MLB parks you've visited? Got a fav game/anecdote?
galaxy27
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in Sports Talk
I've witnessed games at the following stadiums:
Houston (Astrodome, Enron/Minute Maid)
Texas (Arlington, Ballpark in Arlington/Ameriquest/Rangers)
St. Louis (Old Busch, New Busch)
Cincinnati (Great American)
Pittsburgh (PNC)
NY Mets (Shea)
Memorable anecdote:
Spring of 1998. One of my best friends -- a STL fan -- put together a trip to see four games in St. Louis the first week of September. Plans etched in stone by March; all hell broke loose soon thereafter. With McGwire mashing at an unprecedented clip, the snowball of uncanniness grew larger seemingly by the day. Next thing we (four of us) knew, the chase coincided beautifully with our tickets. Saw him pound #60 & #61 from a handful of rows behind the Cardinals dugout, but missed out on the (then) record breaker by a day. Probably the only time in my life I'll have a scalper offer 30 times what I paid for a ticket, only for me to give him a you-better-get-the-eff-out-of-my-face-with-that look. I wanted to see history and so did my buddies. I can't even begin to properly describe how electric the atmosphere was; if an experience like that couldn't get you excited, your pulse was in dire need of being checked.
Do I still feel duped sixteen years later? To an extent, but no amount of cheating can erase those memories. And for the record, I don't have a favorite team -- I simply love the game.
Houston (Astrodome, Enron/Minute Maid)
Texas (Arlington, Ballpark in Arlington/Ameriquest/Rangers)
St. Louis (Old Busch, New Busch)
Cincinnati (Great American)
Pittsburgh (PNC)
NY Mets (Shea)
Memorable anecdote:
Spring of 1998. One of my best friends -- a STL fan -- put together a trip to see four games in St. Louis the first week of September. Plans etched in stone by March; all hell broke loose soon thereafter. With McGwire mashing at an unprecedented clip, the snowball of uncanniness grew larger seemingly by the day. Next thing we (four of us) knew, the chase coincided beautifully with our tickets. Saw him pound #60 & #61 from a handful of rows behind the Cardinals dugout, but missed out on the (then) record breaker by a day. Probably the only time in my life I'll have a scalper offer 30 times what I paid for a ticket, only for me to give him a you-better-get-the-eff-out-of-my-face-with-that look. I wanted to see history and so did my buddies. I can't even begin to properly describe how electric the atmosphere was; if an experience like that couldn't get you excited, your pulse was in dire need of being checked.
Do I still feel duped sixteen years later? To an extent, but no amount of cheating can erase those memories. And for the record, I don't have a favorite team -- I simply love the game.
you'll never be able to outrun a bad diet
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Summer of 1970, my father was dating a lady that had some connections at the park.
Had us park right at the side of the stadium with a nod from the cop on the sidewalk.
Walked up to the ticket window and the clerk handed her 5 tickets. First row on the third base line. Our foot rest was the visitors dugout.
After BP, the Tigers manager, one Billy Martin, was picking up balls and tossed one to my father.
Quite an evening.
Most memorable game:
I was at Cal Ripken Jr's last home game at Camden Yards. I still have the ticket, the lanyard, and some confetti from the celebration. I remember in the last inning, there were 2 outs and Ripken was on deck. Brady Anderson was at the plate. Everyone wanted the pitcher to walk Anderson to let Ripken get one last atbat. The coach made a visit to the mound. And Andsrson eventually made an out. Kinda stunk but it was still an awesome game. We were in the front section of peanut heaven on the third base side. Remember it like it was yesterday.
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Some of my earliest childhood memories are in The Dome. Good times.
Was there one weeknight in 1982 for a game against the Pirates. Game went 17 innings and my mom was a trooper, let me stay till the bitter end (Cards lost). I still have a local newspaper sports page from back then, title of the article says "Cards Have Hard Day's Night in 17-inning Loss".
I also remember going to Johnny Bench's last game at Busch in 1983. There were a lot of Reds fans in the stands, including some family one row above us with an obnoxious kid who kept kicking the back of my chair. Bench hit a late homerun to give the Reds the lead. We were on the 1st base side of the stadium, 2nd or 3rd deck, and had a great vantage point to see him blast it into the 2nd deck down the left field line. Cards did rally and win the game, so they were able to send all those Reds fans packing!
