Tour 2019: BB&T Ballpark (Winston-Salem)

All photos of BB&T Ballpark available on Flickr.

As has long been our credo, there's no point of traveling south of the Mason-Dixon line if you don't find time for a Waffle House, and on Sunday we lived up to that.  Asheville has perhaps the fanciest Waffle House we have ever been to, with nice metal panel on the outside instead of the drab yellow and red awning we're used to.  When we stepped inside and saw the clean interior and polite staff, we thought we might have been in the wrong place, but a large order of 'browns smothered and covered put that anxiety to rest.  From there it was about a 2-hour drive east to our final game of the trip in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

BB&T Ballpark is home to the Winston-Salem Dash and opened for business in 2010.  It is one of three parks of the same moniker, opening 4 years before the one in Charlotte I visited a few years ago.  The Dash moved from their long time home of Ernie Shore Field, which is still the home of the Wake Forest baseball team, and changed their name that season from the Warthogs.  "Dash" refers to Winston-Salem's nickname as "Dash City" due to the hyphen in its name, and is pretty clever as a baseball pun as well.  Much like many minor league teams of the area, Winston-Salem has a long history of baseball.  The Dash have existed in some form since the turn of the 20th century, originally starting play as the Twins in 1905, which eludes to another city nickname of the "Twin City" long before the Minnesota Twins stole the trademark.  Unfortunately, Winston-Salem's third nickname of "Camel City" referencing the tobacco industry will probably never see the light of day as a team name.

Erik and I found the ballpark to be pretty upscale for this level of baseball, but the site and access was incredibly odd and difficult.  First off, the highway currently ends right at the stadium and you are forced to get off at the ballpark exit.  Obviously it is just a coincidence that road construction was occurring when we were there, but it was a weird way to enter the city so abruptly and it made the site access even harder than it already was.  Following the exit, you drive by what I would call the "front" of the stadium, but there is no way to actually walk in on that side from street level.  I absolutely hate when ballparks deemphasize the main entrance like this.  Indianapolis and South Bend were two that came to mind where most people walk into the back of the stadium and despite enjoying those parks, it was a big turnoff for me.  I understand that constraints of a site and directional limitations do play a large part but I'm sure there was a better solution.  We then drove past the stadium and drove for blocks before we could find anyplace to park.  We ended up parking on a street 5 blocks away for free, which we probably would have done anyways, but we didn't really notice how you were supposed to get to the parking lot until we walked through it on the way to the stadium.  Lastly, the park is sunk into a hill and sort of under the freeway a little bit on one side.  We had to cascade down a steep hill to get in the gate from the street, which was again at the back of the ballpark.  I will say that BB&T at least made the best of this with a nice entry plaza in the back and some signage.  Immediately upon walking in, we saw the effects of even more poor planning as the team store and ticket office were just in portable shacks.  Clearly these were forgotten and put in after the fact.  Putting all of these stressors and oddities together with a 95 degree day didn't put me in the best mood by the time we walked in.

Once we actually walked around and got to our seats, I did like the architecture of the stadium overall.  The setting of being sunken into the hill actually gave it a lot of character from the inside and made the stadium feel more intimate.  It's one of those features similar to McCormick Field where as the stadium gets old, it will give it a lot of charm as the city builds up around it.  It was absurdly empty due to the heat and I could count on one hand the number of fans sitting in the first 15 rows where the sun was.  Everybody was up in the suites or in the back rows in shade, as we were.  None of the bars were open in the outfield and nobody was on the berms either, which was a shame because there looked to be a cool 2-story brewery in left field.  It was pretty wild and I've only seen a handful of stadiums this empty.  Usually at least the season ticket holders and scouts will tough it out, or families on Sundays.  The ballpark is of the typical retro style with the exposed steel and brick structure and features a cool little bridge in the RF corner with an extremely low outfield wall below it, maybe 2 feet tops.  I'm guessing this was another result of the tight site this park was wedged into.  Concessions were massively upgraded a couple of years ago and had a lot more specialty items compared to the other parks of our trip.  I had a Cheesy Pig Dog which was pulled pork and mac & cheese on top of a hot dog.  It was delicious and I was glad I lost 6 pounds before our trip, because that one meal gained back about half of that for me.  Overall it was a nice park with a unique site, but it just felt a bit off being there with so few people in sort of an empty part of the city.

