Tal Anderson Field

All photos of Tal Anderson Field available on Flickr.

Anybody who's followed this blog for awhile might remember all the work trips I had to make to Omaha at my previous job.  I probably went there close to 20 times in a span from 2016-2019.  So I could not help but laugh when I started with a new firm a few years ago that happens to have an Omaha office.  I immediately knew that at some point, I was going to be on a project with that office in some capacity, and my lifetime of visiting The Big O would never end.  Sure enough, a couple years ago I started working on a large college STEM building in nearby Lincoln, and I've been back to Nebraska several more times since.  To this point, due to stupid meetings and general bad timing, it's never worked out where I could see a game while I've been back, but I was finally able to sneak in a University of Nebraska-Omaha game this week while in town for a construction site visit, and in doing so tallied my first new ballpark of 2024.  The UNO campus is in the Aksarben Village neighborhood which is kind of smack-dab in the middle of the enormous swath of land that is Omaha, and I attended a Tuesday evening game at their brand new baseball facility, Tal Anderson Field.

The University of Nebraska-Omaha is a fairly large public university that plays in Division I, but their athletics program has really only exploded in the last decade or so as their campus has grown.  Their major D1 sport for the longest time was hockey and were the first program to build a new facility on campus in 2015 (also built with major financial contribution from alumnus and local business owner Tal Anderson), and their baseball and softball programs followed with their own dedicated fields in 2021.  Before Tal Anderson Field opened, the baseball program was Division II and essentially nomadic, playing at a combination of various high school and city fields around town.  There are certainly a lot of instances where college programs say they "need" a new facility for recruiting or to attract donors or for a litany of financial reasons, but UNO literally just needed a home, and it is a very nice home.  The field is just west of the aforementioned hockey arena, and it actually shares a concourse with Connie Claussen Field, a softball field that was built as part of the project.  This provides a very unique setup where restrooms, concessions, entry point, and even some of the viewing and staff areas on the 2nd level are shared between fields.  I thought this was an ingenious use of land and space and frankly I'm surprised it doesn't happen more often.  It still gives each team and field its own distinctive and separate seating bowl and allows for games to be played at the same time, so nothing is compromised in that regard.  You enter both parks from the east and Tal Anderson Field is situated to face northeast, and the softball diamond to face southeast, with the west-east corridor shared cutting across the two.  If you were to take this shared facility concept away, nothing else would really stand out for the stadium, but again I'm sure Omaha is more than happy to just have a nice permanent home.  There are fixed seats from dugout to dugout, with lawn areas down the lines, a perfectly symmetrical outfield wall, and a videoboard in right-center.  As has been the trend just about everywhere at fields of this size, the playing surface is 100% artificial turf including the "dirt" and the mound.  The ballpark holds about 1500 people, and I was pleasantly surprised to be a part of a near-capacity crowd for a weeknight game against intercity rival Creighton University.

Two things I certainly was not prepared for when I walked into the ballpark that night: 1) more than 100 people there on a Tuesday, and 2) to witness one of the longest 9-inning games of my life.  I still distinctly remember a 9-inning Red Sox-Angels affair in Anaheim on the Tour that was in excess of 4 hours, but aside from that, this had to be up near the top for me, clocking in at 3 hours and 47 minutes.  Concession lines were long for most of the game on a $2 Tuesday (which certainly padded that attendance figure) and I would not be shocked if the ballpark ran out of Busch Light at this long of a game.  I had a seat 8 rows directly behind home plate for $12, within the demilitarized zone between Creighton fans to my left and Omaha fans to my right.  The Blue Jays pulled all the way out to a 7-1 lead by the 8th inning and this was when most people left, but the Mavericks made a game of it, tallying 3 in their half of the 8th and 2 in the 9th to nearly complete the comeback, but ultimately falling 7-6.  It was a very sloppily pitched game with a lot of deep counts, mound visits, umpire reviews, and pitching changes, all of which contributed heavily to the long game time.  In total, there were 420 pitches, 16 walks, and 7 hit batsmen, thrown by 14 total pitchers.  Blue Jay leadoff hitter Nolan Sailors was actually plunked 3 times and somehow refrained from charging the mound.  The most impressive hitter of the night for me was Henry Zipay (pronounced ZOO-pay) of the Omaha Mavericks.  He was a shortstop hitting out of the 9-hole so more than likely I just saw a good game from him and not an accurate representation of his talent, but he smoked the ball 3 times, including a hard-hit single through the right side to bring the Mavs within 1 in the 9th.  First baseman Will MacLean of Creighton and LF Drew Lechnir of Omaha each contributed 2 doubles respectively into the spacious power alleys of this ballpark.  The only decent pitcher of the night was a diminutive sidewinder for the Blue Jays named Tommy Lamb.  He struck out all 7 batters he faced in middle relief.

Excluding cities of residence, Omaha is probably in the top 3 of places I've visited most, and it's a city I've grown quite fond of and familiar with.  There are certainly worse places to have work travel, and especially given the fact that I live in the middle of nowhere now, I relish any opportunity to be in any urban area for a couple of days.  I'm hoping I can make it back out for another game in Lincoln or Omaha in the late summer for my project's punchlist.

park rankings and statistics:

aesthetics - 6
views from park - 4
view to field - 9
surrounding area - 3 (UNO athletic facilities)
food variety - 2
nachos - 2 (bag o' chips 'n' cheese)
beer - 8 ($2 but points deducted for Busch)
vendor price - 10
ticket price - 8
atmosphere - 7 (much better than I was expecting)
walk to park - 4
parking price/proximity - 10 (adjacent lot for free)
concourses - 6 (the one shared side was cool)
team shop - n/a

kids area - n/a

best food - hot dog
most unique stadium feature - shared concourse with neighboring softball field
best jumbotron feature - sponsor of the game

best between-inning feature - Quality Brands Maverick Stampede

field dimensions - 330/410/330

starters - Shea Wendt (CRE) v. Carter Navin (UNO)
opponent - Creighton Blue Jays
time of game - 3:47
attendance - 1278
score - 7-6 L

Brewers score that day - 9-5 W

STANDINGS AND UPCOMING SERIES AS OF 4/12/24:

Brewers 8-3, --; 3 @ Orioles, 3 v. Padres

Twins 4-6, -4.0; 4 @ Tigers, 3 @ Orioles

Orioles 8-4, -1.5; 3 v. Brewers, 3 v. Twins

2024 GAMES ATTENDED:

Erik - 0

Peter - 2

First Brewers Opener as Minnesota Residents

All photos of 2024 Brewers Home Opener available on Flickr.

As the title of this post suggests, a little thing like moving 400+ miles away wasn't going to stop us from attending another Brewers home opener this week.  The timing and circumstances of the opening game this year just were too good to pass up - it happened to fall during Spring Break a couple days after Easter, and the Crew was playing our new hometown Twins!  It stands to reason that it will never align that perfectly again, so we took advantage of attending another Brewers home opener while we could.  We got into Milwaukee on Friday afternoon and stayed with my parents in Oak Creek and the game itself was on Tuesday afternoon.  Sleeping in my parents house for that length of time again is very surreal, but I'm grateful for these opportunities to visit my family and the city I still and will always love.  And going to AmFam Field in addition to that just put a nice cherry on top of our stay.

The weather was very ominous on Tuesday and it was one of the worst weather forecasts I can recall for an Opening Day - upper 30s temps, a heavy rain that changed to snow during the game, and 30+ mph winds.  These conditions should have made tailgating damn near impossible, but Megan, my brother Nick, and I, along with tens of thousands of other brave fans, sat in our cars with the heat on, pounding Lites and whatever food we could muster sans grill while waiting for the gates to open at 1:10.  The poor weather overshadowed what was probably the biggest change at the ballpark for the offseason - the new parking system.  The Brewers are the first baseball team in the country to implement a new system that does not involve scanning parking passes, but rather works sort of like paying for meter parking.  You are supposed to either activate a pre-paid parking pass on your phone via the MLB Ballpark app and enter your license plate number, or you can also do the same thing by scanning a QR code posted on signs strewn throughout the parking lot.  There are also some kiosk options for those who haven't yet paid on their phones, again sort of like paying at a parking meter station.  As I watched dozens of people grumpily shaking their fists at the QR signs in the cold rain, I knew this change was not going over well and would likely experience some hiccups and pushback.  And in fact, the team did announce during the game that the QR codes experienced "connection issues" and no citations would be issued that day for unpaid parking.  Apparently the Brewers did not realize that 20,000 people all trying to access one website at the same time would be a problem, but I do believe that once that gets rectified, people will find this system incredibly easy, and more importantly it gets you into the parking lot nearly instantly with no stopping or long lines.  I'll say again, for anybody who has used a parking meter in the last decade, this system will come very natural.  Although I like it, I will say that I don't understand what the Brewers motivation is to implement this.  The people that formerly scanned your tickets are now just called "parking ambassadors" and point you where to go so it's not like they're saving money hiring less people, and the only days of the year where there is a logjam getting into the lot is Opening Day and the playoffs.

You know you're getting old when you talk about weather and parking in great detail for an entire paragraph, so I'll move on.  Inside the stadium, there were two major changes for the season.  The first is the enormous new jumbotron.  The new model is over 12,000 SF, which more than doubles the old screen and is the 2nd largest in MLB.  For anybody who's visited AmFam Field, you'll remember that the old scoreboard was flanked with static advertising on 3 sides.  That advertising is now shown on the actual screen most of the time, so even though the screen is huge, the actual footprint is not noticeably larger.  The times you really notice are when full-screen replays or videos are shown.  There is also a second smaller digital scoreboard that was added above the Johnsonville Party Deck in right field that is used primarily to show stats.  It's pretty common for teams to show things like the pitch sequence per at bat or "inside baseball" types of nerdy SABR stats, so this was a welcome addition for an avid fan like myself.  The second major change in the ballpark was the addition of the 3rd Street Market Hall on the loge level in the right field corner.  This area takes its name from the same food hall that exists in the old Grand Avenue Mall downtown and features several grab-and-go style food options provided by popular Milwaukee restaurants - Kompali Taqueria, Anytime Arepas, and Kawa Sushi to name a few.  I was skeptical of how this area would function in a sold-out crowd because it is in a very cramped area where they've already jammed a very popular craft beer bar and craft cocktail bar the last few years.  But given the type of "quick" food and how they've laid it out, it worked surprisingly well.  There are several enclaves of tables in previously dead space, and the food stands face all sorts of directions in an organic fashion to allow for easy queueing.  We shared a sushi roll and an order of crab rangoons from Kawa and both were exceptional restaurant quality.  Kompali and Anytime are two of my favorite eateries in the city as well, so I'll for sure be stopping back to the Market Hall on any future visit.

Our seats were on the club level for the game, which is par for the course with the Nagel family.  We paid our customary respects to the club level bartenders and settled in to our 4th row seats behind home plate to take in an amazing win that brought the Crew up to an undefeated 4-0 at the time (they have since dropped their first game of the season).  Former Giant and 29th round Royals draft pick Jakob Junis got the ball for Milwaukee and tossed an effective 4 innings with 4 Ks.  Elvis Peguero was the bridge man who got the next 2 innings and was dominant, giving up only 1 unearned run en route to earning the win.  Abner Uribe picked up his 3rd save of the season in an uneventful 9th that I mostly remember.  On the offensive side, Brice Turang continued his torrid start to the season with 2 more hits, an RBI, and 2 more steals to add to his league-leading total of 6.  Christian Yelich added his 2nd homer of the season in the 3rd inning as well.  The hallmarks of this young team from last season - speed and defense - look to not only have continued under new manager Pat Murphy, but are even exceeding last year to this point.  The Brewers ran wild on the Mets this past weekend, and it seems like we have half a dozen guys who could be Gold Glove finalists on this team.  This team has a lot of energy and chemistry and it will be exciting to see how the season plays out, particularly the newcomer of 20-year old and #2 overall prospect Jackson Chourio, who became the youngest Brewer to make an Opening Day roster since the venerable Robin Yount.  The question mark of this team will be the starting rotation.  We lost over 500 innings out of the rotation this past season due to trades and injuries and replaced those innings largely with journeymen, and not that much waiting in the wings in AAA.  The first turn through the rotation was solid, but let's see how this holds up over 162 games.

I'm hoping to make it to another Crew game when we come back to Milwaukee in late spring, but otherwise it will be an exciting season of Minnesota baseball and following the Crew on MLB.tv.

STANDINGS AND UPCOMING SERIES AS OF 4/4/24:

(note: I am also tracking the Orioles this year because I have a substantial bet on the over...)

Brewers 4-1, +0.5; 3 v. Mariners, 4 @ Reds

Twins 3-2, -1.5; 3 v. Rays, 3 v. Guardians, 3 v. Dodgers

Orioles 4-2, -1.5; 3 @ Pirates, 3 @ Red Sox

2024 GAMES ATTENDED:

Erik - 0

Peter - 1

Tour 2024

It's been unseasonably mild and dry in our first winter as Minnesotans (hold on let me knock on my desk), which has only gotten me that much more excited for baseball this year as it feels right around the corner.  This is usually the time of year I am getting into full season prep mode - scouring local collegiate ball schedules, purchasing Opening Day tickets, and as an added bonus now as a Minnesota resident, I get to layer in Town Ball schedules, which affords me a nearly boundless opportunity to take in more baseball and new ballparks along with that.  Just the county I live in has 30 teams alone.  However, as much as I love all my local options, it's my ball travel slate for the year that is still and will always be the most exciting.  It is with great anticipation that I announce Tour 2024 will be a return to Seattle, Washington the weekend before the 4th of July.

With no imminent or realistic new major league parks on the horizon (I'm still not convinced the A's will be moving until I see a shovel in the ground), Erik and I had a lot of different ideas for 2024 and free reign to go just about anywhere we wanted.  Baseball outside of our continent is still always in the back of my mind and at the top of my bucket list, but we're still a few years out from being able to take a longer trip that far away due to the young age of our kids.  So, we decided on a formula we have employed a few times in the past when we're in this situation - revisit a major league ballpark that has had extensive remodeling since The Tour and see some minor league ballparks around that.  We've been back to Kansas City, Chicago, Cleveland, and Pittsburgh since the OG Tour, and all of those trips were a blast and cool to spend a little bit more time (and money) in the parks than we could afford in 2007.  Even though we were in Seattle for multiple days on The Tour, it still felt rushed and felt like we didn't get a lot of quality time there, mostly because we were so exhausted by the time we got to Seattle.  That was at the end of Week 6 following a sprint from Texas to Washington in less than a week, and we honestly spent a lot of our time in Seattle catching up on boring things like sleep and laundry.  So we're both excited to explore more of the city and the ballpark, which has since changed names to T-Mobile Park and undergone $30+ million in renovations, including the Trident Deck pictured above.  It looks kind of like The Rooftop at Coors Field that Megan and I hung out at a couple years ago, and much like in Denver, the higher you're up in Seattle the better the view of the skyline, so I'm pumped to check out that area and see if T-Mobile Park is still a top 3 ballpark in my rankings.  We have a framework of an itinerary beyond a Mariners game that I'm confident will include some nearby minor league ball and national parks, and hopefully a ferry ride to Victoria for Canada Day!

