rather than normal for the loudmouthed pots-and-pans-banging folks for the Osprey).

Even thereafter, the PA guy wouldn’t shut up.  When the Osprey took the lead, he started cracking jokes between pitches.  “Hey fans…are  you enjoying your night at Ogren Park at Allegiance Field now?”  Laughter from the peanut gallery.  One pitch later:  “and you thought I had two heads when I said they could pull it off!”  Meanwhile, of course, there’s a guy in the batter’s box, but that’s apparently of little or no interest to Osprey game management.

And that’s where my fun night at the ballpark went.  It was destroyed by the larynx of an egomaniac who believes that he is the most important person at the ballpark.  That last comment of his proves it:  it shows that he believes the PA announcer was central in all of the spectator’s minds.  Not the massive comeback, the beautiful setting, the woman who won the big money, or even the abysmal

Rookie League play.  He believed that we all were thinking about him.

And he was right.  We were thinking of him because he was forcing us to.

So, to sum up, my hopes for an evening of baseball in a fine, quirky, locally-flavored ballpark were ruined by a front office and a public address announcer who put baseball dead last on its list of priorities.  The hair on the back of my neck stood up.  I was so worked up and frazzled that I vowed to tear out the PA guy’s larynx if I ever encountered him.  But I’ve calmed down since then.  Now, instead, I will simply avoid Ogren Park at Allegiance Field until the Osprey are run by someone else–someone who values baseball.   To put it simply, they took what might be the most physically beautiful setting for a park I’ve ever seen and managed to make me not enjoy the night.

Please–everyone who runs a team–learn from this.  Less is more.  Baseball is enough.

BALLPARK SCORE:

Regional feel:  10/10
The ballpark is quite literally as good as it gets in this regard.  Local landmarks visible on the mountains, respect for past Missoula minor leaguers, and bull testicles for sale.  That’s fantastic.

Charm:  1.5/5
Physically?  Sure.  But beyond that, this ballpark has all the charm of a screaming chainsaw.

Spectacle:  0/5
Hey Osprey:  Shut.  The Hell.  Up.

Team Mascot/Name:  4/5

Ollie Osprey and me.  Unique, locally appropriate, and a logo that’s a gorgeous as any I’ve seen.

Aesthetics: 5/5
The ballpark itself is quite nice–not perfect–but oh, those surroundings.  I just can’t imagine anything much better.

Pavilion:  3.5/5
Nice respect for the past.  Lots of room to walk, and always within view of the game.

Scoreability:  1/5
Did a lot wrong here.  They completely ignored at least one pinch-hitter, and I had to get information after the game from the internet…which the team posted improperly for a while.

Fans:  2/5
I appreciate the number of them, but I think they are complicit in the Osprey’s sins–serving as accomplices.

Intangibles:  1/5
I’ll admit I want to go back–but only once someone else is running the show.

TOTAL: 28/50

BASEBALL STUFF I’VE SEEN HERE:

These kids need a bit of work, especially Great Falls’ relief pitching.  Missoula, once down 8-1, scores 7 runs in the 7th and 6 more in the 8th to win an endless game.

Nobody had more than two hits, but Missoula was the beneficiary of a dozen walks.  Paul Goldschmidt and Kevin Broxton walked thrice each.

Ramon Castillo homered for the Osprey.  Nick Ciolli homered for the Voyagers.

(Written September 2009.)