All photos of Dallas, Arlington, Globe Life Field, and AT&T Stadium available on Flickr.
Someday, there will be a year when we're too old to drink all day and night on these trips, but this was not that year. We got a slow start to our Friday morning shaking off the effects of our Thursday in Frisco, and we eventually headed to downtown Dallas around 11 AM. Dallas was the site of our one non-sports/non-drinking activity of our weekend - visiting the harrowing sites of Dealey Plaza and the JFK Memorial. For those who are not aware, Dallas is the site of President John F. Kennedy's assassination on November 22, 1963. If you've ever heard someone refer to a "grassy knoll" in regards to his murder, that's Dealey Plaza. This is the actual location of the assassination, and while it was originally built to commemorate a Dallas civic leader in the 1940s, it gained notoriety for the shooting and has subsequently become a National Historic Landmark, as has the Texas School Book Depository building across the street from which the shots allegedly rained down from a 6th floor window. This building now houses the Sixth Floor Museum. It was all a very heavy and somber experience and it was amazing to see how it affected visitors there even 59 years later. We also visited the JFK Memorial designed by Philip Johnson a couple of blocks east and had some lunch downtown at a great Mexican place before returning our rental car at DFW. It was super weird returning to the airport before our trip was even over, but we picked up a Lyft and were ready for leg #2 in Arlington.
After checking into our hotel and struggling to exercise in the hotel pool, we made the 1-mile walk to Texas Live! in Arlington. About 30 years ago, really all that was in this part of town was a Six Flags Theme Park and a new Rangers stadium rising out of the ground. Today it is home to another new Rangers stadium right across the street, the new Cowboys stadium built about 10 years ago (more on that later), and an active entertainment area tying it all together, filled with plenty of bars, restaurants, gathering spaces, and a couple of new hotels. It was pretty surreal walking past the old Rangers stadium (now called Choctaw Stadium) that is not even 30 years old and still looks brand new, but I'm glad they're at least putting it to use for soccer and football. We had a couple of drinks at a sports bar and spent a good hour circumnavigating the outside of Globe Life Field. The main entry off of the north plaza is very stunning, with rhythmic bays of glass and a nice articulation of the roof and structure, with enough masonry to let you know it's a ballpark but certainly over-the-top like its predecessor. There is a giant Rangers 'T' inlaid with brick in the plaza, in front of which stands a statue of one of the greatest Rangers and Texan athletes of all time, Nolan Ryan. Around to the west side is an odd open field that I would hope has plans for future development. All that's back there right now is basically a stormwater detention creek and the enormous infrastructure that holds up the roof. One of the main reasons the Rangers wanted a new stadium so quickly after their last one is for refuge from the sweltering Texas heat, and they now have it in the form of a gigantic retractable roof that slides in one single panel over two large tracks on either end, and then overhangs off the side of the stadium, sort of like how Marlins Park and T-Mobile Park work. We completed our walk around the south and east sides and returned back to the main gate. Every side of this stadium is thought out and there doesn't look to be a "back side" to the stadium no matter where you are, but it is a bit odd since there are several entrances that essentially seem to serve nobody as there is nothing on those sides. Again, this might just be a product of development not having caught up to the ballpark yet, but for now I don't understand any reason why anyone other than employees would use any entrance other than the north plaza. On the east side of the stadium you will find the team offices building as well as placards of the various Texas Rangers Hall of Fame members, including Adrian Beltre, Kenny Rogers, Josh Hamilton, and of course Nolan Ryan. There is also a statue commemorating the Rangers clinching the 2010 AL pennant and their first ever trip to the World Series in their 39th year of existence. Overall I enjoyed the exterior design of the stadium. It was straddling the line between a newer modern style while still paying homage to the retro style, and I appreciated that and thought it was appropriate for a Texas ballpark.
