Category Archives: colorado rockies affiliates

Ballparks currently used by minor league affiliates of the Colorado Rockies.

The Hangar, Lancaster, California

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Number of states: still 38
States to go: 12

Number of games: 1

First game: July 11, 2019 (Lancaster JetHawks 11, Stockton Ports 10)

 

First, let’s give credit to a guy who saved my family’s bacon on this day, and let’s give some shame to a guy who showed an astonishing lack of empathy.

Family spent the morning of this game poking around Sequoia National Park (recommended), and then shot down I-5 on our way to Lancaster for the game. We stopped at the Shell station in Gorman, California to top off the tank. Put in our five gallons and then got prepared for the last half hour of drive to Lancaster.

Wife turns key. Nothing.

Wife turns key again. Nothing.

I got myself ready for what might happen next. Starter out. A tow. A crapload of money. We miss a game or two or three. We miss the Grand Canyon. The kids are disappointed. The trip is ruined.

I headed inside the Shell station.

Does he have any contacts for any mechanics?

No. Do you have Triple A?

No.  You don’t know even one mechanic in town?

I don’t know any. Are you on pump 3 or pump 7?

That’s us at pump 7. [Points at car, which has wife and kids inside]. Do you have a phone book?

No. I can’t help you.

It is 97 degrees outside and our car won’t start.

I consider going to the McDonalds across the street, but first try my phone. It has just a sliver of coverage, so I am able to Google “Mechanic Gorman California.” I call the guy. He says he will be there in 5 minutes.

He is there in 2.  Turns out we just need a jump.  He gives it to us.  Then he asks us to follow him to his shop.

Incredibly, the shop is just on the other side of the McDonalds. 

I could have thrown a rock from our car and hit this mechanic, and the guy at Shell claimed not to know any mechanics in town.

Our friend (tactfully, avoiding names) said that he had used to work for the guy at Shell, but that he didn’t feel he was treated well, so he started his own shop and drove the Shell’s mechanic shop out of business, and that the man I saw wouldn’t refer anyone to him. He asked for $45. I gave him $50 and demanded

he not give me change.

Kudos to Alex Saenz at ATG Automotive next to the McDonalds off the interstate in Gorman. If you live near there and have a car, go there! He is a good guy whose goal is to help people.

And if you are the guy at Shell and are reading this, you might mull over how you became a person who rather strand a family with two children in a remote location on a 97 degree day rather than say “There’s a shop over there. You can easily walk there.”  Think about whether that’s who you want to be.

Anyhoo. Thanks to Alex, we got to the Hangar (great name!) in plenty of time for the game. And when I got there, I found a nice little ballpark with plenty of quirks.

First, I noticed a stiff, stiff wind headed out to right field: it was pretty much always easy to view

each of the 50 stars on the flag above the field. “Gonna be a ton of homers tonight,” I thought.  I later asked an usher about those winds: whether they were common. “Not all the time,” he said. “Just 90 percent of the time.”

The name JetHawks is fantastic, and refers to the aviation associated with the area. They have made planes for years, including the NASA plane displayed outside the home plate entrance. (Indeed, only as I drove off through the desert outside the ballpark on my way out did I connect Edwards Air Force Base with Space Shuttle landings.)  And they consistently ride the theme through the park, from the mascot to the hangar-like area to eat: it was charming.

It was a bit of a quiet night attendance-wise, with lots of empty seats that became more numerous over the course of a nearly-four hour game. Visiting Stockton took an early big lead: up 8-1. “Remember that no lead is safe in this ballpark,” said the

radio guy, whose voice echoed through the bathroom. I thought that was optimistic.

My own kids continued to have a great time through the blowout innings, each in their own ways.

Aaron talked to kids he had met in the play area like they were decades-long buddies. He told them about our trip, about the ballparks and national parks we had seen, about where we were headed, about school, about his favorite YouTubers…just

over and over again. This is very much not my personality, and it’s cool to see some recessive genes come through in the kid.

