Hohokam Stadium

All photos of Hohokam Stadium available on Flickr.

Our final stop of the vacation was Hohokam Stadium in Mesa.  It has been the home of the Oakland Athletics since 2015, when then tenant Cubs moved into the brand new Sloan Park nearby.  In true A's fashion, they did a modest remodel, applied green and gold paint, and took over the park that the Cubs deserted.  This is actually the 2nd iteration of Hohokam Stadium and the 2nd time Oakland has called it home.  The original Hohokam operated until 1996 when it was demolished for the new park, and the A's Spring Training operations served as the original tenant from 1977-78.  So all in all, a ballpark that I had thought was one of the oldest in the Cactus League is really less than 25 years old with a recent facelift.  As we found from our visit, although the park does show its age, it still holds up well and has lots of life left in it.

There really is not much of an exterior experience when you arrive.  The main parking lot is off in left field so you have to make an effort to see the front of the stadium if you so choose.  The A's also only have one full practice field adjacent to the site, so there is not much of a complex to experience either without a separate drive.  One of the main reasons the Cubs left for greener pastures was, well, the lack of green pasture.  The minor league fields for Hohokam are actually in Fitch Park, which is about a half-mile south of the stadium.  Although this probably sucks for the players, there are two pros to this.  One is it makes the grounds a lot more intimate.  You can easily walk up to the lone practice field and half-field beyond the center field fence while inside the park and watch practice, which is very convenient.  Most complexes are separate from the main park and cannot be experienced at the same time.  The second nice thing is it forces the Athletics to have to take BP before games in the actual stadium.  The A's are the only team in the Cactus League that takes BP in front of fans rather than on the back fields.  This lends itself to a livelier energy and a lot more fans than you would find at most Cactus League facilities.  We walked in about an hour before first pitch and there were already quite a few people there looking to score autographs or watch Khris Davis mash taters - more on him later.

The entry sequence was very similar to how Warner Park in Madison is set up.  You enter from the corner of the stadium and are immediately inundated with various vendors and food stands.  Hohokam probably had more food and beer options just in the LF corner than Camelback and AmFam had in their entire ballparks.  There was a kettle corn stand, wood-fired pizza, Asian noodles, ice cream, a sausage cart, and a plethora of beer choices which was definitely a welcome surprise.  There were at least a dozen craft beer options in a variety of sizes, most of them located around a very nice picnic area atop the 3rd base grandstand.  Fabric shade canopies, a fake turf surface, and picnic tables were added here as part of the renovation and provide a nice fenced-in area for any fan to gather, and most importantly, for kids to run around in.  

It's funny on how my perspective has changed on ballpark amenities.  Three years ago I would never even bat an eye at a kids zone, and I might have thought this picnic area to be a waste of space and prime seating opportunity.  Now that I have a 1-year old daughter that is running around like a maniac, I really appreciated having an enclosed area where I could watch her but also keep an eye on the action.  I also hated all of the outfield berms the last time I was in Phoenix.  I never understood why they couldn't put a party deck or hard seats in some of these areas.  I now get the value of having an unconfined place for a hyper child while you watch the game.  Incidentally, the outfield area at Hohokam is also quite nice.  As I mentioned it connects in the back to a practice field so it's a very active zone.  There is a concession stand back there, the bullpens, a kids area, as well as the tunnel where players enter the stadium.  The only negative is this tunnel disconnects the outfield from the rest of the park.  We ran into a dead end in right field and had to walk all the way back around.  All of the renovation money looks to have gone into the outfield and social areas and a new scoreboard, because the main grandstand is where the park really dates itself.  It is the style where the concourse is under the grandstand and thus very cramped with no view of the game.  I spent all of two minutes in here to run to the bathroom and it was all I needed to see.  I definitely recommend seats along the 3rd base line for any visitor.  Sitting in the main bleachers in the grandstand would have given me a completely different opinion of the ballpark than where we sat.  Despite its age and shortcomings this park is in my top 3 behind Camelback and Talking Stick.

