Tour 2025: John Thurman Field

All photos of Modesto and John Thurman Field available on Flickr.

Having no interest in exploring Stockton any further, we left for Modesto around 10am, and it was about a half-hour drive through mostly fields of long dry grass.  The landscape in this part of the country looks like throwing a lit cigarette out the car window would set hundreds of acres ablaze in a matter of minutes, so it's easy to see why there are so many wildfires out here.  Based solely on Google Maps alone, in my mind I was figuring Stockton would be nice and Modesto would be a dump before we left on this trip, and it turned out to be the opposite.  I was pleasantly surprised with Modesto's downtown, which was extra buzzy on a Friday morning due to their annual American Graffiti parade and festival kicking off that night.  After walking around downtown a bit to get the lay of the land, we started our day at Churchkey, which was a phenomenal gastropub and probably my favorite non-ballpark place that we to went the entire trip.  We imbibed for a few hours at the bar while watching NCAA Super Regionals (which conveniently began at 9am PDT), and were actually there so long that we had two meals.  Everything we ate and drank was delicious and it was a beautifully designed space as well.  I didn't want to leave, but we figured we should check into our room at the Motel 6 while still coherent.  As compared to our somewhat classy Motel 6 in Stockton, this one was more what we were expecting - I think you can create your own visual on what that means.  We made one more stop at Contentment Brewing Company en route to the Nuts game.  This was a cool industrial space featuring games and live music and we loved the beer here as well.  It was a really unexpected and fun day in Modesto, but alas duty called, and we made our way a couple miles south for the 6:40pm first pitch.

John Thurman Field was the only ballpark we had to drive to on our trip, and it was a reasonable $10 for parking.  This stadium has more or less only hosted some form of the Nuts throughout its long history, and 2025 marks its 70th and final season, which is the main reason we had to stop here on this trip.  John Thurman Field, much like Funko Field in Everett last year, is one of the many old parks that is falling victim to the MLB/MiLB facility standards that were implemented in the last CBA.  The Mariners (Nuts parent franchise) and the City of Modesto kept the lights on as long as they could but could not come to any ballpark improvement agreements beyond this season, so they sold the team to Diamond Baseball Holdings, who as their name implies is quickly become the major holding company for dozens of minor league teams throughout the country.  The days of the mom-and-pop community-centric MiLB teams are fading fast, and this is unfortunately the new reality.  There are certainly many good reasons to have standards, such as improving player facilities, standardizing the product, better fan experience, and increased revenue, but the downside is when a long-standing baseball community like Modesto gets left in the dust.  You wouldn't know it by Friday night's attendance, but the Nuts have been a lifeblood of this city for 80 years, and it's a sad reminder that baseball is ultimately about the almighty dollar just like every other business.  Erik and I don't take it lightly that we were blessed to get to see the Nuts in their final season, and hopefully John Thurman Field will find new life with another team in the future.

That being said, I'm not going to glorify this stadium as being architecturally significant or beautiful in any way just because it's old and it's a sad situation.  I mean, there is a reason after all that the team is moving, and that's because it is just not an adequate minor league ballpark by today's standards.  Everything from concessions, to seating, to bullpens and player facilities, and even the playing surface, were all varying degrees of sub-optimal.  Like most older parks, almost the entirety of the concourse is behind the seating bowl, and you have to ascend up ramps and metal stairs to your seats, which is less than ideal and certainly does not meet today's accessibility codes.  These types of stadiums create a major dark tunnel effect where concession stands and bathrooms are stuffed into food trucks and shanty-like structures under bleachers, of which the Nuts had aplenty.  But horrendously, no nut stand!  How do you not even sell basic peanuts at a team called the Nuts that has three nut-themed mascots?!  They did partially redeem this atrocity with full-sized helmet nachos.  The concourse reminded me of Sioux Falls in that most of it seemed eerily empty and understaffed.  We did find a nice little craft beer & food stand in the right field corner where I crushed an IPA and a delicious mac & cheese burger, but its juxtaposition right next to the bullpen staring directly at us was just one of many examples of the Nuts trying to make the best with what they have.  Other examples of this were a kids bounce house in a forgotten back corner that was completely unused, and some vacant "party decks" at the top of the grandstands that were just empty slabs of concrete with no chairs.  It's about what I expected for a park that I knew was in its final months of existence, so it's hard to say I was disappointed, and ultimately the game was all that mattered anyways since my rankings for this park will be pretty pointless (most of this blog is pointless so don't worry I'm still doing rankings).

And it was definitely a great game to watch, as we had 2nd row seats behind home plate, and the seats were a little closer to the field than in Stockton.  We watched the Nuts take down the Padres-affiliated Lake Elsinore Storm by a final score of 4-1.  I always enjoy looking up the teams' top prospects when I write minor league posts, and it looks like the highest ranked prospect in the game was Kavares Tears of the Padres, who is #7 in their organization.  He's listed as an outfielder but went 0-4 as the DH in this game.  The Nuts did not have any of their top 30 prospects in the game and managed only 5 total hits despite the win.  Walter Ford, a 2022 comp round pick, delivered perhaps the best pitching performance we saw of the week, giving up only 1 run in 7 innings for the home team and striking out 6, with an incredibly efficient 70 pitches.  From where we were sitting so close, I didn't really notice a ton of movement on his pitches, but he seemed to be missing a lot of barrels so whatever he was doing was working.  Abraham Parra surrendered 3 runs (2 earned) over 5 in a losing effort.  As an aside, it's worth noting that all of the stadium turmoil and deficiencies have not affected the Nuts' performance on the field, as they've won back-to-back California League championships and are in 2nd place this season.

The game was so fast that the sun was still up when we left, so we felt obligated to go out for one final beer in Modesto.  We did not stay out too long, however, as we needed to be back to our motel before the parking lot security gate closed at 10pm.  We were in bed at a responsible time again this evening to rest up for the final gameday of our trip.

park rankings and statistics:

aesthetics - 2
views from park - 1
view to field - 7
surrounding area - 2 (downtown is nice but not mostly residential near park)
food variety - 4
nachos - 8 (bonus points for full-sized helmet)
beer - 6
vendor price - 8
ticket price - 8
atmosphere - 4
walk to park - 2
parking price/proximity - 7 (adjacent lot for $10)
concourses - 2
team shop - 4 (I was impressed what they had considering the team is leaving)

kids area - 1 (one bounce house that's it)

best food - full-sized helmet taco nachos
most unique stadium feature - bullpen very close to beer pavilion in RF
best jumbotron feature - a look back at John Thurman Field history

best between-inning feature - kids run the bases mid-game

field dimensions - 312/400/315

starters - Abraham Parra (LE) v. Walter Ford (MOD)
opponent - Lake Elsinore Storm
time of game - 1:51
attendance - 641
score - 4-1 W

Brewers score that day - 2-0 L