Tour 2018: UPMC Park

All photos of Erie and UPMC Park available on Flickr.

It was about a 2-hour drive from Cleveland to downtown Erie and we arrived around 4pm. We stayed at the Avalon Hotel just a couple blocks from the ballpark, a slight upgrade from our Cleveland accommodations but that's still not saying much.  We had found out earlier that morning that the SeaWolves were actually playing a doubleheader, so after grabbing a quick road beer, we hustled to the ballpark for the 4:35pm Game 1 first pitch.

UPMC Park (formerly Jerry Uht Park) was built in 1995 to house the relocated Erie SeaWolves, who started as a NY-Penn League franchise in Ontario in the 1980s.  The moniker "SeaWolves" in in reference to their original parent team - the Pirates - and, much like the Utah Jazz, the name just stuck even after Detroit took over the affiliation.  The ballpark is part of Louis J. Tullio Plaza, which also includes the Erie Insurance Arena right next door.  And when I say next door, I literally mean next door - one of the walls of the arena actually forms the left field wall and has a painted yellow stripe on it indicating the boundary line.  It was this and several other unique quirks that made this park stand out to me.  Not only is the park wedged down the left field line, but behind the entrance and out past right field are residential streets, so the architect definitely had a fun time fitting this stadium into its site.  It features a very brutalist exposed concrete framework, which certainly dates the park to a bygone ballpark era.  The 2nd floor "party deck" along right field had pretty cool semi-private picnic areas, not fully enclosed like a suite but enough to distinguish your seating area.  My favorite feature was how small the lower section of seats was.  The 100-level sections of the park is only 6 rows deep, which keeps the capacity down and makes the park feel much more intimate, and as an added result, brings the main concourse super close to the field of play.  This is something I've not seen at any other ballpark other than maybe Five County in Zebulon.  Rather than looking down to the field from the concourse, you almost feel like you're in the field of play sometimes when walking around the perimeter.  Whether this was a conscious design decision or just a result of site constraints, it really added to my experience and opinion of the ballpark, even despite it showing its age now in its 24th season.  It's this age and grittiness that gives UPMC Park a little bit of character and helps it stand out among the glut of modern ballparks.  A beat-up, poorly attended ballpark in a beat-up city is certainly not going to win any fan favorite awards in the Eastern League, but I've said time and time again that when you go to as many ballparks as me, you appreciate anything different and memorable.

Beyond the architecture, the concessions offerings were fair of a ballpark this size.  They had a couple of local beers but mostly large domestic varieties.  Yet another tour staple of ours is to enjoy a margarita on Day 2 of our trips (I've probably said that before - I repeat myself a lot, deal with it), so I located the jumbo frozen yard o' marg stand and they were quite refreshing on a hot evening.  We shared philly cheese steak fries for dinner, which was probably my favorite ballpark offering of the entire weekend.  Our seats were literally front row center behind home plate among season ticket holders and scouts alike, and we settled in for what ended up being 18 innings of baseball.

The SeaWolves were playing the Altoona Curve on this night, a nearby AA affiliate of the Pirates.  Game 1 was a back-and-forth extra innings affair won by Erie in 11 innings.  The game was 4-3 Curve heading into the 7th inning (minor league doubleheaders are only 7 innings each), until the SeaWolves tied it in the bottom half.  Altoona once again took the lead in the 8th, only to be tied up again.  Altoona took the lead for the 4th time in the 11th and Yeudy Garcia gave up 2 runs in the bottom half to shoulder the loss.  Sergio Alcantara went 4-5 with 2 RBI in the win.  Game 2 was pretty uneventful until Altoona put up a 5-spot in the 5th and held on for the 5-1 victory.  1B Will Craig hit an absolute bomb 3-run shot that landed on the roof of the arena.  Despite being a AA game, there weren't too many top prospects or big names I recognized for either team.  Daz Cameron was the obvious one for Erie, who is the son of former big-leaguer and former Brewer Mike Cameron.  The SeaWolves also for some reason have former Blue Jay and Met catcher Josh Thole on their team in his age 31 season.  The only name I recognized on the Curve was Cole Tucker, who was a first round pick of the Pirates a few years ago.

After over 7 hours at the ballpark, and with a 6AM wake-up call awaiting us for another busy day on Saturday, we were again boring adults and hit the sack immediately after the doubleheader.

park rankings and statistics :

aesthetics - 5 (unique but not attractive...just like Erie)

views from park - 7 (Erie Insurance Arena)

view to field - 10 (concourse super close to field)

surrounding area - 4 (downtown Erie)

food variety - 5

nachos - 9

beer - 5

vendor price – 7

ticket price – 8

atmosphere - 5

walk to park – 8

parking price/proximity – 7 ($5 across the street...we parked at hotel for free)

concourses - 9 (very close to field)

team shop - 7

best food – Philly cheese steak fries

most unique stadium feature – arena forming left field wall

best jumbotron feature – guy who refused to participate in Kiss Cam

best between-inning feature – child chases random guy in hot dog costume

field dimensions - 316/400/328

starters – Cam Vieaux (ALT) v. A.J. Ladwig (ERI); Scooter Hightower v. Alfred Gutierrez

opponent – Altoona Curve

time of game – 3:33; 2:18

attendance – 4,541

score – 8-7 W; 5-1 L

Brewers score that day – 7-3 L