Steven, meanwhile, decided it was time to do some ballhawking. He headed up to the concourse and stood there waiting for foul balls. But, because he is a lover of scoring and math, he’d run down to our seat in front of the dugout between every single batter to write down the result in his scorebook. He’d then run back up to try to catch a foul ball. Nothing came close to him, although he tried to chase down most

balls that fell within 100 yards of him.  Still, he got in at least 20,000 steps in those last few innings running up and down the aisle.

And then…

Steven was leaving his seat after marking down a batter in his scorebook in the 8th inning when I noticed a player in the Ports’ dugout ahead of us. He had a ball. He was looking around for a kid to throw it to.

My kid was there.  And he was oblivious.

“Steven!” my wife and I shouted. “Look!  He wants to throw you a ball!”

Steven looked, and the player threw him the ball.  I thanked the player. We waved. The game continued.

I was curious who the player was: I like thanking guys in Instagram or Twitter when they’re nice to my kids (might be the only worthwhile thing about Twitter). So I got out the phone and checked player photos…

and whattaya know, the player who threw the ball was a major leaguer on rehab. Sean Manaea. When Steven found he had been thrown a ball by a major leaguer, he beamed. That’s what it’s all about.

Apropos of nothing: the bathrooms were beautiful.  Check it out.

In the parenting department: A ton of angry drunks at the ballpark on this Thursday night (discounted beer, you know). They were shouting at the umpire for any reason and no reason. My younger kid has a strong sense of justice, and shouted back from his seat.

“What do you mean? He was safe! Totally safe!”  (He was, by the way.) Teachable moment: Michelle and I told Aaron that he wouldn’t be convincing the angry drunks of much on this night, and it was best to let it go. He did: give credit to him.

Incidentally, that bit about no lead being safe?  Turns out it was true. Lancaster came back to win 11-10. Three home runs and a walk-off sacrifice fly. One of the more interesting ballgames I will see. That’s why they call it the launching pad.

BALLPARK SCORE:

Regional feel: 6.5/10. Loved all they did with the airplanes, but this came up short in other areas. Hard to say where we were from the seating bowl (just a highway heading past right field, which also meant traffic noise infiltrated the game). 

Charm: 2.5/5.  This felt like many other ballparks: not much to make it stand out.

Spectacle: 3/5.  Well done: didn’t overdo it.

Team mascot/name: 4.5/5.  Really great once I understood the local background. Here’s my younger kid with KaBoom.

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Aesthetics: 3/5.  Pretty, but in the same way other parks are pretty. The highway didn’t help.

Pavilion: 2/5. Not much going on: lots of grass, and it’s impossible to walk around the park.

Scoreability: 2/5.  Didn’t do much. Missed some key WP/PB decisions. I had to guess.

Fans: 2/5. Some delightful young fans who played with my younger kid, but the overall environment was drunk and surly (it was Thursday night, of course).

Intangibles: 4/5.  A lot going for it here. Saved by a fabulous mechanic to get to the game, and then saw a massive comeback. Plus a major-leaguer threw my kid a ball.

TOTAL 29/50

BASEBALL STUFF I SAW HERE:

Austin Bernard hits a two-run home run in addition to a walk-off sacrifice fly. Ramon Marcelino also has 4 RBI including a 3-run homer.

Ryan Grdley goes 3-for-4 with two doubles for the Ports.

Written July 2019.

McCormick Field, Asheville, North Carolina

McCormick Field, Asheville, NORTH CAROLINA

Number of states:  11
States to go:  39

Number of games:  2
First game:  April 15, 2005 (Kannapolis Intimidators 1, Asheville Tourists 0)
Most recent game:  July 21, 2006 (Columbus Catfish 11, Asheville Tourists 10)

(Click any image to see a larger version.)

I have to say that one of my favorite aspects of the quest to attend a minor league ballpark in every state is the sheer fact that I get to go to cities I’ve never been before, and likely would never have made it to were it not for my quest.  I had next-to-no knowledge of Asheville before I finished my 2005 Spring Break baseball trip there.  A buddy of mine went to high school there, but beyond that, Asheville was a spot on the map and nothing else.  What a pleasure it was to find this

place…a granola college town (like Eugene or Boulder, two spots I’m more familiar with) dropped in among beautiful foothills.

