Barnes Field

All photos of Barnes Field available on Flickr.

Following the Auggies game, I headed about 10 minutes east to the Hamline-Midway area of St. Paul for a Concordia St. Paul Golden Bears game.  Unlike Augsburg University that plays offsite, the Golden Bears actually play on campus, and they are a level up in Division II, so even despite the beauty of Parade Stadium, I was expecting Barnes Field to be an upgrade.  I could not have been more wrong.  

I arrived to the right field parking lot between games 1 and 2 of their doubleheader to find students tailgating.  At first this seemed like a promising indicator of a fun ballpark, but I came to realize they were tailgating out of necessity.  Barnes Field is barely above the threshold of what I would even constitute as a ballpark, and might have been the worst park I've ever been to.  These students were probably sitting out there in lawn chairs because the only ways to get to the seating area from the parking lot are to either walk through the visitors bullpen, or to walk down an offramp that has no sidewalk - and I don't mean either of those things figuratively.  The park is about as shoehorned as you can possibly get into a site and there's literally nowhere to even fit an entry point.  The field is oriented facing northeast.  To the south along the right field line, there is about 20 feet of green space between the dugout and the sidewalk, which is where the visitor bullpens reside.  To the west, there are a couple sections of bleachers wedged into maybe a 15-foot area between the backstop and another building.  Beyond those bleachers down the left field line are the Concordia bullpens and some batting cages, and beyond that is another parking lot.  Those who park in that other lot would have to walk through that bullpen to get to the bleachers just as I did from the other side.  The outfield fence directly abuts a softball diamond in left, an arena in left-center, and a parking lot in right field.  Given the tight site, this park is understandably known as a bandbox, and any homers directly land onto one of those three things in the outfield.  Normally the ballparks that have such a unique site are enjoyable and have a lot of character, but it is not functional whatsoever, and there is no space to surround the field with anything more than just a chain link fence.  When I finally made my way "inside," there was a group of team moms feeding the players between games, which would have been a really nice gesture if they weren't forced onto a gravel loading zone with extension cords and crock pots because there was not one inch of room for them within the confines of the park.  Go ahead and search "Bob Barnes Field Concordia St. Paul" on Google Maps for yourself; the aerial view will do a way better job of describing this architectural marvel than I can with words.

I watched the team rake the infield between games and I saw about an inning of Game 2 before I couldn't take it anymore.  There's no way I could have known it would be this bad until I went, so I can't say I regret going, but I did not feel guilty at all about leaving so quickly, especially considering I just looked at the box score and this ended up being a 4+ hour 14-inning game.  I briefly contemplated just going back to the Augsburg game, but when I noticed the St. Paul Saints were also in town, I figured this might be my only chance to attend parts of three games in one day.  I got to CHS Field in the 3rd inning, just in time to see former Brewer Orlando Arcia lace a 3-run triple.  In total, I only saw about 8 innings of ball, but it was a very memorable day.

park rankings and statistics:

aesthetics - 0
views from park - 4
view to field - 3
surrounding area - 3 (campus and residential)
food variety - n/a
nachos - n/a
beer - n/a
vendor price - n/a
ticket price - 10 (free)
atmosphere - 1
walk to park - 1
parking price/proximity - 6 (adjacent free lot but points deducted for no way to get from lot to park)
concourses - 0
team shop - n/a

kids area - n/a

best food - n/a
most unique stadium feature - extremely tight site
best jumbotron feature - n/a

best between-inning feature - visiting players dominate the spread from CSP moms during doubleheader

field dimensions - none listed

starters - Carson Zimmel (NS) v. Tyus Smith (CSP)
opponent - Northern State Wolves
time of game - 4:12
attendance - box score says 215 but there's no way that many people even fit...I counted about 30
score - 7-6 W (14)

Brewers score that day - 5-3 L