jeff nyveen / travel / ballparks

RFK Stadium
Washington, DC, USA
July 2007

As every baseball fan knows, the ballpark is a big part of going to a baseball game. The view, the crowd, the food. It all plays a part in the live baseball experience. A great ballpark makes a good game even better, but a shitty ballpark makes what is usually a relatively boring game intolerable.

I used to go to games all the time, most of the time with my friend Rob. But a few years ago, I decided that I didn't like going to baseball games anymore. I still enjoy following it and love to play, but I got tired of spending what would usually end up being $40 for uncomfortable seats, unfriendly ushers, crappy food, and boring baseball being played by teams run like companies and players devoid of any personality. So I don't go much, and I hardly ever get to see a new park. Then again, at the rate parks are being rebuilt these days, I'll probably be able to see a new park very soon without going very far.

Take a look at what we think of the parks we've visited. Since park names change so often, they're sorted by city name. If you want to contribute, shoot me an e-mail or leave a comment below.

Ballpark in Arlington/Ameriquest Field in Arlington Arlington, Texas
Dates Visited	7/10/1995 (Home Run Derby) 7/11/1995 (All-Star Game) 7/4/1997 9/30/1999 7/31/2003 (an Alex Rodriguez, extra inning, walk-off grand slam, one of the best games I've ever been to)
Summary	Has the novelty of being the first park to really impress me. Went there for the 1995 All-Star Game and fell in love with the openness, character, and brand-spanking-new feeling. After growing up with Olympic Stadium and the Astrodome, this was a nice change.
Pros	Open, spacious. Weather always seems to be sunny. The concourse in centerfield with museums and shops accessible from the field makes the park more welcoming for fans. Looks and feels new. The angled fences and field assymmetry give the park character without overdoing it. Pretty good selection of authentic Texan food.
Cons	Between Dallas and Ft. Worth, which kind of puts it in the middle of nowhere.
Rating	9

Turner Field Atlanta, Georgia
Dates Visited	2001
Summary	Pretty nice place, but nothing really stands out.
Pros
Cons
Rating	6.5

Oriole Park at Camden Yards Baltimore, Maryland
Dates Visited	2005 9/30/2007
Summary	Pretty nice park. First of the new nostagic parks.
Pros	The warehouse in right is nice. Location in central Baltimore is superb. Lots of restaurants and bars nearby. I like using stairwells to get to the upper decks rather than a series of endless, alternating ramps.
Cons	Unfortunately, an idiotic, arrogant staff, just like every other ballpark I've been to.
Rating	8

Astrodome/Reliant Astrodome Houston, Texas
Dates Visited	1986 - 1998
Summary	Where baseball goes to die. If anything, it was a welcome break from Houston's ridiculous humidity.
Pros	The dappled ceiling was kind of cool. I always wanted to see someone hit one through the glass.
Cons	Always smelled like a musty locker room. Always seemed dark. I'd get depressed just walking to my seats.
Rating	3.5

Enron Field/Minute Maid Park Houston, Texas
Dates Visited	2001 - 2003
Summary	A park which caught the tail end of the whole nostagia movement. An improvement over the Astrodome, but not by much.
Pros	Nice and open. The asymetrical field is nice.
Cons	Most of the gimmicks, including the flagpole on a hill in centerfield and the train, are contrived and silly. The food selection is limited, disgusting, and expensive. Ridiculously short porch in left field.
Rating	4

Dodger Stadium Los Angeles, California
Dates Visited	August 1994
Summary	Not bad, but I was expecting more from such a storied franchise.
Pros	Situated in a miniature valley, which is kind of cool. The rolling parking lot has some personality.
Cons	Pretty plain.
Rating	5

Olympic Stadium Montreal, Canada
Dates Visited	1982 - 2004
Summary	Grew up watching baseball here. Skipped a day of school one year to catch the home opener. I didn't realize how much it sucked until I went to nicer parks much later in life. All the empty seats made it worse. I have memories of roof being open, with sunlight streaming in and the ominous, strange-looking tower hanging over the field. That made the place tolerable. But then the roof broke and the place went to shit. Renovations and new team look in 1991 made it tolerable. I remember going to last home game of the season one year and the paid attendance was 986. Felt like a practice.
Pros	The open roof, back in the day.
Cons	The plastic roof was disgusting. Old, dark, dirty, and brown, just like the rest of Montreal.
Rating	3

Shea Stadium New York, New York
Dates Visited	9/14/2008
Summary	A bit plain, but seems like a fun place. Fans are into it, concourses are big and airy. The new stadium next door (Citi Field) looks pretty impressive.
Pros	Great that they've kept the home run apple for all these years.
Cons	Bleacher seating that looks like high-school grade construction. Poor quality Jumbotron gives each player herpes around the mouth in their headshot. Plain, generic food.
Rating	5

Yankee Stadium New York, New York
Dates Visited	September 2004 9/13/2008
Summary	For a city and team so rich in baseball history, this park was a tremendous disappointment. Yes, it's a historical place, but do they capitalize on it? There are no scenic vistas from the outside, no memorabilia or even old photos inside, and Monument Park is closed an hour before gametime.
Pros	Steep seating gives you a unique view of the game.
Cons	No personality or sense of history. Has that "trash bags lining the outfield walls" thing going on. I thought they stopped doing that in the 80's. (Trash bags are gone as of 9/13/2008.) Jumbotron has obviously not been upgraded since the 70's. Can't take any kind of bag inside. Food is that generic, expensive Aramark-type crap. Narrow corridors and aisles not good for claustrophobes. Nearly impossible to get a view of the stadium from the outside. It is nestled among rusty elevated train tracks and obnoxious souvenir stands. I was scared for my life walking through the surrounding area (at night).
Rating	4