How granola was it, you ask?  Well, I started my evening at the Raven Grill downtown.  There, I was greeted by Jill, a sweetheart waitress in standard granola-issue bandana and piercings.  She gave me a big smile, sat me by the window, and handed me a menu.  I took a look and…uh-oh…I had landed in a vegan restaurant.  I thought I was in big trouble.  I’m allergic to soy, and vegan food, at least to my knowledge, is exclusively

made of soy.  But I didn’t want to find another place to eat, and I was curious.  Plus, they had The Ultimate Nachos on the menu.  Vegan nachos?  What’s the cheese? Probably soy. I asked Jill.  “It’s not soy-based.  It’s our Raven Cheese.  It’s made from cashews.”  Cashew cheese? Whoa!  Could go either way.  So I went ahead and had myself some vegan nachos.  They arrived, and I looked at the faux-cheese, and I dipped in…

They were delicious!  I want to go back to Asheville just for the vegan nachos!  I even thought of returning after the game for the live music…but when I heard that the headliner was somethingorother-the-fiddler, I decided to take a pass. Not a big fan of the fiddle music. But if you’re in Asheville, this is a fine place to go.  Treat yourself to the vegan nachos, try to catch some music, and say hi to Jill.

The ballpark is just down the hill from downtown–the lights are visible from Biltmore street, the main downtown drag.  McCormick Field is quite literally carved out of the side of a hill, which I found quite striking.  The concourse along the

third base side looks straight out at the carved-away hill, which I found lovely.  The top of the hill features Veterans Memorial Stadium, the home of soccer and women’s pro football.  I didn’t make the trip up, but I bet that the bleachers up there afford an excellent bird’s-eye view of McCormick Field.  The views are therefore enough to lead the ballpark to pass the is-there-any-question-where-you-are test.

The Tourists, additionally, know how to put on a show.  I firmly believe that they manage to walk the balance-beam and provide an excellent night out for both casual fans and purists.  For the casual fan, there’s plenty of action on the first-base side of the park as far as promotions and places for kids to jump around and play.  The gift shop features more hats than any minor league gift shop I’ve ever seen–hats for the entire South Atlantic League, the entire Rockies’ system, a few other minor league clubs, and a good chunk of the majors.  There are frequent wacky promotions on the field, and many opportunities for the fine residents of Asheville to win (unless I’m in town…but more on that later).  If you’re a purist, however, Asheville has you covered too.  Lineups are prominently displayed in the pavilion.  Additionally, each section (at least where I was sitting) has an usher who will go get you food or drink and bring it to your seat.  There’s no need to take your eyes off the field at any time.

Me?  Well, I’m a purist, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t enjoy some of the same things the casual fan does.  And tonight…man, did I ever.  It started before the game.  They were selling tennis balls for the toss-the-tennis-balls-into-the-hula-hoops-on-the-field competition.  I

bought four balls to toss after the game.  Then I entered the trivia contest.  The question:  Which former Tourist hit the game-winning home run for the Rockies against the Padres on opening day 2005?  It was multiple choice.  Two of the choices, Jason Jennings and Todd Helton, I eliminated immediately:  I’d remember if it was a pitcher, and I’d remember if it was Helton. That left me to randomly choose between Clint Barmes and Garrett Atkins, neither of whom I’d quite heard of yet.  I picked Barmes–he sounded vaguely familiar–and sat down for the game.  I only wish that they had asked for our address as part of the contest…that way, I would have heard “Our winner in the trivia competition tonight is Paul Hamann from…[pause]…Redmond, Washington?”  But that’s okay.  They said my name. I WON!

I waited several innings for a suitable break (tough to do when you’re at a game alone and are scoring it) and ran out for my prize.  They were closing down the prize shack by then–so they sent me to the gift shop.  They didn’t have it either.  They promised me that I could come back after the game.  I didn’t tell them this, but I didn’t need a prize.  In the trivia competition, it’s all about the glory of competition.

So I waited through to the end of the game.  It was a barnburner–a real pitchers’ duel.  Quite tense.  Afterwards, I headed to the side of the field to play the tennis ball throw game.  Now, I assumed that the rules were the

same as they are at my home minor league park in Everett, and that getting the ball into a more-distant hula hoop would merit a larger prize.  I knew I didn’t have the arm to win a year’s worth of free gas (the hoop in center field), so I didn’t even try–in part because the gas was from a local gas station.  Quite inconvenient for me.  So I aimed for the second-closest hoop…and on my last try…what do you know!  I won again! They announced my name again! I showed I was superior in both mind and body!  I was a real celebrity!

Now it was time to claim my multiple prizes.  I headed out to the gift shop and gave them my name.  They knew it.  “Oh yeah!  You’re the guy who won twice!”  And what did I win?  For the trivia contest…a twelve-pack of Sierra Mist.  For the hula-hoop competition…in my view, much more difficult to win…well, I won my choice of prizes from a box of cheap crap.  (I selected a computer mouse in the shape and color of Jeff Gordon’s car.)

Immediately, I was faced with a problem.  What the hell was I going to do with a twelve-pack of Sierra Mist?  I was literally 12 hours from flying back home to Seattle.  I wasn’t going to make it a carry-on, and I wasn’t going to pack it and have it explode all over my stuff.  This left me with the following choices:  1.  Drink the 12-pack overnight, and get up every 30 minutes to pee.  2.  Give it away.

I chose option #2…but who was deserving?  I thought of giving it to my usher, who had so wonderfully served me all night, but couldn’t find her.  I knew nobody in town.  But a solution was walking by me right through the concourse.

The Kannapolis Intimidators were on their way to their bus.  They had just finished their hard-fought victory.  Surely they were thirsty!  I caught one of the stragglers and said:  “Hey, I just won this, but I’m not going to take it back to Seattle with me.  Do you think you and the team might like this?”  He said it was a wonderful gesture and that they would love it.  I asked for his name.  He told me he was hitting coach Ryan Long, thanked me, and went on his way.

I admit to being a nerd, but what followed gave me a cheap thrill.  Because McCormick Field is set up on the side of a hill, the concourse

looks out directly into the bus.  Therefore, I was able to watch while my twelve-pack was passed back from row to row and the Intimidators took them out.  I then thought I would try to take a picture of the guy in the last row enjoying his Sierra Mist.  He caught me trying to take his picture–he must have thought I was a complete freak–and started mugging for the camera.  I mimed to him to raise his can of soda.  He did.  I took the picture.  Of course, it was a stupid idea…trying to take a picture at night through a tinted bus window…but if you look closely here, although you cannot see the player, you can see the gift I gave him…the green can of refreshing celebration, his victory Sierra Mist.

Of course, what good is a gift if the person doesn’t know it’s a gift?  I mean, if my loved ones just suddenly got things they wanted at Christmas but didn’t know I gave them, that wouldn’t exactly be the spirit of giving, would it?  So I wanted to let this guy know that I had given him his can of Sierra Mist.  Miming that is extremely difficult.  The conversation went like this:

ME:  [points at player] [mimes drinking motion] [rapidly repeats pointing at player and miming drinking motion] [points elaborately at myself]

PLAYER: [shrugs with palms up]

ME:  [repeats the points-at-player drinking-motion points-at-myself combination, all the while mouthing the words “THE DRINK.  IT’S FROM ME.”]

PLAYER:  [extends fist with thumb and pinkie extended out and shakes it…the sign for “hang loose.”]

So either he got the message or totally didn’t.

But hey!  Kannapolis Intimidators!  If EVER any of you read this, and remembers this night and that delicious can of lemon-lime goodness, remember…it was from me!  And if any of you happen to find your way to a lucrative major-league contract, and want to repay me, I’ll accept anything from an email to a thank you to game tickets.

It was one of those nights where the stories piled one on top of another, and the folks at beautiful McCormick Field are responsible for the lion’s share of those memories.  They understood that a ballgame can be simultaneous experiences–first and foremost about the game, but also about wackiness accompanying the game.  I got wonderful doses of each on this night, and did it all in a gorgeous small city.  If I can help it, I’ll be back to McCormick Field, and if you have a chance, you should go there yourself.  It was one of the best minor league ballparks I’ve ever seen, and I suspect it will remain that way for good.

UPDATE 2006: It’s still marvelous.  I went back with my wife, and the place is still wonderful.  They no longer sell affiliate hats in the gift shop, but the guy who sells programs asked us where we were going.  The game was one of the worst I’ve ever seen (unlike the wonderful 2005 game), but this ballpark remains a hit.

