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