My other major ball trip this year will be Year 4 of Tour Molly, which as of now I plan to be a weekend in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, which is about a 3-hour drive from Cold Spring.  Now that we live 7 hours further west, I have an opportunity to see so many states and teams to the west that previously would have been at worst unattainable, and at best ridiculous to visit from where we were in Milwaukee.  I've never been to either of the Dakotas and there are several independent and summer collegiate teams in those states, and not to mention Thunder Bay and Winnipeg are a shorter drive than going back home to Milwaukee, so I have many years of ideas with Molly and the family as well.  Beyond my two main trips, I look forward to a full summer of Town Ball and my first year as a partial season ticket holder of the St. Cloud Rox of the Northwoods League.

Pitchers & Catchers report in two days!!!  Play ball!

State of Wisconsin Approves Brewers Stadium Repair Bill

After nearly a year of political posturing (I first wrote about this last March), draft revisions, and lobbying, Governor Tony Evers signed into law a bill that provides the Brewers with half a billion dollars in government funding to perform much needed repairs on American Family Field.  Just about every major mechanical and electrical apparatus in AmFam Field is either obsolete or nearing the end of its functional life, so while this law is certainly not financing anything sexy that the public will notice, the maintenance is long overdue.  What started out as Evers just saying "hey, we have an enormous budget surplus, let's just give the Brewers a small portion of that," turned into a huge mess with people from every side walking in with their hands out and offering their own pork to throw into the bill.  The final details of the approved bill are as follows:

• $365.8M in state funds, which would primarily be financed by both visiting and Brewers player income taxes
• $135M combined from Milwaukee and Milwaukee County.  It's worth noting that both the city and the county were finally allowed to raise their own sales taxes on January 1st to save themselves from financial ruin, and now are required to immediately give some of that new money to the Brewers.
• $110M from the Brewers
• $2 ticket surcharge and $8 suite surcharge added to non-baseball events at American Family Field, which incrementally increase to $4 and $10 respectively, to help defray the cost of the state contribution.  This surcharge is estimated to provide about $20.7M over the course of their lease.  Once the state's funding has been completed, the surcharge would still continue in perpetuity, and its proceeds would transfer to the state's general fund rather than the ballpark district's fund.
• In exchange for the funding, the Brewers agreed to extend their lease to 2050, during which time the government funds would be made to the team in annual payments
• The Southeast Wisconsin Professional Baseball Park District - the independent body that oversees financing and management of the ballpark - would expand to 13 members - 4 appointed by governor, 3 by senate, 3 by assembly, 2 by Milwaukee city/county, and 1 by the Brewers.
• The Brewers current lease vaguely requires that the ballpark district pay for capital improvements to American Family Field that keep it within the top 25% of Major League Baseball parks.  That provision remains in the new lease.
• The bill includes $25M rolled into the state financing portion to perform a study on what it would take to winterize the ballpark for off-season events.  Anyone who has been to American Family Field in the winter knows that the ballpark is not currently insulated, nor is it tempered in any way when there is no game or event.
• Any cost overruns from initial estimates, and any sort of non-repair or non-maintenance related ballpark upgrade (like the new $6.5M scoreboard), would fall to the Brewers/district

The most interesting thing about this whole process to me is that both the ballpark district and the state allowed the 0.1% 5-county sales tax to sunset in 2020 because the mortgage was paid off on the original construction, knowing full well that the district was legally obligated to finance any future repairs to the stadium.  Now here we are 3 years later, and what a surprise the district is out of money because a tax that generated over $600M in 24 years is now gone.  It seems to me that keeping that miniscule tax in place - one that was contentious 30 years ago but now is mostly forgotten - would have not solved this problem necessarily, but made it gravely less complicated and burdensome to taxpayers.

I won't rehash what I've already written and spoken about ad nauseum regarding subsidizing professional sports facilities.  One person can argue that billionaires don't need handouts and the Brewers are just blackmailing the state, and another person could argue that keeping $2.5B in economic output, 3,000 jobs, and $630M in player income taxes in the state is a good thing no matter the cost, and both of those people would be right.  There's no great answer that pleases everyone and this is a topic that equally divides both Democrats and Republicans.  But I would be lying if I said I'm not glad that the thing I care most about in this world outside of my family and friends will have a wonderful place to call home until I am at least well into my 60s - in Milwaukee where they should be.