The saddest part of that trip:  it appeared the Raven Grill had closed.

BALLPARK SCORE:

Regional feel:  9/10
Beautifully settled into the Great Smokies.  It fits perfectly into the Mountain South.

Charm:  5/5
Loads.  Both within the ballpark and without…this is everything a minor league ballpark should be.

Spectacle: 5/5
Ideal combination of cool promotions–of which I was the king–but deference to the game.  Again, the standard by which all else should be measured.

Team mascot/name:  4/5

Ted E. Tourist and me.  The mascot is better on the hat than in person…I prefer Ted E. dressed as a tourist than as this generic bear.

Aesthetics:  5/5


As gorgeous as they come, especially from within the pavilion.  Seriously–carved out of a hillside?  That’s lovely.

Pavilion area:  5/5
Active and fun on the first-base side; lovely on the third-base side.

Scoreability:  3/5


Kannapolis had hit a home run to lead off the second inning, but the scorekeeper didn’t have the run up as late as the end of that inning.  Otherwise, fine.

Fans:  1/5
The only real negative were the guys near me, who heckled every batter in the nearby on-deck circle by name–the entire game long.  It got old in a big hurry.  Surely they could cheer a little bit for their own team.  Surely they could take an inning–or even a batter–off.  Nope.  They had anger issues that only the Kannapolis Intimidators could solve, I guess. Nothing significant happened in my second visit to change this first impression, which was deep and negative.

Intangibles:  5/5
I simply loved this place–and it loved me back.  Seriously…two promotion wins and a chance to give a congratulations gift to the winning team?  How cool is that?

TOTAL:  42/50

BASEBALL STUFF I’VE SEEN HERE:

High-quality pitchers’ duel.  Ray Liotta (no, not that Ray Liotta) pitched for Kannapolis, and beat Asheville’s Ching Lo.  Both (and a handful of late relievers) were incredible on this night…Liotta struck out nine and gave up four hits in seven innings, Lo gave up three hits and struck out seven in seven innings.  I’ll keep an eye out.

Josh Hansen homered.

I returned for a ballgame with the wife on the massive 2006 tri-point/baseball stadium tour.  The game was the polar opposite of the original.  We couldn’t even make it to the end, due to our need to move on…we left after 2.5 hours, and only in the fifth inning. The last thing we saw was Columbus’ Lucas May hitting a grand slam that tied the score at 8.  Columbus eventually won–but by then, we were relaxing in the mountains near the Elicott Rock Tri-point.  34 hits, 13 walks, and 4 hours and 10 minutes.


Drillers Stadium, Tulsa, Oklahoma

Drillers Stadium, Tulsa, OKLAHOMA

Number of states: 3
States to go: 47
Number of games: 1
First game: April 11, 2004 (Tulsa Drillers 1, Frisco RoughRiders 0)


The Drillers left this ballpark in 2010, and it was demolished in 2019.

I attended the ballgame in Tulsa on Easter Sunday.  I challenge anyone to find another person who visited Tulsa that holiday who was not drawn there by family or business.  The best part about the trip to (and from) Tulsa was avoiding the interstates.  Just like I had done

with my father nearly twelve years earlier on our trip to Arlington Stadium, I stayed entirely off interstates–on state and county roads, my preferred mode of travel.  And wow, was it fun.  Driving through the little towns along the way in southern Kansas and northern Oklahoma…with every tiny town the host to one (or more) big churches, and every church packed to the gills with cars.  I must admit, that morning was a little I-love-the-USA moment for me.  Because of my recent ancestry, I have a soft spot in my heart for the Midwest, and looking at all of these packed churches even made my then-lapsed religious self feel like we are a country filled with a lot of decent, kind people.  Sure, if I’d taken the time to step into, say, the First Baptist Church in whatever tiny town and listen to the sermon, I may well have been blown out of my I-love-the-USA reverie by whatever makes-me-embarrassed-to-be-Christian garbage was emanating from the pulpit, but on this morning, I gave everyone the benefit of the doubt.  I drove through the crops on a cool sunny Easter with Jesus Christ Superstar cranked up on my rented car’s CD player.  And I felt good.