We used to get second row seats right behind Goerge Steinbrenners box so for 2 years in a row we sat behind Joan Jett. Another time my fathers friend commented that Mark McGuire was a big bag of poop. Mark was only a few feet in front of us on the on deck circle and we remember him turning and looking around for the guy who made the comment. We all looked away pretending to notice a bird in the air.
Cleveland Indians (Cleveland Stadium & Jacobs Field)
Cincinnati Reds (Riverfront)
Pittsburgh Pirates (Three Rivers)
Baltimore Orioles (Camden)
Chicago White Sox (New Comisky)
Chicago Cubs (Wrigley)
Detroit Tigers (Tiger Stadium)
Atlanta Braves (Turner Field)
Milwaukee Brewers (Miller Park)
This year I'm going to California and during one week Angels, Dodgers and Padres are all in town.
Favorite Games:
1995 Indians v. Orioles - Indians clinch division for the first time since 1954. Also Cal Ripkens first game after he broke Gehrig's streak in Baltimore.
1997 Indians v. Yankess Game 4 ALDS - Alomar homers off Rivera and the Indians rally to win the game and then Game 5 the next night.
1997 Indians v. Marlins Game 4 World Series - Just being at a World Series is awesome. I hope you all get to experience it someday.
San Diego Stadium
Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium
The Astrodome
The Big A (Anaheim Stadium)
Minute Maid Park
Arlington Stadium
The Ballpark at Arlington
Coors Field
Three games I attended stand out:
1978 All Star Game in San Diego
Game 1 of the 1984 World Series in San Diego
Nolan Ryan's 7th no hitter at Arlington Stadium
Steve
Toss in Ted Williams (and others) playing in that game made for a special memory never forgotten.
Fenway Park, if you love watching baseball in person, this place is as close to baseball nirvana as you can get. If you can score monster seats, all the better. Day games, left or right field is ok, no bleachers, sun will be in your face. Night games left field is best, right field will have you in the sun for a while, maybe a couple of innings.
SBC (ATT) Park
Oakland Alameda County Stadium
Jack Murphy Stadium (man, no wonder attendance lacked a bit, I'll bet there are still persons circling around wondering how you get there - I can see it, but I can't reach it. Fenway is easier to get to from the Pike than JMS)
Kauffman Stadium
(Old) Busch Stadium
Milwaukee County Stadium
Wrigley Field
Comiskey Park
US Cellular Field
PNC Park
Cleveland Memorial Stadium
Olympic Stadium
Veterans Stadium
Turner Field
Fenway Pahk
Memorable Game: Red Sox vs Brewskis Sept 19, 1995. Wife and I just moved to Boston and we had to see Fenway, so I randomly picked a game that I hoped the Sox would clinch the division buying tickets through the mail in August (Wow, those were the days - you could just walk up to the gate and buy a ticket). The only time I've seen a Baseball title clinching game in person.
Memorable Game II: "disco sucks" "disco sucks" "disco sucks"!
Memorable anecdote: May 20, 2010. Pesky Pole seats for my final game at Fenway Pahk. No foul balls, but added our names to the Pesky Pole.
Memorable anecdote II: June 19, 2005. My Wife's brother has partial season tickets for the Cubs. Gave me a ticket to the Cubs -Sox Sunday Night Game. Field Box third row near visitors dugout. The section to the left seated the Red Sox contingent. Top of the 7th, a couple of Sox executives come down to sit in the Sox section. My brother in law's wife sees one of them wearing his World Series ring. Since I was living in Boston, she wants to take a picture of me wearing the ring. She says she's going to ask if she could borrow the ring for a few moments. I go "yeah, sure. And get me the winning power ball ticket while you're up too." But she's one of those beautiful godzillas. Nobody can resist her superpowers. He gives up the ring like she asked him to see his scorecard. She actually come back with the actual 2004 Red Sox World Series ring and I got a picture of me wearing THE ring. (Yeah, I gave it back. But now I got a better one.)