The Brewers crushed the A's in a split-squad effort, 11-2.  Keston Hiura went 2-3 with two run-scoring hits including another homerun.  He is now fielding an .865 OPS on the spring with 7 RBI.  Orlando Arcia picked up where he left off last postseason with a booming 2-run double.  Brandon Woodruff was the most impressive Brewer pitcher we saw on the trip (although we did not see Josh Hader who has been the usual lights-out).  He got the start and struck out 5 in 3 shutout innings.  Top pitching prospect Zack Brown also tossed 3 hitless innings to earn the hold.  Most impressive was these guys did it against the Athletics' Opening Day lineup.  This game was their 3rd to last of the spring before heading to Japan to begin the season against the Mariners.  The most adrenaline-pumping moment of the game came courtesy of former Brewer Khris Davis.  I was up in the picnic area in the 7th inning with Molly strapped in front of me in the Baby Bjorn, when Davis sent a liner screaming towards us.  I managed to instinctively turn my body at the last second and block the ball with my forearm.  Had I not been paying attention or had the "dad sense" to turn, my daughter surely would have taken one squarely in the face at 95 mph.  I've now got a decent welt and a foul ball to forever remember the (first) time I saved Molly's life.  After my heart rate slowed, baseball just did not seem that interesting anymore and we headed out.

Following this weekend, I now have only Peoria, Surprise, and the aforementioned new Cubs park to visit in the league.  All 3 of these ballparks field Arizona Fall League teams, so I am hoping to someday make it to that for my next trip to Phoenix.

park rankings and statistics: 
aesthetics - 3
views from park - 2 (one of the few parks with no mountain view)
view to field - 9
surrounding area - 5 (about a mile from downtown Mesa and Sloan Park)
food variety - 8
nachos - 7
beer - 9 ("cheapest" and most variety in league)
vendor price - 7
ticket price - 4 ($30 by LF pole)
atmosphere - 8
walk to park - 2
parking price/proximity - 7 (directly adjacent lot $5) 
concourses - 5 (outfield 9, infield 1)
team shop - 2 (tents not a true store)
complex - 6 (disjointed but bonus for having main practice field accessible from stadium)

best food - wood-fired pie 
most unique stadium feature - LF picnic area 
jumbotron - yes
best between-inning feature - me almost dying

field dimensions - 340/410/350 
starters - Brandon Woodruff (MIL) v. Tanner Anderson (OAK)
opponent - Milwaukee Brewers
time of game - 2:54 
attendance - 9007

score - 11-2 L
Brewers score that day - 11-2 W; 5-1 W

REGULAR SEASON OPENING SERIES:
Brewers - 4 v. Cardinals
Twins - 3 v. Indians

American Family Fields of Phoenix

All photos of Scottsdale and American Family Fields of Phoenix available on Flickr.

Our game on Friday was at the newly renovated home of the Brewers, formerly known as Maryvale Baseball Park.  With the move of the Athletics to Mesa a few years ago, the Brewers are now the only team that actually trains in Phoenix proper.  They will remain so for years to come following an extensive $60 million renovation this past offseason, which was funded largely by the team unlike most Spring Training facilities.  The renovation focused mostly on player areas and the entry sequence.  The jewel of the project is a new 2-story buiding that houses team offices, player workout and sport science spaces, locker rooms, ticket office, and team store.  This building also houses new concessions stands on the stadium side of the building and is flanked by a new half-field and agility fields on the parking lot side.  

The things that fans will notice the most is a completely redone parking and entry sequence and the new desert adobe color slapped on pretty much the whole stadium.  Beyond charging $5 now, we found the parking situation to be very frustrating and inconvenient.  It's a very circuitous route to park your car and because of the new office building, it's a tighter footprint.  If there is a silver lining for the parking situation, it forces you to meander past the practice fields on a distinct pathway into the ballpark.  There are some spring training ballparks where you can basically park and enter the stadium and never even see the rest of the complex unless you go out of your way to.  AmFam Field purposely shows off the newly redone complex and we walked by all of the practice fields on our way inside.  We stopped to watch the Brewers catchers entertain spectators with a game of who could throw a ball from homeplate into a net behind 2nd base.  Past that field was the office building, done all in earth tones and reflective glass as per the norm in Phoenix, with an added touch of some cool board-form concrete.  The last portion of the walkway to the park features display areas of the various Brewers retired numbers and a brand new monument sign.  This was the nicest part of the renovation in my opinion.  It provided great wayfinding and many opportunities, and served to delineate a clear main entry.  The grounds really lacked the character of other complexes and this renovation hit a homerun with that portion of the renovation.