David Stearns and Craig Counsell Skip Town

I wrote last November about David Stearns stepping down from his position as the President of Baseball Operations of the Brewers.  The speculation at that time was that he would quietly wait out the remaining year of his contract in 2023 and then sign with the Mets in 2024 since he is from New York, and that proved to be exactly what happened.  On literally the first day of the offseason, the Mets held a press conference for his signing.  One of Stearns' first orders of business was to fire manager Buck Showalter, who was only one season removed from a 100-win season but led the Mets to a very disappointing 2023.  This all led to further speculation that Stearns and Brewers manager Craig Counsell would be reunited in New York, as Craigers' contract expired after the end of this season.  However, no matter who is at the helm, history has repeatedly shown that "the Mets are gonna Met."  They instead went the route of hiring a manager with zero experience for practically nothing to lead the largest payroll in North American sports.  The Cubs immediately swooped in and signed Counsell - despite already having a manager - to a 5 year, $40 million contract, which now makes him the highest paid manager in baseball.

Now that I've had some time to reflect on both of these signings, I can't objectively say I'm super surprised nor do I blame either of them.  Am I disappointed?  Of course.  But in both Stearns and Counsell's cases, both of them had reached kind of the pinnacle of what they were going to achieve in Milwaukee.  That's just the sad and honest reality of being in the smallest market in baseball.  To both be in cities with seemingly endless resources, coupled with their talent, is going to give them the best chance to consistently win and most importantly to win the World Series.  For a team like the Brewers to not only remain competitive for such a long period of time - pretty much the entirety of the Stearns/Counsell era - but also to make the playoffs in 5 of the past 6 years is nothing short of remarkable, and a lot of that credit is owed to those two men.  I had heard a stat on a podcast shortly before Counsell signed with the Cubs in which they were trying to quantify a WAR-type number for what Counsell as a manager contributes to a team in terms of wins, and the number he came up with was 6 WAR.  I'm not going to pretend that I understand how WAR is calculated, but accounting for 6 wins by yourself is the difference between making and not making the playoffs just about every year.  Stearns is going to be able to help Steve Cohen spend money responsibly and efficiently given his background, and Counsell is going to be able to steer the ship for the Cubs and masterfully manage their bullpen.  I think I was a little bit more surprised with the Counsell signing than Stearns, only because I thought he would either step aside or remain with the Brewers given his family situation, but looking back at it objectively now, the Cubs make a ton of sense.  It's 90 minutes away, he knows the division, they have a huge payroll, and Chicago is actually closer to some of his kids in college than Milwaukee is.  He's able to have kind of the best of both worlds in being close with his family, while also setting the market for what managers deserve to make and proving he can win on the big stage.  Counsell is now the highest paid manager since Joe Torre in his years with the Yankees, and in today's age of $300, 400, 500 million contracts, that is kind of astounding.

I wish anyone reading a very happy, healthy, and safe holiday season!  Pitchers & Catchers report in 72 days, and I expect I'll have an announcement on my/our 2024 trips around that time.

Tour 2023: Arizona Fall League Home Run Derby

All photos of AFL HR Derby at Sloan Park available on Flickr.

Our final game of our jam-packed Tour 2023 was the AFL Home Run Derby at Sloan Park in Mesa.  Sloan Park is the relatively new Spring Training home of the Chicago Cubs, located just west of their former home at Hohokam which is now inhabited by the Oakland A's (which I visited in 2019).  This park has also hosted the Mesa Solar Sox of the AFL since the park's inception in 2014, and on this particular weekend hosted the biggest events of the Fall League calendar - the homerun derby and the Fall Stars Game.  We were planning on attending both of these events when we originally planned this trip, but unfortunately the schedule changed after we booked our flights and the Fall Stars Game moved to Sunday, the day we both flew home.  Personally I enjoy derbies much more than the actual all-star games, so this was the event I was more excited about anyways.  The derby was jacked up to a whopping $20 for this special event and we headed straight towards the outfield berm in left field when we got inside.  Sloan Park is the largest park in the circuit at a 15,000 capacity, but I never would have guessed that since the overwhelming majority of people in attendance were in the outfield as we were.

We didn't get to see as much of Sloan Park as we would have liked since we made a bee-line directly to the outfield, but from the looks of it, it is following the trend of a lot of the Grapefruit League parks that look to mimic the shape and feel of their major league tenants - a "Wrigley Field West" of sorts.  It had similar dimensions with the same deep outfield corners as Wrigley, it had some "rooftop seating" in the outfield to mimic the rooftops on Waveland and Sheffield Streets in Chicago, the same green seats and green painted structure, and even a replica of the Wrigley Field marquee.  Had this park not been in the desert, I would have fully expected to see ivy on the walls as well.  I think given the fact that it was trying to recreate a smaller Wrigley Field, it made the park kind of ordinary and simplistic in its layout.  That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it made it less memorable than some of the other newer parks and made it not as nice as I was expecting.  This was the one park of the week where I think being there for an AFL game as opposed to a Spring Training game negatively skewed my opinion.  It was still a great place to watch the derby, and I felt just like I was in the bleachers at Wrigley on that giant berm that was packed with fans on this night.  Much like at the bleachers at Wrigley, there were a couple of idiots that had to be escorted out.  A couple of dudes wearing GoPros were jumping in front of children left and right to snag homeruns and had literal backpacks full of balls before security finally stepped in to remind them they were grown adults and asked them to leave.