I only wish the charm of my journey to Drillers Stadium was matched by the charm of Drillers Stadium.  The stadium fails on a few counts, but mainly this one:  it is absolutely impossible to tell what city you’re in while seated in the stadium.  Seriously.  Check out the photo here. 

Were it not for the Tulsa World advertisement, would you have any idea what city you were in?  What state?  What region?  There is literally no hint to that in the photo.  We had a Walgreens past left field, a Lowe’s past right, and a city utilities department behind a foul line.  There’s no skyline in view (although within city limits, the ballpark is several miles from downtown, in a suburban-feeling location near the state fairgrounds and an old horse track…cars park on the infield of the track).  There are no natural landmarks to see from the park (the nearly dried-up Arkansas river runs on the other side of town), and not even any local promotion that leaps out at me as “Only in Oklahoma” or even “Only in the Southwest.”  Look, I know we’re losing regional differences in this country, almost to the point where only weather, flora, fauna, and natural landscapes differentiate us.  I bet that, with literally every ballpark on this journey, I’ll be able to sip a Starbucks before the game and head to either a TGIFridays, Outback, Chili’s, or Applebee’s afterwards.  This bothers me, and the ballpark needs to combat that.  It’s not that I’m incapable of grading suburban parks highly, even with our nation’s similarities between suburban locations–Everett, for instance, is in a humdrum suburban location, but redeems itself by providing a huge grassy pavilion and a view of the mountains.  Tulsa does nothing, and as a result, is charmless.

Even the mascot, which I felt was promising at first, fell flat when measured for local color.  The blue-colored bull (with whom I asked an usher to photograph me…only to find when I got home that he didn’t properly take

the picture…what’s with my luck in choosing only complete incompetents to take my picture at ballparks?) is named Hornsby.  What an awesome name for a mascot.  I asked the mascot if it was after Rogers Hornsby.  He gave me a thumbs-up.  (He could only communicate with charades.)  I then asked the mascot if Rogers Hornsby was from Tulsa.  The mascot shrugged.  I really wanted Rogers Hornsby to be from Tulsa, or at least Oklahoman.  Didn’t turn out to be true…he just turned out to have played in the Texas League for a while.  Close to a great mascot idea, but no cigar.  There’s just a tiny little hint at Drillers’ history in the ballpark, and it’s misplaced…it’s on the inside of the seating bowl, right under the press box behind home plate.  There are nice paintings of past great Drillers, mostly Texas Ranger products of the ’80s and ’90s like Sammy Sosa and Juan Gonzalez.  Surely Tulsa has a richer history than that.  Another near miss.

My ballpark experience was certainly not helped by an astonishing screw-up by Drillers ticket staff.  Not long after my arrival, a good-natured guy seated a few seats to my left asks me a strange question.  “Did they sell you that seat?”  The answer was yes…row two behind third base, right on the aisle.  “Really?  Man.  I bought that seat as a season ticket, and they’ve been selling it to people.”  Geez, I said, do you want me to move?  (Hardly a problem, due to the very low attendance on a chilly Easter Sunday afternoon.)  He said it wasn’t necessary.  Apparently the fine folks at the Drillers had taken his money for season tickets…and then went ahead and sold his seats to anyone who wanted them on Ticketmaster.  Worse, when he called to complain, their solution was this:  that, in the event there was another patron with his seat, he was to tell them to report to the ticket office for reseating.  Amazing.

It was here, in the fifth ballpark of the minor-league quest, that I became conflicted about the “Promotions” portion of my score. 

Tulsa did few, if any, between innings.  But it occurred to me that, at least with quality Double-A ball in front of me, I didn’t miss them.  Short-season A ball?  Okay, distract me a little between innings (but never during the game).  So I will take care to remember that only distracting promotions are to be penalized from now on.