Much like last year, our Sunday game was the hottest and longest game of the trip, and also like last year, we had to leave early to catch a flight.  These are the only two times I can recall that we've ever left games early together, and both times we missed a lot of action.  I believe Akron exploded for a bunch of runs after we left last year, and this year the Dash came back to beat the Wood Ducks in 10 innings by a score of 7-6.  It was 4-3 Ducks in the bottom of the 7th when we left, and the Ducks seemed to be holding their own behind a strong pitching performance by Noah Bremer, a 6th round draft pick out of Washington.  He gave up only 2 runs over 5.2.  Scott Engler and Michael Matuella blew the lead after we left, giving up an RBI fielder's choice to Zach Remillard in the 8th.  The Ducks would retake the lead with 2 in the 10th inning, but the Dash stormed back for 3 in their half for the win on Craig Dedelow's 2nd homer of the day.  The player we were most impressed with from either side was 1B Curtis Terry of the Wood Ducks.  This guy is listed at 6'-3" 264 lbs and he filled out every inch of that frame.  He absolutely crushed all 4 of his balls in play for 2 hits, and also hit at least 2 foul homeruns that won't show up in the stat sheet.  As of this game he had a .959 OPS, so maybe in his 5th year in the minors he is finally figuring things out.

As I mentioned, we left in the 7th to get Erik to the airport.  I had heavy temptation to shoot back up for the 5:05 Kannapolis game, but given the heat I was content with a few beers at the Charlotte airport bar.  I had quite the adventure getting home as my plane changed gates 7 times in about an hour, but outside of that it was another fun ball trip.  Next year is the opening of the new Rangers ballpark, so Texas we'll see you in 2020!

park rankings and statistics: 

aesthetics - 7

views from park - 4 (apartments)

view to field - 8 (great view when nobody's in front of you)

surrounding area - 2 (an oddly vacant part of the city)

food variety - 8

nachos - 7

beer - 8

vendor price - 7

ticket price - 6 ($15 1st base side)

atmosphere - 2

walk to park - 1

parking price/proximity - 3 (really hard to access)

concourses - 8

team shop - 4 (shack in outfield)

best food - cheesy pig dog

most unique stadium feature - site

best jumbotron feature - Pictionary

best between-inning feature - mascot plays tug of war and loses to children

field dimensions - 315/399/323 

starters - Noah Bremer (DE) v. Kade McClure (WS)

opponent - Down East Wood Ducks

time of game - 3:11

attendance - 2331

score - 7-6 W

Brewers score that day - 7-4 W

Tour 2019: TVA Credit Union Ballpark

All photos of TVA Credit Union Ballpark available on Flickr.

Our Saturday in Asheville followed a similar format to Friday: pool, lunch, breweries, ballgame.  After each of us downed a total of 3 cheeseburgers yesterday and with another $2 cheeseburger night awaiting us in the evening, we opted for a break with some tasty BBQ for lunch at Buxton Hall Barbecue.  While waiting for Buxton's to open, we made a quick stop for a flight at Bhramari Brewing Company.  This was one of our favorites of the weekend with a lot of funky beer and drinkable sours.  After Bhramari, it was off to Buxton's.  This place is an institution in Asheville and makes a traditional North Carolina style BBQ.  Unlike the tangy and spicy ketchup-based sauces of Missouri and Texas, North Carolina has a style all its own with a vinegar-based sauce, traditionally served with whole-hog style BBQ.  Erik and I both had delicious pulled pork sammiches drowned in vinegar.  Conveniently next door to Buxton's in the same building was Catawba Brewing, which happened to be celebrating their 20th anniversary that day.  I did not much care for this one as they had pre-determined flights and we really didn't get to try the beers that we wanted.  From Catawba we went to Green Man and Hi-Wire.  Green Man is another one of the AVL originals and has been doing it for over 20 years, now with a brand new "Green Mansion" right next door to their original brewery.  They had a wide range of styles and a pretty cool space with some sort of weird rock-stacking game to keep drinkers occupied.  Hi-Wire is a circus-themed establishment crammed into a really small warehouse space that seemed to be one of the more popular ones of our trip.  It's only been open a few years but has already won an NC Best Brewery award and was packed from the moment we walked in.  It was amazing to me how almost every place we went to was full of people despite having so many options.  We had been slowing our pace considerably by the time we got to Hi-Wire because we had another hour-long drive ahead of us for our evening game in Johnson City, Tennessee.