Once inside, the most noticeable change is the brise-soleil that was formerly pretty captivating, and now is brown like everything else in the desert.  The Brewers really made a huge mistake in making this building blend in with everything else when they previously had a unique white and blue color scheme.  The area where you used to enter has now been infilled with concession stands, but nothing really stood out at the new stands.  Similarly to Camelback, the concessions were definitely the most disappointing part of the "new" ballpark.  Pretty standard fare and expensive for what it was, including the beer.  How do you overhaul a stadium for a team called the Brewers and not upgrade the craft beer situation?  I was however happy to find the Asian noodle stand that I crushed at just about every park my last time out here.  The new jumbotron and team store, while nice, are really just standard things that fans expect at a ballpark now and were long overdue.  Overall I was not super impressed with the inside portion of the stadium renovations.  Even after widening the concourses they were still a logjam at only 3/4 capacity.  Again I really think painting the shades brown dramatically changes the feel of a park that used to be very light and airy.  I'm sure all of the new player facilities were worth every penny but this park remains near the bottom for Spring Training facilities.  There were a lot of missed opportunities with the vending and the outfield areas in particular that would not cost much money.

From our seats above the Brewers dugout we witnessed a 6-3 victory over the local Diamondbacks.  I was quite impressed with the number of D-Bag fans that showed up on a weekday afternoon when they can already see them pretty much anytime they want.  Rotation-hopeful Freddy Peralta got the nod for the Crew and tossed 3 shutout innings with 3 Ks, but again the bullpen did not look too hot.  Fat Albers continued his 2018 horribleness into this season and gave up a couple of hits in a shaky inning.  Junior Guerra then followed him with a 2-run outing.  Travis Shaw and top propsect Keston Hiura provided team with all the offense they would need on 3 homeruns between them.  This was the first time I actually saw Hiura in person and his quick hands at the plate are definitely as advertised.  I can't wait to see what this kid does on the big league club, hopefully this year.  We were actually about to leave in the 8th and I wanted to see Hiura hit one more time, and sure enough he tagged the first pitched he saw onto the left field berm.  Ryan Braun also decided to join the team today and went 1-3 in his spring debut.  It will be interesting to see how his publicized swing overhaul plays this year at age 35.

Following the game, we spent some time in Old Town Scottsdale near my parents condo.  One more game on Saturday vs. the Athletics!

park rankings and statistics
(updated from 3/28/11):
aesthetics - 5 
views from park - 2 
view to field - 8 
surrounding area - 2 (bad area of town) 
food variety - decreases to 3
nachos - 5
beer - decreases to 2
vendor price - decreases to 3
ticket price - decreases to 8
atmosphere - 4
walk to park - increases to 9
parking proximity - increases to 6 (surprised to see that parking was even more in 2011)
concourses - decreases to 6 (not a fan of the brown paint)
team shop - increases to 9 (two large ones)
complex - increases to 7

best food - Asian noodles (you can find these at every Cactus League park)
most unique stadium feature - brise soleil over concourse
jumbotron - yes
best between-inning feature - Sausage Race

field dimensions - 350/3400/340
starters - Zack Godley (ARZ) v. Freddy Peralta (MIL)
opponent - Arizona Diamondbacks
time of game - 2:39
attendance - 7073
score - 6-3 W
Brewers score that day - 6-3 W

Return to Camelback Ranch

All photos of Camelback Ranch available on Flickr.

The 2019 season started a few weeks early for me as I just returned from Spring Training in Phoenix!  I went with my wife, daughter, and parents and we had a relaxing 3 days in the Valley of the Sun.  It was nice to feel the warm sun on my skin again after what has been a brutal winter in Wisconsin.  Our daughter did surprisingly well on the 3 1/2 hour flight and we landed in Phoenix around 10 AM.  After a quick stop at my parents' condo in Scottsdale we were off to our first game in Glendale nearly an hour away for a 1:05pm first pitch.