So, in the end, the nice people of Oklahoma were the best part of this ballpark.  Although I can’t say I had a rip-roaring conversation with any of them, one did let me stay in his season-ticket seat without sending me to the ticket office as he’d inexplicably been asked to do.  Good thing, too…being in the second row of a quiet, nearly-empty ballpark like this enabled me to hear Tulsa manager Tom Runnells argue a safe call at third base.  (He was actually quite polite in his disagreement…no foul language or personal attacks.)   Another let me take a photo of her with rabbit ears on her head.  And this high-school-aged couple were terribly cute and clearly quite affectionate for each other without any groping or tonsil hockey…it was very sweet to watch.  So it was certainly a nice Easter at the ballpark, but I’m afraid the ballpark left an awful lot to be desired.

I know there’s a lot of Tulsa/Oklahoma City rivalry, but if ever I’m back in Oklahoma, I’ll look forward to visiting the ballpark in Oklahoma City’s Bricktown.  It certainly looks to be superior to Drillers Stadium.

BALLPARK SCORE:

Regional feel:  2/10
Quite simply none.  The Walgreens in left is hardly Fenway’s Citgo sign.  The Lowe’s Hardware in right could be any Lowe’s.  Flat Oklahoma offers no real views from the seating bowl.  Drop me in the ballpark and cover up any text that says “Tulsa,” and I would have no Godly idea where I was.  Only the few photos of ex-Drillers save this score.

Charm:  1/5
Simply none.  Between the utilities plant and the former horse track…nothing to show any personality.  I’m writing this two weeks after my visit, and I barely remember anything about it.

Spectacle: 3.5/5
Nicely and quietly integrated promotions…both quiet and effective.  Strangest promotion…the Kansas City Royals, neither the parent club of the Drillers nor at all close to Tulsa, advertised heavily, including giving away tickets to home Royals games.

Team mascot/name:  4.5/5
As I said, I have minor quibbles with the name “Hornsby,” but the name “Drillers” may be one of the best nicknames in the minors.  Perfectly locally appropriate, unique, and sort of intimidating. The usher screwed up my picture of Hornsby, so instead, I will reproduce this photo of this innocent, completely non-stereotypical mascot from a local Mexican restaurant.


Aesthetics:  1/5
Neither the ballpark nor its surroundings do anything for me.

Pavilion area:  3/5
Not bad.  Good lineups, but not a lot of character.

Scoreability:  5/5
Excellent job by the scoreboard guy communicating a tricky passed ball/wild pitch ruling on a botched intentional walk.

Fans:  3.5/5
Nice people, but not enough of them.

Intangibles:  3/5
Maybe I was just tired from the drive, but there just was nothing that seemed to impress me on this day.  The game was pretty good, though, which helps.

TOTAL:  26.5/50

BASEBALL STUFF I’VE SEEN HERE:

A pitchers’ duel between Tulsa (the Rockies’ affiliate…the Rockies basically only draft pitchers because they figure no decent free agent will willingly pitch for them) and Frisco (the Rangers affiliate, who had drafted a lot of pitching lately due to a complete lack of it with the big club).  Justin Hampsen and Kameron Loe, the starters, put a lot of zeroes on the board.

RoughRiders reliever Frank Francisco (that’s Spanish for Frank Frank) gives up the only run of the game in one of the most bizarre fashions I’ve ever seen.  Bottom of the eighth.  He walks the Drillers’ Tony Miller, who steals second.  He strikes out Jayson Nix, then intentionally walks Shawn Garnett.  But catcher Josh McKinley lets the ball get by him on the first pitch of the intentional walk.  Passed ball.  First screwed up intentional walk I’ve ever seen at any level, in person or on TV.  So, they finish the walk.  First and third, one out…and Francisco balks in what turns out to be the winning run.  Weird.  Minor league baseball…catch it!

Memorial Stadium, Boise, Idaho

Memorial Stadium, Boise, IDAHO

Number of states: 2
States to go: 48
Number of games: 2
First game:  July 5, 2003 (Tri-City Dust Devils 6, Boise Hawks 4)
Most recent game:  June 28, 2013 (Boise Hawks 5, Eugene Emeralds 4, 10 innings)

After attending my first game in Spokane, I had a bit of a problem.  How did I know whether the first minor league park on my trip was a good one or a not-so-good one?  Well,

all it took was a trip to Boise and I knew.  Spokane has a good ballpark.  Boise’s?  Not so good.