Yankee Stadium (original)
Shea Stadium
Skydome
Safeco Field
Minute Maid Park
Wrigley Field
Camden Yards
AT+T Park (tour only, didn't see a game)
Funniest memory was walking the concourse at Minute Maid Park after the game, me and my friends all about 12 beers deep, and seeing Ted Johnson walk by our group. One of my buddies calls out to him, and he was nice enough to stop and say hi (even though it was fairly obvious we were all wasted). We thanked him for the Super Bowl win the previous season, and went on our way.
In 1986 I was at Game #6 of the World Series at Shea Stadium. We sat on the first base side and had a great view of the ball going thru Buckner's legs. I still have the ticket from the game.
I have not been to many parks outside the New York area. The parks I have visited are:
The Polo Grounds
Shea Stadium
CitiField
Old Yankee Stadium
New Yankee Stadium
Fenway Park
Camden Yards
Petco Park
Olympic Stadium(?) - I think that was the stadium. Went to an Expos Game in 1986.
Doug
Liquidating my collection for the 3rd and final time. Time for others to enjoy what I have enjoyed over the last several decades. Money could be put to better use.
Dodger Stadium (probably a few hundred)
Anaheim
Oakland
SF - the Stick
SF - Pac Bell/ATT/Whatever
SD - Jack Murphy
Arizona
St. Louis
KC
Wrigley
New Comisky
Cinci - Riverfront
Cinci - whatever the new one is called
Yankee
Shea
Cleveland - Jacobs
Baltimore - Camden Yards
Fenway
Milwaukee
Best childhood memories are at Dodger Stadium. Garvey, Lopes, Russell, Cey, et al.
Drunkest memory (hazy) Fenway Park on a random week night. I feel hungover just remembering that night.
Friendliest Crowd - Milwaukee - a guy at the gas station where we bought a new battery for our old car gave us two tickets (5-10 rows behind visitors dugout) for that days game and several people offered beer off their kegs in the parking lot. It was like a Tuesday day game. Loved it!
Most obnoxious (but I think harmless) - right field bleachers at Yankee stadium.
Coldest game - Candlestick in July. Lol!
Witnessed two no-hitters live: Fernando at Dodger Stadium back about 1990 or so and Jose Jimenez at the Bob June 25, 1999.
I remember the date of the second no-hitter as I met the woman who would become my wife that night at the stadium. Center field picnic area. True!
Oakland
Seattle (Safeco)
St. Louis (Busch II)
Chicago (Wrigley)
Chicago (US Cellular) Got a home run in BP and a foul ball during the game
Atlanta (Fulton County)
Colorado
New York Yankees (old yankee)
Looking to BUY n332 1889 SF Hess cards and high grade cards from 19th century especially. "Once you have wrestled everything else in life is easy" Dan Gable
<< <i>These were directly back of home plate and maybe 20 rows back. I had never been that close before. >>
Yep. It is a different game in the good seats.
• Fulton County Stadium
• Turner Field
• Wrigley Field
• Kauffman Stadium
• Jacobs Field
• Veterans Stadium
• Camden Yard
• Yankee Stadium (Previous edition)
• Fenway
• Diamondback Stadium
• Skydome
• Tiger Stadium
• Comiskey (current edition)
• Coors Field
My favorite memory is game 3 of the 91 WS in Atlanta. First WS game I attended.
If we're going past and present:
Tropicana Field
Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium
Turner Field
Camden Yards
Joe Robbie Stadium
Old Yankee Stadium
Petco Park
Dodger Stadium
AT&T Park
Marlins Park
Citizens Bank Park
The Vet
RFK Stadium
Nationals Park
Favorite is AT&T
PNC is on the wishlist for next time I go visit some family in Pennsylvania.
Don't have a favorite game particularly but some highlights for me personally:
Chipper Jones number retirement game with my Dad last season.
Every time I got to watch Tim Wakefield pitch in person (unfortunately never in Fenway). He is somewhat of a family friend.
Watching Dontrelle Willis from a few seats behind home plate during the height of his success. That leg kick blew my 12 year old mind.
