Goodbye Pohlman Field

Sunday, July 18th marked the final game in the history of Pohlman Field, as the Beloit Snappers prepare to transition to the much-anticipated and LONG overdue new ballpark, ABC Supply Stadium, on August 3rd.  Anyone who's read this blog for the last 15 years knows my feelings on how disgraceful the park is by today's minor league standards, but this is still a sentimental time for me as I'm sure it is for the people of Beloit.  For as much grief as I give the ballpark and city, aside from the Brewers, this is one of my most frequented ballparks of all time.  It had crossed my mind after attending the 35th Anniversary Home Opener in 2016 that it might be my last trip ever to that ballpark, but surely I thought it would be for reasons of moving the team, not a new ballpark, so it's a little hard to grasp that this is actually happening.

Pohlman Field reflected a bygone era of simple, affordable, community-centric minor league baseball that just does not exist anymore, and there's something to be said about that.  It's easy to overlook the fact that a major reason the ballpark has not had any major upgrades in its 40 years is because prices were always kept low to make this affordable to fans, and nearly every penny of profit went back to the city.  In the 11th hour, when it looked like MLB was all but set to abandon the market with the new minor league takeover, the community stepped to the plate once again to fund this new park almost entirely with private financing, most significantly by team owner Quint Studer and local philanthropist Diane Hendricks (think of her as the Herb Kohl of Beloit).  Nutty political views aside, Diane saved this franchise almost singlehandedly, and that spirit is what embodies this team and the city of Beloit.  The Snappers and the city deserve a new ballpark, but it would not exist without the decades of building a fanbase and community at Pohlman Field first.

Erik and I have never been so excited to go to Beloit in our lives.  I'm pumped to see the new stadium, which looks gorgeous, and the new branding as well.  We may have a very imminent Tour stop in our future.

STANDINGS AND UPCOMING SERIES AS OF 7/22/21:

Brewers 56-41, +6.5; 3 v. White Sox, 3 @ Pirates, 3 @ Braves, 3 v. Pirates

Twins 41-55, -17.0, -13.5 WC; 4 v. Angels, 3 v. Tigers, 3 @ Cardinals, 2 @ Reds

2021 GAMES ATTENDED:

Erik - 0

Peter - 6

Inaugural Tour Molly Trip: Capital Credit Union Park

All photos of Capital Credit Union Park and Green Bay available on Flickr.

This past weekend was one of the more exciting and proud moments for me as a baseball fan - my first baseball roadtrip with my daughter Molly!  I kind of have the same view of baseball with my kids as I do church - we're going to be going regularly whether you like it or not, so you might as well get accustomed to it.  She's 3-1/2, so the attention span is still definitely not there for an entire game (but what adult fan can really say they can sit for 9 innings anyways), but she's old enough that she can watch some of the game and entertain herself in a chair for awhile, and have fun without entirely understanding what's going on, so long as I'm pumping her full of unhealthy food and lemonade.  We arrived mid-afternoon on Friday to the Home2Suites in Green Bay, just a few blocks from the ballpark, and hit up the pool for a good hour before walking to the game just in time for the gates to open before the 6:35 first pitch.

Capital Credit Union Park opened to much fanfare in 2019 as the home to the former Green Bay Bullfrogs, who rebranded as the "Booyah" for the move.  The internet tells me that "booyah" is a chicken stew that is indigenous to the area, and legend has it the name is accredited to someone in Green Bay whose thick Wisconsin accent could not pronounce "bouillon."  They actually sold authentic booyah at the ballpark, and to me it just looked like chicken noodle soup but it seemed to be very popular.  Going even more all-in on the branding, the mascot is a chicken (whom was very popular with Molly), and the ballpark claims to have the world's largest booyah kettle at 2,000 gallons, not to mention a bounce house shaped like a kettle.  

The reason I say the ballpark opened to much fanfare was just the continuous saga of trying to get the Bullfrogs out of horribly deficient Joannes Stadium.  Erik and I visited Joannes on the O.G. Tour in 2007, and to call it a "stadium" is quite laughable.  It was really not much more than watching a ballgame in a slightly beefed-up local park diamond, similar to some of the lower-tier collegiate parks I have been to.  There was nothing wrong with Joannes in their inaugural season of '07, but the league has grown so much both in terms of footprint as well as relevance in the summer collegiate landscape that an upgrade was needed.  For several years, the then Bullfrogs were trying to obtain financing and approvals for a 2500-seat brick ballpark in downtown Green Bay, but that fell through in 2016.  It was at that point that Big Top Baseball stepped in and purchased the team (same owners as Mallards and Kingfish among others) and scrapped the project in favor for the current site in Ashwaubenon, not too far from Lambeau Field, and the rest is history.  