The AFL Home Run Derby had a similar format to the format that has been adopted by MLB and many other leagues in recent years, namely that rounds are timed rather than based on a number of "outs."  I love this format, as it creates less down time and more home runs, which has certainly been a goal of baseball lately.  One slight nuance to the AFL rules that I also loved is that two finalists advance to a championship matchup based on a cumulative total of two rounds.  This means that you get to see every hitter at least twice, it avoids dragging out the event and tiring out hitters, and it also avoids the common occurrence of somebody putting up a monster first round total but still not advancing.  Kala'i Rosario of the Desert Dogs/Twins ended up winning on a very impressive effort.  He finished with 25 total homeruns as well as the longest homer of the night, estimated at 465 feet.  He really impressed us in Glendale on Thursday and we were excited to see him listed as a participant at the derby, and he did not disappoint.  Damiano "Chicken Parm" Pamelgiani was leading after the first two rounds with 17 homers, and 2nd place was a 4-way tie between Ivan Melendez, Kyle Manzardo, Jase Bowen, and the aforementioned Rosario.  This led to a one-minute swing-off for the 2nd and final spot in the championship round, which was won in a walk-off fashion by Rosario over Bowen with 10 seconds left on the clock.  Pamelgiani chose to hit 2nd in the final round, and that proved to be a mistake as he lost 6-5.  In addition to winning the Derby, the Hawaii native Rosario also finished the season tied for the league lead in homers with 7.  Wes Clarke of the Saguaros/Brewers also participated and mashed a paltry 6 total dingers in his two rounds, although he did manage to crush a hot dog during one of his timeouts.

Following our visit to Sloan Park, I have now officially completed the Cactus League/AFL Tour, which is the only league outside of MLB for which I have been to every ballpark.  With that being said, I would rank the parks in this order:

1. Camelback Ranch
2. Salt River Fields at Talking Stick
3. Surprise Stadium
4. Hohokam Stadium
5. American Family Fields of Phoenix
6. Sloan Park
7. Tempe Diablo Stadium
8. Goodyear Ballpark
9. Scottsdale Stadium
10. Peoria Sports Complex

I would highly recommend the Arizona Fall League to any rabid baseball fan and especially to anybody who enjoys going to the Cactus League.  If you love Spring Training, but you also want cool evening temperatures, smaller crowds, and something a little bit more affordable, then this is the league for you.  The two of us spent a grand total of $112 on 4 AFL games and probably $20 apiece per game in concessions, and we've definitely had trips where we spend that much on one person for just one game.  It was a long wait into the year for our Tour 2023 trip, but well worth it.  It was awesome that we got to extend the season by a few days, and it makes Tour 2024 already that much closer.

park rankings and statistics:

aesthetics - 8
views from park - 4
view to field - 7 (largest park in the league)
surrounding area - 3 (nothing in immediate vicinity but 5 minutes from downtown Mesa and Tempe)
food variety - 5
nachos - 5
beer - 4 (points deducted for no Old Style)
vendor price - 8
ticket price - 8
atmosphere - 9
walk to park - 3
parking price/proximity - 10 (adjacent lot for free)
concourses - 7
team shop - 3 (points deducted for very little generic AFL gear at the jewel event)

kids area - n/a

best food - Chicago Dog
most unique stadium feature - replica Wrigley Field marquee
best jumbotron feature - player stats

best between-inning feature - live music by the Chocolate Fountain Experience

field dimensions - 360/410/360

HOMERUN DERBY PARTICIPANTS: 

Kevin Alcantara, CHC/Mesa
Jase Bowen, PIT/Salt River
Wes Clarke, MIL/Surprise
Kyle Manzardo, CLE/Peoria

Ivan Melendez, ARI/Salt River

Damiano Palmegiani, TOR/Surprise

Gabriel Rincones Jr., PHI/Scottsdale

Kala'i Rosario, MIN/Glendale

winner - Kala'i Rosario
score – 6-5 final round, 25 total
stadium - Sloan Park

Tour 2023: Mullett Arena

All photos of Mullett Arena available on Flickr.

On Saturday, Erik and I attended our first NHL game together in almost 15 years, which was Game 1 of our first ever two-sport doubleheader.  Not wanting to exercise for a 2nd day in a row, we needed something to fill our morning before the 1:00pm puck drop.  A quick Google search of "Phoenix bars open early morning" landed us at the Yucca Tap Room for some 9:00 AM college football watching.  If you close your eyes and imagine what a sketchy dive bar looks like, this had many of the characteristic traits - very worn down and in need of repair, a host of regular patrons, no drink list, one old grumpy bartender, and the only natural light was from the intermittent opening and closing of the front door made of plywood.  As opposed to all of the establishments we had been visiting in Tempe the previous two days, we felt right at home here.  We stopped for another drink at Fate Brewing down the street and then we were off to the arena, which was literally across the street from our hotel.

