Monday, August 21, 2023

Tour Molly 2023: Jackson Field

All photos of Lansing and Jackson Field are available on Flickr.

I spent my final weekend before the big move to Minnesota on the 3rd installment of "Tour Molly" in Lansing, Michigan.  We left Milwaukee at 8:30am and it was about a 6-hour drive, which included a very important stop at IHOP in Michigan City to appease a 5-year old that was demanding pancakes for lunch.  We only went to a ballgame on Saturday, so Friday night was spent swimming at the hotel pool (a must-have on our trips) and spending some time downtown.  We had a delicious dinner at Lansing Brewing Company and some ice cream at the Lansing Shuffle, which is a super cool marketplace type of building right on the Grand River.  I had one of the best IPAs and some of the best ice cream I've ever had and this was definitely my favorite part of the trip besides the game.  

Saturday was a very busy but fun-filled day that started with a walk to the Impression 5 Children's Museum at 9:30.  As impressed as I was with the downtown and the stadium district areas on Friday night, I was equally disappointed with them on Saturday morning.  Lansing is certainly not a big city by any means but it's not small either - the population is over 100,000 and it has a major state university - so I was shocked to see it so quiet and dead.  Lansing is what I would describe as "gritty" and has many of the hallmarks of what an urban center looked like 20 years ago - nobody there before 5pm on a weekend, a concrete jungle, not pedestrian friendly, a river-walk that is disconnected and goes nowhere, and lots of one-way streets to get people out as fast as possible.  It reminded me a lot of living in Waterloo.  The ballpark opened in 1996 as the center of a major redevelopment district right in the middle of downtown, so the city is certainly trying, and the one-block radius surrounding the park is very nice, including some really cool apartments in center field that I will talk about later.  But outside of that immediate area and obviously Michigan State University to the east, it is kind of a sleepy and weathered city.  Anyways, I mentioned the children's museum - we spent a few hours there and was well worth the visit.  We probably could have spent almost an entire day there if we didn't have anything else to do.  By the time we got out around noon we were starving and walked to another local brewery for lunch called Midtown.  Still not seeing a lot of action downtown after lunch, we decided to hop in the car and drive to a beautiful park called Frances Park which featured a rose garden overlooking the river.  After another round of swimming back at the hotel, we did Molly's favorite thing of the entire trip - ran across the pedestrian skybridge to downtown.  I introduced Molly to shuffleboard back at Lansing Shuffle (hence the name) and then it was finally game time.

I'll start with what I did like about Jackson Field - site, location, and atmosphere.  This was one of the most urban and active ballpark areas I've been in all of the minor leagues, and probably 2nd to only Fort Wayne in the Midwest League.  Back when this stadium broke ground nearly 30 years ago, ballpark districts were not a thing, and building ballparks downtown was just in its infancy of becoming a popular concept.  So for Lansing to have the foresight to use this ballpark as a development catalyst - regardless of your stance of if that actually works or not - is quite commendable.  Certainly there are times I love being at the small, quiet minor league parks that serve smaller communities, but the urban ballparks are always my favorite and I love the life that they bring to a downtown on gameday.  There were a ton of people there on this night for a Big Lug Bobblehead giveaway that we unfortunately got there too late to receive, but it was not a novelty crowd just for the bobblehead.  The Lugnuts are perennially near the top of not just Midwest League attendance but all of minor league baseball, and have drawn in excess of 7000 people several times this season.  Besides being a downtown site, the block that the ballpark is wedged in also makes it very unique.  The park faces directly north on a very long and skinny block that runs north-south, so this causes the park to be pinched down the lines and shoehorned into the block, similarly to Dozer Park in Peoria.  When you walk down the lines near the foul poles at the widest part of the stadium, the only thing separating you from the public sidewalk is a fence.  This make the ballpark very active not just from the outside in, but the inside out as there is a direct line of sight from the street inside from many areas.  There were several times when I saw people just walk by the fence and stop for a moment to peer inside and catch a few moments of free baseball.  And speaking of free baseball, the coolest part of the site is the apartment building that was added about 10 years ago.  Known as the Outfield Lofts, it is a 4-story building that has balconies hanging over the outfield concourse and facing the stadium.  I have no doubt in my mind that if I was single and lived anywhere near Lansing that I would move into those apartments for the rest of my life.  The ground level of the apartment building has restaurants, bars, and retail that faces both the street on the north side, but also opens up into the stadium on gamedays.  I can't even imagine what this ballpark looked and felt like prior to these apartments being built - they really bookend the stadium and define the boundaries quite dramatically, in an area that is overlooked in the design of many minor league ballparks.  Between the narrow site and the apartments, and the proximity to the street, it all serves to give quite an intimate setting to the ballpark, and when you couple that with huge crowds on most nights, it was a very lively and raucous atmosphere to be a part of.