When Big Top Baseball gets involved with a team, you know you are going to get a number of things - great fan experience, a very unique stadium that salvages as much existing materials and buildings as possible, fantastic branding and marketing, and affordability.  The Booyah most certainly check all of those boxes.  Approaching the ballpark from the north, it really looks nothing like a ballpark.  The primary structures are two buildings clad in vertical metal corrugated siding that just look like ordinary warehouse buildings (albeit a bold blue color).  Once you dig a little deeper, it's pretty clear that at least one of the buildings is a repurposed old building.  In fact, a former 17,000 SF concrete warehouse was re-clad and re-purposed into the main service building for the stadium, including a team store and ticket offices below; restrooms, concessions, and locker rooms on the main level; and suites and offices on the 2nd floor.  There is actually no other permanent structure accessible to fans other than this one building; all other concessions and things are in carts and tents.  This unfortunately makes the concourse almost useless other than just walking to your seat, as almost everything a fan would need is within sight of the main gate.  This main gate is adjacent to the main building and has a set of steps inside up to the main level, which opens up on the 3rd base side.  It's here that the weird shape of the stadium is immediately apparent.  CCU Park is primarily built for soccer and that is reflected in both the 100% field turf playing surface and the peculiar dimensions.  It is rectangular shaped in order to fit the other stadium use - sort of like Dolphin Stadium from when the Marlins used to play there, or the Polo Grounds for anybody familiar with baseball history - in that it is short down the lines (very short in the case of right field, less than 300 feet) and with a huge left-center field alley well in excess of 400 feet.  The Booyah make up for the dangerously close right field wall by building a wall that is 20'-7" tall, or in other words, 19 feet and 19 inches tall in homage to the Green Bay Packers' inaugural year (there is no escaping reference to anything Packers no matter where you are in Green Bay).  There is probably the largest media wall/jumbotron I have ever seen at a ballpark that takes up most of the right field wall, and I'm not sure how that is financially possible at this small of a park - perhaps using 80% of it for advertising is the answer.  Another quirk of the ballpark is that it is two levels, but both are very small, so when you couple that with the short porches, it is a very intimate feel.  There are only 7 rows of seats on the field level, and maybe 5 rows in the suite/group area upstairs.  Overall I give this high marks for aesthetics and atmosphere, not necessarily because it is beautiful or particularly rowdy, but because this park is precisely the visual and auditory buffet I have come to expect and crave at Northwoods League ballparks.

The game itself was a 2-0 loss for the cellar-dwelling Booyah to my adopted home/favorite team, the Kenosha Kingfish.  From what I did get to see of the game (again my daughter is 3 years old), it was obviously a pitchers duel, and probably one of the quietest overall offensive games I have seen in this league.  Both starters went 6 innings, with Logan Lee of the Booyah giving up just 2 runs, and Joey Kosowsky of the Kingfish giving up only 2 hits and striking out 8, lowering his ERA to 2.68 as of this game.  A 2-run 4th inning bomb to right by Justin Janas was all the offense K-Hole needed for the victory.  The lone All-Star for the Booyah, Max Wagner, sadly did not even play.  I did manage to see one of the best defensive plays I have ever seen in person, as the Booyah 2nd baseman Chase Estep stopped a grounder bare-handed to start a nifty 4-6-3 double play to end the 2nd inning.

Another nice little bonus of the game was that my friend Phil was in town from South Carolina, who I see very sparingly these days and is probably the biggest baseball nerd I know outside of Erik, so it was a lot of fun to shove our kids into the bounce house together for a few innings and catch up over some ball.  The next day, we had breakfast with Phil's family and got back to Milwaukee around noon.  I am beyond thrilled to pass my love of baseball and ballpark chasing onto my daughter, and very much looking forward to turning this into an annual tradition for as many years that she will indulge me.  There are a number of ballparks in Michigan I still have yet to visit that I already have on my future "Tour Molly" list.