Citizen's Bank Park Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Dates Visited	6/17/2006
Summary	Makes for a pretty good day trip from DC. As soon as we drove into the parking lot, I knew I liked it. From the outside, I could tell that it's spacious and scenic. After going inside, I was blown away.
Pros	Open and spacious, like the Ballpark in Arlington. Great views of the field and scoreboard (set back nicely from the seats) from every vantage point. Get up high enough, and you can see the sunset and the Philly skyline (partially obstructed by industrial wasteland). Lots of character, including a fan concourse in centerfield and vaulted bullpens. With the timeline and plaques in centerfield, this park seems to make more of an effort to connect with the history of the franchise more than other parks. The games for kids actually look like fun. Great acoustics. The announcer is crisp and clear, and you can actually hear clapping instead of a general roar. Details like seats tilted towards home plate really put the icing on the cake. Great signage, and the exits are well-marked. Hard to get lost. Pretty good selection of food, although a bit heavy on the grease. Avoid the Schmitter and avoid the shitter. Lots and lots of bathrooms!
Cons	In a crappy area. You have to drive through the slums of south Philly to get there. Nothing in the immediate area to do after the game.
Rating	9.5

Busch Stadium St. Louis, Missouri
Dates Visited	4/5/2008, 4/6/2008
Summary	Not a bad weekend trip. St. Louis is a small town, but most of the good stuff is in the city center, near the ballpark.
Pros	Right in the city center. Feels and looks new (because it is). Nice sunken field and airy concourses. Affordable, quality concessions. Remnants of the old park inside, nice statues outside. You can see the Arch beyond the outfield.
Cons	Nothing particularly unique about it aside form it's general coolness. The area across the street, the old Busch Stadium, is a huge gravel pit. They should really do something with that.
Rating	7.5

SkyDome/Rogers Centre Toronto, Canada
Dates Visited	ca 1999
Summary	Don't remember much aside from feeling like I was sitting about 5000 feet above the playing field.
Pros	With the impressive CN Tower next door, it's a pretty cool place for a ballpark.
Cons
Rating	6.5

Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium Washington, DC
Dates Visited	2005 6/16/2006
Summary	Yay! Baseball is back in DC! Too bad the park sucks! A boring, symmetrical, cookie cutter, multi-purpose stadium.
Pros	Not far from the city center.
Cons	Part of the problem with multi-purpose stadiums is that they can't feel like ballparks. That means that signage is generic and unhelpful when "third base entrance" would work just fine. Aside from a slight swoop along the roof, this park has virtually no personality. Interior corridors look like a prison. No replays on the scoreboard. Lame. You should be able to comfortably use cell phone at a baseball game, but the blaring speakers and roaring announcer made that impossible. The "hospitality" staff is anything but. They look and act like they don't give a shit about anything. After waiting in a slow-moving line under a posted menu for food, I was told (like I was an idiot) that they don't serve food in that line and that I'd have to go wait in a different line. Signs did not indicate which line was for what. Food is ridiculously overpriced and very average. $8.75 for a burger? Crowd control on promotion days is ridiculous. Everyone cuts in a huge line before the huge line is split into three single-file lines separated by dividers. Then the dividers disappear and everyone runs into each other again, fighting to get their bobblehead before the person behind them.
Rating	3.5

Nationals Park Washington, DC
Dates Visited	4/12/2008
Summary	An improvement over RFK, but I'm still not sold on it.
Pros	Located in what looks to become a well-developed area. Open concourses. Nice scoreboard.
Cons	You can barely see any DC landmarks from inside the stadium. Come on. The same disgusting concessions from RFK now cost more. Poor use of the scoreboard. No other "uniqueness" to it. Looks like just another new ballpark. Unreasonable and annoying ushers. They must have brought them over from RFK, too.
Rating	6

Wow. Dirty and Brown like the rest of Montreal. The best thing about the Olympic Stadium is that it isn't in America. And you could see a game in the bleachers for a buck.

Tony Perez on August 13, 2008 at 11:10 PM EST

PNC Park

Jeff, I'm surprised you haven't hiked out to Pittsburgh yet to sit in their new park. Three Rivers was ok from what I remember. I'm too young to remember the details, but PNC... Wow, you can see the city from the stadium. You have a walking bridge to the ballpark with an awesome statue of Roberto Clemente there to great you. Prices are reasonable, but the history and location of the park are great!! You definitely need to find a way out there soon. I would suggest after the All-Star break when they finally gel.

Shawn on June 25, 2008 at 6:23 PM EST

The Ballpark of all Ballparks.

I hope the reason I don't see Fenway Park listed above is simply because you haven't updated in some time! Seriously, I'm impressed by all the stadiums you've been to -- I hope one day to experience a baseball game at all of those and more. I am; however, grateful that most of the games I attend are at Fenway Park in Boston to see my beloved Red Sox. If you haven't been, do go. Even if the Red Sox are you're least favorite team, there are few ballparks that harbor as much history and charm as Fenway does. The smell of cold beer and hot Fenway franks are just the icing on the cake.

Alyssa on June 12, 2007 at 10:55 AM EST

Astrodome to Minute Maid

If the Astrodome is a 3.5 (I would say 5...novelty of being the first Dome and my first ballpark) then Minute Maid is a solid 6.5. I persoanlly think that PacBell park is the coolest. That is my 9.5

Matt on June 21, 2006 at 10:19 PM EST