The large, raucous atmosphere does have a negative side effect however and leads directly into what I did not like about the stadium - the general operations of the park were a joke.  There were only two main concession stands (similar to the setup in Appleton) that literally had 30-60 minute lines for the entire game.  The only thing I could actually grab for Molly and I to eat without spending the entire night in line was popcorn and ice cream.  And it's not like these stands served like specialty items or things that were slow to cook, we're talking standard ballpark fare.  The team store was also WAY too small for a ballpark of this size and was uncomfortably crowded at all times.  I will say the congestion in the concourse was not as bad as I was expecting for the tight nature of the stadium footprint, so kudos on that.  And perhaps having only two concession stands alleviates some of that congestion, so I get that it's certainly a give-and-take.  The last thing I hated was that the entire park was cashless - and proudly stated as such on their website and all over the park - except for the kids area.  So I had to go all the way back to the overcrowded team store to buy "Lugnuts Bucks" with my debit card specifically to use at the bounce house for Molly.  That's not a symptom of a tight footprint, or poor design, or staffing shortage - that is just a flat out horrible oversight that can be easily rectified.

Molly has progressively been able to stay attentive to more and more of the game with each passing year of our trips, and we made it into the 5th inning on Saturday.  I think our first year in Green Bay she watched MAYBE 2 innings - and by watched, I mean was distracted with food.  So between the 4 1/2 innings from our seats and the bounce house being conveniently located directly behind the left field pole with full view of the field, I actually got to watch most of the game.  The Lugnuts defeated the Great Lakes Loons by a score of 7-5, and powered by an offensive barrage the likes of which I have rarely seen in the Midwest League.  There were eight extra-base hits in the game, including a 3-run homerun by 2B Brennan Milone, a 6th round pick of the A's last year.  That homer gave the 'Nuts the lead in the 3rd and the lead stuck.  Junior Perez also homered for the home team as part of a 3-hit night.  If he keeps that up, the A's will certainly come calling soon, or more likely trade him.  Yehizon Sanchez gave up 5 runs in 3 innings in his Midwest League debut, and Yeiner Fernandez and Chris Alleyne homered for the Loons in a losing effort.  We stayed as long as we could, but after a long day of activities, Molly was visibly exhausted by 9pm and we called it a day.

Following a quick round #3 of swimming on Sunday morning, and some breakfast across the street from the ballpark where some players were clearly there picking up coffee, we headed back to Milwaukee around 10am.  Once you have a second child, watching just one child is a breeze, and it was so nice to have a fun, relatively stress-free time all to ourselves and to spend some quality time together before our big life shift this week.

park rankings and statistics:
aesthetics - 8 (points are primarily for site layout)
views from park - 7 (apartments, downtown Lansing)
view to field - 9
surrounding area - 7
food variety - 1
nachos - 1
beer - 7 (bonus points for Labatt's)
vendor price - 7
ticket price - 6
atmosphere - 9
walk to park - 7
parking price/proximity - 6 (we walked but there are lots of street options)
concourses - 8
team shop - 2 (way too small)
kids area - 6 (this one is tough to rank - bonus points for proximity to field but points deducted for being the only thing in the park that requires cash)

best food - ice cream I guess?  didn't get to try any
most unique stadium feature - site, apartments in outfield
best jumbotron feature - Lansing Board of Water & Light "Flip the Switch" to turn on the stadium lights
best between-inning feature - Nutty Golf

field dimensions - 305/404/305

starters - Jerming Rosario (GL) v. Yehizon Sancez (LAN)
opponent - Great Lakes Loons

time of game - 2:37
attendance - 7780
score - 7-5 W
Brewers score that day - 6-1 W

STANDINGS AND UPCOMING SERIES AS OF 8/21/23
Brewers 68-57, +3.0; 2 v. Twins, 3 v. Padres, 3 @ Cubs, 3 v. Phillies
Twins 65-60, +6.0; 2 @ Brewers, 4 v. Rangers, 3 v. Guardians, 3 @ Rangers

2023 GAMES ATTENDED:
Erik - 3
Peter - 17

No comments: