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