Note for park rankings below: for purposes of all of my "Tour Molly" ballparks visited, I have added a 15th category - kids area.  My ranking for this category will be based on accessibility, proximity to field, ability to keep my child distracted, and cost if applicable.

park rankings and statistics: 

aesthetics - 9 (points for uniqueness, not beauty)

views from park - 4 (can see Lambeau from the entrance)

view to field - 10 (all seats very close)

surrounding area - 2

food variety - 2 (literally 5 things on the menu at only one stand)

nachos - n/a

beer - 7 (some local beers separate from main stand)

vendor price - 9 (hard to find food under $5 these days)

ticket price - 9

atmosphere - 7

walk to park - 5 (close but unexciting)

parking price/proximity - 9 (adjacent lot fo' free)

concourses - 6 (very close to field, but really only 1 of 4 sides is active)

team shop - 7 (very nice store and selection, points deducted for nothing in Molly's size)

kids area - 7 (no charge - bounce houses in shape of booyah kettle)

best food - chicken booyah

most unique stadium feature - field shape (rectangular to fit soccer)

best jumbotron feature - just in generaly having a giant jumbotron

best between-inning feature - bat dog retrieving bats from batters after plate appearance

field dimensions - 338/386/282 (415 to left-center)

starters - Joey Kosowsky (KEN) v. Logan Lee (GB)

opponent - Kenosha Kingfish

time of game - 2:25

attendance - 1946

score - 2-0 L

Brewers score that day - 2-0 L

STANDINGS AND UPCOMING SERIES AS OF 7/12/21:

Brewers 53-39, +4.0; 3 @ Reds, 2 v. Royals

Twins 39-50, -15.0, -11.5 WC; 4 @ Tigers, 4 @ White Sox

2021 GAMES ATTENDED:

Erik - 0

Peter - 6

Franklin Field

All photos of Franklin Field available on Flickr.

A little late getting to this, but my family and I made it back out to Franklin a few weeks ago for this first time "post-pandemic" to catch a Milkmen game at the recently rebranded Franklin Field (formerly Routine Field).  This game holds historical significance for me as my son Elliot's first ever baseball game!  He mostly slept and ate per usual, but I am looking forward to when he is Molly's age and understands a little bit more what is going on and is into the game (or at least into the hot dogs and ice cream).  We had seats about halfway up behind the 3rd base dugout along with my parents for a Saturday night game versus the newly independent Kane County Cougars.

From what I could tell, nothing really had changed since our first visit (nor would I expect anything to have changed since it was less than 2 years ago) other than of course the name change.  After a legal misunderstanding and naming rights issue, the stadium is now sponsored by the City of Franklin itself.  We spent a good amount of time walking around the stadium with the kids and the concessions, beer, and team store were all still as I remembered - lacking in quantity of concessions and number of stands, but a good quality of beer and a great team store and merchandise.  So not much to write about on the stadium front unfortunately.  Even the team itself did not look drastically different, as to my amazement, Adam Brett Walker is still a Milkman.  The outfielder and Milwaukee native is in his 3rd season with the team, and after a couple of solid seasons including an MVP campaign in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, I thought for sure that somebody would have taken a flyer on the 28-year old on a minor league deal.  But alas, as of this post he has an OPS of 1.089 with 18 HR and 47 RBI in just 42 games with the Milkmen, meaning he is on pace for a 40-100 season and could chase a Triple Crown.  He went 1-4 in the game we were at and has gained 25 points in his batting average since then.

The Milkmen defeated the Cougars 6-1 behind a solid pitching performance by Ryan Zimmerman.  He allowed just one unearned run and struck out 11 in 7 innings, on 108 pitches.  Logan Trowbridge homered for the home team, and Nick Santoro tripled in the only run for the Cougars in the 7th.  The Milkmen had 4 batters hitting over .300 at the start of the game on June 19th, and even at .331, Walker is barely in the top 20 in batting.  So whatever pains that MLB is experiencing with the new baseball and historically low batting averages do not seem to be affecting the American Association, which is interesting since they are a MLB Partner League.

Franklin has an exciting championship-winning team in a fun stadium, in an atmosphere that is certainly more conducive to visiting with a young family than the Brewers, so I definitely anticipate returning here several times a year in the coming years.

See original post from 8/26/19 for rankings - have not changed

STANDINGS AND UPCOMING SERIES AS OF 7/6/21:

Brewers 51-35, +6.0; 3 @ Mets, 4 v. Reds

Twins 35-48, -13.5; 3 v. White Sox, 4 v. Tigers

2021 GAMES ATTENDED:

Erik - 0

Peter - 5