Roger Clemens "last" game in the 2003 World Series
Brother in law surprised me with seats a few rows behind the dugout at AT&T park when he had told me we would be out in the bleachers in his friends season tickets.
Many of my all-time favorite baseball memories have happened at college baseball games and during spring training.
As a kid growing up in Denver in the 1960's and 1970's I went to the then Mile High Stadium (where the Denver Broncos played) to watch the Triple A Denver Bears minor league team play. One of the best baseball memories I had was going to the Bear's games on July 4th. The game was fun to watch, but the big draw was the post game fireworks to celebrate the nation's birthday. This game routinely drew 60,000 plus fans year in and year out. It was (and maybe still is) the record for fan attendance at a minor league baseball game.
Fast forward to around 1983-1984. I was living in the OC in So. Cal. getting my feet wet as a 6'6" 225 lb, 27 year old baby lawyer, single, living with two roommates and enjoying the So. Cal. life. A group of us went to see an Angels game at Anaheim Stadium against the Yankees and David Winfield. So before the game started the Yankees were on the field warming up. My buddies and I went down to the first row of seats along the third base line in the outfield. While there a couple of my buddies started shouting at Dave Winfield and pointing at me. They were yelling "Luke Witte" over and over and pointing at me telling Winfield that I was Luke Witte. At the time I knew that Winfield was a great baseball player, but I did not know that he was a college hoops star at University Of Minnesota and that during his college hoops career he got into a fight during a game with an opposing player named "Luke Witte". I have never heard of the fight nor had I heard of Luke Witte. I was thus completely clueless. However I did observe that Winfield got angry at the smack talk directed his way by my buddies. He got more and more angry and started to call me out. He dared me to come out onto the field and take him on in part 2 of the Winfield, Luke Witte fight. I was surprised that he was calling me out and directing his attention and anger my way. My buddies were laughing and were amused that they got under Winfield's skin at my clueless expense. I finally figured out that something was going on that I had no clue about and decided that it would be best if I retreated up into the stands to me seat. My buddies followed me, continuing to laugh while Winfield turned his attention back to the Yankee warm ups.
Later my buddies told me the story of the Winfield/Witte fight. I was both amused and angered at the joke that they played on me and on Winfield that day.
30 years later it is still a good story.
I guess I can see why Winfield got angry during Yankee's warm ups when my buddies were talking Luke Witte smack to him.
Milwaukee county stadium
Miller Park
Wrigley field
Metrodome
Busch
Fenway park
Yankee stadium
Camden yards
Ballpark in Arlington
Minute Maid field
Dodger Stadium
Petco field
Dolphin stadium
Tropicana field
Shea stadium
The great American ballpark
PNC park
Citizens Bank ballpark
Progressive field
A couple minor league ones also.
Jack Murphy/Petco Park
Candlestick/AT&T
Oakland Alameda Toilet Overflowing Coliseum
Chase Field
U.S. Cellular Field
Wrigley Field
Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim California in Orange County Big A
Kingdome
best moment ever was at Dodger Stadium, of course. Dodgers vs. Reds, pitchers duel, blazing hot summer afternoon, miserable.
tired, aggravated young woman sitting in an upper deck secluded shady stairwell while breast-feeding her fussy little hungry child.
oh wait. that was my wife.
Atlanta (Fulton County and the Ted)
NY Mets (Shea but were building Citi field while we were there)
NY Yankees (been to several games at original Yankee stadium and only seen outside of the new one driving by)
Cincinnati (Great American)
Houston (Minute Maid)
St Louis (New Busch)
Philadelphia (Citizens Bank Park)
Arizona
Wrigley
White Sox (U S Cellular)
San Francisco (AT&T)
Washington Nationals
Texas (Ballpark at Arlington)
Oakland Coliseum
Boston
Cleveland (Progressive)
Tampa (The Trop and it's import car xenon headlights for lighting)
Baltimore (Camden)
Some of my favorite games:
2000 All Star Game in Atlanta
World Series games in 1996 and 1999 in Atlanta - Yanks Braves
But my favorite memory is one of our baseball trips. We had planned to drive up to Washington D.C. to see the Nats play. We had already purchased tickets for Thursday night as we were driving up Wednesday morning from Alabama. I decided to check on the way up to see who the starting pitcher was going to be for the Giants and the Nats for the Wednesday night game and lo and behold it's Randy Johnson who's sitting on 299 wins at the time. I haul tail up to Washington D.C. with virtually no stops and buy tickets on my phone to pick up at will call. We get there right about game time on Wednesday night and it's raining. Game ends up raining out but Johnson is going to pitch the first part of a day night double header the next day. We show up Thursday afternoon and it's misty and rainy but they're playing and we get to witness Randy Johnson's 300th win with dozens of other fans (it was almost unbelievable how few people were at that game). I also caught my first foul ball at that game. At the end of the first game, I asked the usher if we needed to go out of the stadium and re-enter to come to the second game as we still had the original tickets for the Thursday night game and he looks around and says, "Nah, you guys sit wherever you want." Great family memory and great thread!