There were a number of problems, but (and I’m sorry, Idahoans) the primary problem was with the raucousness of the fans.  It was like a library in there!  I could have gotten some good studying done–or maybe written some music–while you sat not cheering at the game.  And it’s not just that you weren’t cheering. You weren’t even speaking.

Not making any noise at all!  Normally, during the quiet moments of a ballgame, I’ll hear the low hum of a few thousand conversations.  Not here. Yeah, it was a little hot–in the upper ’80s–but I know this is a problem with the fans and not the heat.  How do I know?  As we observed moments of silence around each

pitch, I heard the following priceless utterance from the high-school aged guy behind me:  “Do they let you shout while the pitcher’s pitching?”  Come on!  These guys aren’t Tiger Woods; they can handle the noise.  Politeness is nice–it’s an aspect of life that’s falling from favor.  And I suppose I’d rather have polite folks who are quiet at ballparks than rude folks who are loud.  But still, REV IT UP a bit!

Game management wasn’t all it could have been.  After ball three to the first or second batter of the game, our PA guy went ahead and announced the next hitter.  The home plate umpire turned around and gave the PA guy this look–and beneath that look I could see his thought–“It’s going to be a long, long day.”  If you can’t trust the PA guy to follow the pitch count, can you trust him to give all the scoring information when it’s more difficult?  Also, there was another blunder–there was several simultaneous sounds that melded together into an indecipherable muddle.  For example:  We had songs over the PA while a fairly cool bluegrass band was playing.  Two competing sounds were not enough for the Boise Hawks people, I guess, because

while these songs competed with each other, they’d be doing a promotion on the field–where a guy had a microphone.  Apparently they didn’t want that guy to be even that easy to hear, because his microphone kept fritzing out.  What a mess.  How can I enjoy music or promotions I can’t hear?  There was a particularly stupid scoreboard graphic too.  Immediately after Dust Devils pitcher Brian Lynch delivered low and outside on his first pitch to a batter I don’t remember, they put the numbers one through four on the screen, and put a check mark over the number one.  That’s right…they had a wacky scoreboard graphic for ball one! How desperate do you have to be for graphics to invent a ball one graphic?

To be sure, there were some positives.  The ballpark had a lovely panorama past the outfield, and therefore did fairly well in the “is there any question where you are” test.  And the bluegrass band was a good idea, even though I couldn’t hear it.  I also liked the way they rounded up every kid in the stands and brought them onto the field to sing “Take Me Out To The Ballgame” for the seventh-inning stretch.

The mascot joined them, as did the bluegrass band and a couple of creepy clowns. Also, there was another “only in the minors” moment: apparently the amenities aren’t all they should be in the home locker room, as thirty minutes before his start, I spotted Boise’s starting pitcher that day, Rich Hill, stepping outside the locker room to get some cellphone reception!

BALLPARK SCORE:

Regional feel:  7.5/10
Some nice hills beyond the outfield ratchet up the score here.

Charm:  3/5
For whatever reason, this stadium did nothing for me in this area.

Spectacle: 2.5/5
I simply couldn’t hear a lot of what was going on.  Would have been better to do none at all.

Team mascot/name:  3.5/5

Humphrey the Hawk and me.  Kinda ugly, but not bad.  (Need I say I’m referring to Humphrey and not me?)

Aesthetics:  4/5
Can’t beat the view.  The ballpark itself isn’t too attractive, however.

Pavilion area:  3/5

Scoreability:  2/5

Fans:  1.5/5

Intangibles:  3/5
Maybe it was just a bad game or a rough day (drove 8 hours to get there), but there wasn’t much exciting to me.  The heat might have also gotten to me a bit.  By the way, if you’re planning on going to a game at Boise Memorial Stadium, the third-base side is the shady side.

TOTAL:  30/50

BASEBALL STUFF I’VE SEEN HERE:

Boise’s Rich Hill struck out 10 in six innings, but took the loss.  Sandy Almonte and Tony McQuade homered.

The 2013 star was the Hawks’ Rony Rodriguez, who hit a pinch-hit, two-out, two-strike game-tying home run in the bottom of the 9th.  Two singles and two walks before an out in the 10th won it, culminating with the walk-off single by Jacob Rogers.