From what I knew of the tumultuous history of the Arizona Coyotes franchise, I went into this experience with very low expectations.  They originated after the original Winnipeg Jets moved to Phoenix in 1996, and after a brief period with Wayne Gretzky at the helm, declared bankruptcy in 2009.  Pretty much ever since then, there has been a looming threat of the team moving, with constant ownership changes and aborted sales, many years of low revenue and general futility, and many failed attempts at securing a new arena.  They were even evicted from their last arena in Glendale, which is why they currently play in a 5,000-seat arena that was built for the Arizona State Sun Devils.  So it was a pleasant surprise to walk into a sellout crowd for which we could only manage to procure standing room seats.  There was an electric energy the entire game and the building was loud from puck drop to final horn.  We'll never know if the Coyotes fanbase would have filled a normal sized NHL arena that day, but from what I saw at the game and around town in our 4 days in Phoenix, there is definitely an appetite for hockey in the desert that I was not anticipating.  If an NHL franchise can thrive and succeed like the one in Vegas, I have no doubt that with the right ownership and arena that the Coyotes can too.

The smaller size of Mullett Arena as opposed to a standard NHL arena of 3x that size made this a very unique environment.  I've been to a handful of NHL games, but the bulk of my hockey experience comes from the UW Badgers and Milwaukee Admirals, and even those teams play in considerably larger arenas, so this Coyotes game was like nothing I've ever experienced hockey-wise.  It truly felt like a raucous college crowd and it was cool to be a part of.  The exterior is non-descript, as there are very few windows and it consists of primarily one deck of seats so it is quite short.  The interior is ringed by a concourse on 3 sides that has a 100% open view to the ice.  Concessions are positioned in the 4 corners of the arena only, which really keeps the concourse open for circulation, or in our case, standing at a drink rail to watch the game.  The 4th side of the arena has a large private club area that interrupts the concourse.  The 2nd level features a row of small, intimate suites lining the long ends of the arena, and on one of the short sides is another private party deck.  I always clamor at ballparks about the large amount of private club/suite space versus areas accessible to all, but for them to build that much private space in an arena this small, it must be booked up with sponsors and wealthy benefactors and put to good use for the university.  We wedged into an area behind the goal that the 'Yotes shot at twice, sandwiched between two groups of people that understood absolutely nothing about hockey - some drunk guys from Ireland and some cheerleaders.  I love standing room areas and Erik and I had a blast being a part of the lively crowd.  Outside of eating the sorriest excuse for nachos I've ever seen, I thoroughly enjoyed Mullett Arena, and it was one of the most fun games of the trip.

The Coyotes lost to the new version of the Winnipeg Jets by a score of 5-3.  Arizona jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the 1st period on a goal by J.J. Moser, assisted by Lawson Crouse on a nice little 2-on-1 breakaway.  Winnipeg woke up in the 2nd and there were a total of 5 goals scored in that period, and the score was tied 3-3 at the second intermission.  The Jets took the lead for good at 3:23 into the 3rd period on a slap shot by defenseman Brenden Dillon, who was for some reason left all alone on the weak side of the play.  The Coyotes went on the power play with about 5 minutes left in the game and Erik and I were obnoxiously screaming for them to pull the goalie for the 2-man advantage, but it was all for naught and a wasted opportunity.  Erik was excited to see Logan Cooley play for the 'Yotes, who was the #3 overall pick in the 2022 draft out of the University of Minnesota.  He was a relative non-factor in the game with a (-2) and only one shot on goal.

Following the game, we finally hit up the famous Micky's Hot Dogs and downed a couple of much-anticipated Sonoran Hot Dogs, which is an Arizona delicacy typically wrapped in bacon and covered with chilis and mayo, served on a doughy and flaky style of bun.  We paid the price for those the following day, but for now, we proceeded to Mesa with full bellies for game #2 of the day and the final game of our trip.

arena rankings and statistics:
aesthetics - 7 (low marks for exterior but high marks for interior)
view to ice - 9
surrounding area - 7 (ASU campus)
food variety - 3
nachos - 1 (bag of chips and cup o' cheese)
beer - 4
vendor price - 9
ticket price - 3 ($75 for SRO)
atmosphere - 8
walk to arena - 7
parking proximity - n/a
concourses - 4 (not active but points for view to ice)
team shop - 2 (one small team stand)

best food - the pizza looked good
most unique arena feature - being a one-deck college arena
best jumbotron feature - player/game intro
best intermission feature - Howler regales the crowd

starting goalies - Connor Hellebuyck (WPG) v. Karel Vejmelka (ARI)
Three Stars of the game - (1) Nino Niederreiter - WPG, (2) Brenden Dillon - WPG, (3) Lawson Crouse - ARI
opponent - Winnipeg Jets
attendance - 4600
score - 5-3 L
Admirals score that day - 2-1 L

Tour 2023: Surprise Stadium

All photos of Surprise Stadium available on Flickr.