Our drive today was up I-26 instead of the "highway" we went up to Greeneville and we got to the park about 5:30 for a 6:30 game, so we had a little bit of time to play catch before first pitch.  Johnson City is a town of about 65,000 and is part of a "Tri Cities" area along with Kingsport TN and Bristol VA, hence the name "TVA Credit Union."  The ballpark is situated east of what you might call downtown, but it is separated from the rest of the city by the interstate so it was kind of hard to get a sense of direction when we arrived.  It was built in 1956 and was known as Howard Johnson Field up until a few years ago.  We bought GA seats in the main grandstand for only $7 apiece and grabbed our leis at the front gate for yet another Margaritaville Night.

Remember our discussion on "charming" vs "dumpy" regarding the Asheville park?  Well, this park is definitely showing its age and is hurting for some TLC, so we found this park to be more on the dumpy side of the spectrum, although somehow it won the fan vote for Rookie League Ballpark of the Year on Ballpark Digest in 2017 and 2018.  We really didn't see anything that would warrant this other than the rabid fan base that most Cardinals affiliates have.  I do like the covered grandstands found in older ballparks, which this has, but to me it was only a slightly nicer version of Beloit or Waterloo.  The steel was all rusting, the benches were extremely tight and uncomfortable, and there was a ridiculous of amount of obstruction to support all the netting.  Don't get me wrong, I am very pro-netting, but it seemed to be a lot of smaller sections held up by a lot more poles and apparatus than should be necessary.  It also jogged back behind the dugouts and it made it very difficult to see the game from anywhere other than just behind home plate.  We ended up having to move all the way down by the corner bullpen to watch the last few innings because our backs were killing us from the benches and we couldn't see anything from anywhere else.  Unless you are of the company that just likes old parks only for the sake of being old, there is not much to write home about from Johnson City.  As I would imagine is the case with most Appy League parks, it's a sleepy community with not much else to do, so if anything the fan support was impressive.  It was one of the more well-attended games of the weekend despite the temps pushing into the 90s.  A hat full of ice and a generous helmet sundae saved my life on this night and were all I could muster to put down, but from the looks of it they had a remarkable craft beer selection.  Had I not tried most of the beers they sold in the last 48 hours, I would have definitely partook.  The other thing I did like about this park was the game and activity area they had out in right field.  There was a beer stand out here that sold until final out along with some bags sets and a picnic bench area that seemed to draw a good amount of the crowd as the game dragged on.

It was a loss for the home team on this night, as the Cards dropped one to the Braves affiliate, 4-2.  It was looking promising as Cardinals 9th round draft pick Todd Lott went yard in the bottom of the 1st, and that lead stuck until Danville tied it in the 4th with a double by Ray Hernandez.  The Braves would score again in the 5th and 7th and the lead stuck.  The aforementioned Lott not only had the best night of any player, but was far and away the best player on either team.  It's easy to not pay attention to what's happening in a game when there is no jumbotron and you don't know any of the players, but I distinctly remember Erik and I keeping track of when his spot in the order would come back up so that we could watch him hit again.  He went 3-4 on the night and was a triple shy of the cycle, and he was miles ahead of every hitter, with an .830 OPS on the season.  Look for him to earn a promotion to A-ball by the end of the season.  Both starters faired well, giving up 1 in 4.2 and 2 over 6 respectively.

After another brisk game, we drove back and had a nightcap at our 12th and final brewery of the weekend at Thirsty Monk, which was right next door to our hotel.  This was more of a brewpub than a brewery and had several different levels.  We sat by the open garage door at the front and enjoyed watching all of the drunk people way too dressed up waiting in line for the VIP rooftop level.  We were in bed around midnight on our last night in Asheville.

park rankings and statistics: 

aesthetics - 3

views from park - 6 (hills/woods)

view to field - 3 (lots of obstructed view)

surrounding area - 3

food variety - 4 (basic ballpark fare)

nachos - 6

beer - 8

vendor price - 8

ticket price - 9 ($7 GA)

atmosphere - 5

walk to park - 2

parking price/proximity - 10 (adjacent lot for free)

concourses - 4 (not really a concourse)

team shop - 4

best food - $2 cheeseburger

most unique stadium feature - covered grandstand

best jumbotron feature - n/a

best between-inning feature - mascot Jay Cee stuffs front of shirt with beach balls to honor Margaritaville Night

field dimensions - 330/400/315 

starters - Alec Barger (DAN) v. Julio Puello (JC)

opponent - Danville Braves

time of game - 2:22

attendance - 2889

score - 4-2 L

Brewers score that day - 8-3 W