*Edited as I had my days of the week mixed up
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RFK (several - Nats first stadium)
Nationals Park - (several, including 2nd regular season game)
Camden Yards (several)
Coors Field (one)
Comerica (one)
O.Co Coliseum (one)
Metrodome (several)
Target Field (one)
Safeco (coming this summer)
Fenway (one)
Stories:
The Jake - 2001 - Indians down 3-2 in the bottom of the ninth when the benches cleared after Tigers closer Todd Jones ran hard into a Cleveland runner. Soon thereafter, Eddie Taubensee homered to tie it. In the bottom of the 10th, Juan Gonzalez homered and the Tribe won 4-3.
Box Score/Recap
Fenway - 2006 - My one and only trip to Fenway. They played the Rangers. Beckett v. Millwood. I had driven up from VA to go with my Grandfather and cousin. Halfway there, I realized I forgot the tickets. So we got there like four hours early and I bought three standing room only tickets to get in (had to call the wife to tell us what our seats were). Luckily standing room only tickets were like $7 with my military ID.
As a lifelong Red Sox fan, it was an experience like no other. Just walking around and touring the park before the game was magical. In the end, the Sox were down 4-2 in the bottom of the 9th with 2 outs. After two singles, Big Papi fouled off what seemed like a ton of foul balls before dumping one in the bleachers about 10 yards away from us. The place literally shook. It was amazing.
Box Score/Recap
Garry Pk Montreal.Expos/Braves
Many years later
Sox vs Yanks
Red Sox go back to back to back to back, not sure if this was the first time this ever happened in MLB, but man did it feel like it!
Tiger Stadium (Detroit)
Exhibition Stadium (Toronto - first year, 1977!)
Metrodome (Minnesota)
Comerica Park (Detroit)
Coors Field (Colorado)
Safeco Field (Seattle)
The Ballpark at Arlington (Texas)
Avista Stadium (Spokane Indians, short-season A team - yeah, I know the OP requested MLB parks. Sue me.)
Favorite ballpark? Well, Avista because it's local. Best? Coors Field. Incredible park. Saw a game there in 1997. Tremendous rainstorm in the middle of the game lead to a big delay. Typical Coors game, with the Rockies scoring a bunch of runs (back-to-back-to-back HRs) but losing.
Favorite anecdote? One from Spokane. Not the night I met Wayne Gretzky and the Indians scored 5 (or was it 6?) in the bottom of the 9th to win. No, it was Grand Slam Giveaway night in 2012. Deal was, if an Indian hits a grand slam in the first 9 innings, somebody wins a brand new pickup. Game is tied in the bottom of the 9th when the Indians load the bases. Ruben Sierra Jr comes up. 3-2 count, 2 outs. No matter what happens, this is the last chance for somebody to win the pickup. Ball, strike, out, anything but a grand slam and no pickup. Sierra gets a fastball and drills it - over the pickup sign in left, appropriately enough - for a grand slam. The ball park crowd just exploded. FAR AND AWAY the loudest I've ever heard Avista. The place just went nuts. It was AWESOME.
Distant 3rd place behind the pickup game and the Gretzky game? The night Joey Gallo hit 2 home runs, the second of which was a ridiculously monstrous shot over the light pole in right field that probably traveled close to 500 feet - in a park where the ball doesn't carry at all.