Erik and I made the joke on the way out to Surprise that the city must have gotten its name from the town's founder saying "Surprise, there's more Phoenix!"  The story of Surprise is not unlike any other Phoenix suburb - it started as little more than a tiny agricultural/industrial village on the outskirts, saw modest grown up until the turn of the century, and has now ballooned to a city of nearly 150,000 people.  Surprise Stadium is right at the center of that growth, opening in late 2002 and seating over 10,000 people.  The stadium has been the Spring Training home of the Kansas City Royals and Texas Rangers since its inception, and followed only a couple of years later with the first incarnation of the Surprise AFL team, now known as the Saguaros.  We arrived at about 6:00pm for a 6:30 first pitch and purchased our customary $12 GA tickets as we have been at every other AFL game.

Out of all the parks I was visiting for the first time on this trip, Surprise was my favorite one.  Perhaps I was unfairly swayed by the amazing sunset as we arrived, or the calm cool breeze, but it was a very welcoming ballpark to arrive to.  It has a very enchanting courtyard with a lone mature tree at its center, with the entry point arranged in a concave shape around the courtyard set between two towers to draw you in.  There is a ring of baseball-shaped bollards around the street side of the courtyard to complete the circle, and it all makes for one of the better thought out entry sequences in the Cactus League/AFL.  When we made our way through the gate, I immediately noticed that we were entering through the outfield which is something I normally detest, but then I noticed there is a nearly identical entry sequence in the left field corner.  This gives the park a beautiful symmetry which gives the outfield entries a purpose and design intent.  We were greeted by a bosque of the Saguaros' namesake plants, and made our way down the right field line towards home plate.  On the street side of the concourse is a sort of pavilion for a lack of a better term that I'm guessing holds team offices, and it reminded me a lot of the center field pavilion at the old Rangers Ballpark in Arlington.  Again, this same type of pavilion exists in the opposite corner to reinforce the symmetry, with the RF pavilion being the Rangers side and LF being the Royals side.  As you move from the outfield toward the infield, you walk under the suite level above the concourse, and I can only imagine that the balconies overhanging the suites coupled with an array of open concession stands would make this feel like a lively pedestrian street at a crowded Spring Training game.  On this night, it just served to make me feel snug and welcomed, just as many of the details at the park do.  The relatively short lower bowl of only 15-20 rows adds to that snugness as well.  You feel like the upper deck is right on top of you when you're sitting in the lower bowl, which is a pretty cool feeling at a park of this size.  This is the only park I ate an actual meal at this week, and I had a pretty sorry excuse of a "Manager's Special" which consisted of two tiny chicken strips served on a mound of barely-cooked tater tots that have probably been sitting in the back of a freezer since March.  A 24-oz Coors Banquet quickly remedied that, and we settled into the 3rd row for the night's action.

Stadium aside, this was the ballgame I was looking forward to the most of the week as the Surprise team features Brewers prospects on it.  Three different Brewers strapped 'em on in this game in the 5-2 victory over the visiting Salt River Rafters.  Wes Clarke was actually drafted twice by the Crew and signed as a 10th round pick in 2021.  He got the start at first base and hit cleanup, and he went 1-3 with a walk.  As of that game, he was tied for the AFL lead with 5 homeruns, but he has since been surpassed.  This is on top of the 26 bombs he notched in Biloxi this year, so hopefully he can hone that power threat for the big league club someday.  Adam Seminaris and Justin Yeager both tossed a scoreless inning apiece from the mound as well.  Both of them were picked up in trades this past offseason - Seminaris in the Hunter Renfroe deal, and Yeager in the William Contreras deal.  Unfortunately Brewers shortstop prospect and 2022 1st round pick Eric Brown Jr. did not play in this game, but he has been turning a lot of heads in the Fall League by all accounts.  Trent Palmer of the Blue Jays organization got the start for Surprise and was the only pitcher we saw all week go more than 3 innings.  He gave up 2 runs over 3.2, but that was still good enough as Surprise put up a 3-spot in the 1st against the Rafters' Dylan Smith (Tigers).  We joked that there were zero Reds or Rockies prospects that got in the game for Surprise or Salt River, so I'm glad we are not fans of those particular teams.

Following the brisk game, we had a drive of over an hour back to Tempe, and we unsuccessfully tried to pretend we were young again at a bar on ASU campus before calling it a night.

park rankings and statistics:

aesthetics - 8
views from park - 2
view to field - 9 (all seats very close)
surrounding area - 1 (single family homes and vacant land)
food variety - 6
nachos - 5
beer - 7
vendor price - 8
ticket price - 9
atmosphere - 6
walk to park - 5
parking price/proximity - 10 (adjacent lot for free)
concourses - 8
team shop - 5

kids area - n/a

best food - anything but the "Manager's Special"
most unique stadium feature - entry/outfield pavilions
best jumbotron feature - n/a

best between-inning feature - n/a

field dimensions - 350/400/350

starters - Dylan Smith (SR) v. Trent Palmer (SUR)
opponent - Salt River Rafters
time of game - 2:24
attendance - 385
score - 5-2 W