Not much has changed at Camelback Ranch, but that was just fine with me because I don't really think they needed to touch a thing.  Same sea of tan seats, same expansive home plate plaza, same beautiful grounds, and same shitty White Sox.  Even after this weekend and 8 years since my first visit, this is still my favorite Spring Training ballpark and complex.  Both the architectural and landscape design are simply gorgeous.  I don't know what it is about the Gabion walls throughout the complex, but they are always the first thing to catch my eye and I am fascinated with how they are used.  In some areas they are decorative, and others then are used as retaining walls.  They really serve to tie the large grounds and the interior of the ballpark together, which can be hard to do in a unique way in this area as everything tends to be the same color and material out in the desert.  Speaking of desert, as an human being I struggle with the wasteful use of water for these complexes, but as a designer and a baseball fan I can't help but fall in love with the place.  Parking was also remarkably still free which was a welcome surprise.  We sat in an all-you-can-eat section above the visitor bullpen in left field for $44, which out here for what you typically pay for concessions is a steal.  A couple of hot dogs and a bottle of water and you've more than recouped your money.  My child managed to get a ball thrown our way from the Brewers' bullpen catcher and we enjoyed a nice leisurely afternoon under the shade with lots of space for Molly to run around (and more importantly a quiet area to nap).  This area looks to have added some shade umbrellas since 2011 but otherwise about the same. 

The most outrageous difference from my 2011 visit - which would be a common theme at all the parks - was the sharp increase in vending prices, particularly beer.  I remember drinking 24oz cans of Modelo pretty much the entire week I was here with my friend Phil 8 years ago for maybe $7-8 apiece.  You're lucky to find a cup of soda for that price now.  Beers ran in the $11-14 range almost everywhere with a staggeringly low variety, for 16 or 24oz cans.  "Craft beer" consisted mainly of Leinie's Summer Shandy and a decent local beer called 805.  It was all the more reason to spring for the all-you-can-eat seats particularly if it's a hot day and you need to stay hydrated.  Maybe the hike in beer prices was a conscious effort for all of the teams colluding to keep fans from passing out drinking too much in the sun - and I'm sure that's what they would tell you - but likely it is just capitalizing on the gluttonous Spring Training tourism industry.

Thursday was the first of 3 consecutive days we would see the Brewers on our trip and they dropped this one to the lowly White Sox by a score of 9-5.  Zach Davies looked sharp in his start, giving up only 1 run and a couple of hard-hit balls in 4 innings.  With a 1-year old daughter it gets harder to pay attention to ballgames now for 9 innings, but that works out perfectly in Spring Training as the starters are all out by the 5th.  The rest of the pitching staff was pretty horrible, but thankfully all by guys likely not even making the 40-man roster.  There were however a few late-inning plays that were hard to ignore.  Troy Stokes Jr. hit an absolutely laser out towards us for a 3-run bomb that would have brained us were it not for the umbrellas.  Later in that same inning, Manny Piña hit a ball that looked like it would be a running catch for former Brewer farmhand Nicky Delmonico, but he ended up crashing into the wall and being carted off after watching the slow-footed catcher hobble around the bases for an inside-the-park-homer from his back.  Another Brewers farmhand also got into the game for the White Sox, Dylan Covey.  Technically he was never signed by the Brewers after being selected 1st overall in the 2010 draft.  His physical uncovered that he had Type I Diabetes and he ended up turning down a $1.6 million signing bonus to go back to college, and would later get drafted again by the A's 3 years later.  He now is looking pretty good out of the White Sox bullpen.

After the game, Megan and I were both exhausted after a 25-hour day on 4 hours of sleep. so we just hung out at the condo my parents are staying at.  We turned in early for what would be another full day of sunshine, beer, and baseball on Friday.

park rankings and statistics
(updated from 3/29/11):
aesthetics - 7
views from park - 4
view to field - 8
surrounding area - 5
food variety - 6
nachos - 8
beer - decreases to 2
vendor price - decreases to 5
ticket price - decreases to 5
atmosphere - 5
walk to park - 10
parking proximity - increases to 10 (adjacent lot for free)
concourses - 8
team shop - 6
complex - 10

best food - Sonoran Hot Dog
most unique stadium feature - practice field complex, mezzanine level bar
jumbotron - yes
best between-inning feature - giveaways

field dimensions - 345/410/345
starters - Zach Davies (MIL) v. Carlos Rodon (CWS)
opponent - Milwaukee Brewers
time of game - 3:05 
attendance - 4804
score - 9-5 W 
Brewers score that day - 9-5 L

2019 GAMES ATTENDED:
Erik - 0
Peter - 3