Stepping inside from the main gate puts you in left field at the top of the 100 section, and for anyone who has been to US Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, you can't help but immediately feel the similarity. The ball field is completely open there in front of you, with a multi-story glass wall right behind you pouring in light (hopefully the glass here is a bit more bird-friendly than in Minnesota). And of course another similarity that slaps you right in the face is the MASSIVE roof. Globe Life Field is over 6 stadium levels and 278 feet tall to the underside of the roof and gives it a scale I've only seen at one other park in the country - not surprisingly, Houston. Stadiums with roofs inherently need more height which is understandable, and the Rangers really did as best they could by making it still feel open with all of the glass and viewing platforms, but you just can't get past how dark and unwelcoming a roof makes a park feel. I did like how they split up a lot of the levels into smaller decks to combat some of the viewing angle problems that stadiums like American Family Field have. The one exception to this is the ungodly tall section we sat in right field for the Friday night game, which I counted was 70 steps from the concourse down to our 4th row seat with no breaks in the steps. I suspect this section was in homage to a similar section they had at their last stadium, but I only got out of my seat once the entire game because I thought I was going to have a heartattack by the time I got back to the top. Before heading to our seats, we walked pretty much every level and square inch of the ballpark, with the exception of the lowest level that we would be at on Saturday. There were a lot of concession options and I liked that the were spread out in a variety of stands and not just lined up on a wall, but there did seem to be a lot of repeats of the same stands. There are great views to the field and lots of areas of refuge throughout all of the concourses, and also a lot of bars. The bars do face inward with their backs to the field which is the same faux pas that the Brewers did which I do not understand for the life of me. They are missed opportunities for people to be able to sit at a bar while watching the game and ultimately spend more money, and there was plenty of width in the concourse to make this change. One of the things I kept coming back to on our walk around the stadium was the sheer number of levels and how they all interacted with each other, and that was probably my favorite thing about the interior. The concourses were all very dynamic and you could almost always see both the field and a portion of another level, no two levels were the same, and most of the levels made a complete loop around the stadium. As you ascend higher in the stadium, you get more of a full sense of the height of the stadium, as well as a birds-eye view down to all of the various suite levels. I understand suites are a necessary evil in ballparks to make money, but the Rangers did them very tastefully and very open to the stadium, and even feature some cool field level suites that are sunken below the field for a unique experience you'll find at no other ballpark. The dugouts are even pushed further down the lines than normal to allow a greater number of people to be closer to the field. On the 5th level you get to walk through the brick archways that help support the roof and form the north entrance. There are some very unique seats here that resemble the Crawford Boxes in Houston, as well as access to a platform that strictly serves as a place to view the stadium from its highest point - very cool but also terrifying. There are also some balconies out here that jut over the north plaza that can be accessed by all fans, sort of the like the high balconies at Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee. Lastly, the uppermost 6th floor has the press box as well as Karbach Brewing, which has a two-story space high in the left field corner. We had a beer up here, watched some BP, and got our picture taken before beginning our descent back to our seats for gametime. On our way down, we got to see the roof open. We were confused why the Rangers chose to open the roof on a 90° degree day, but it was actually quite comfortable with the breeze and probably not considered that hot for Arlington. It made me wish the Brewers opened the roof more than they do.Friday night's game was a 7:05 first pitch and the start of a 3-game series with the Blue Jays, featuring Ross Stripling vs. Dane Dunning starting on the mound. The Jays got on the board right away with an RBI groundout by Bo Bichette in the 1st, followed by a 2-run bomb by Bichette in the 3rd. The Rangers began clawing their way back with a homerun in the bottom half of the 3rd by Josh Jung in his first Major League at-bat. Jung is the Rangers top overall prospect and was their 1st round pick back in 2019 and the stadium was electric every time he came up to the plate. Texas even tied it up with a Corey Seager double in the 8th, and Erik and I both looked at each other not wanting to admit we were too tired and hungover to be able to survive extra racks at this game. But mercifully, Toronto scored in the top half of the 9th and hung on for the 4-3 victory.
That's probably it for me on the ballgame front for this year, unless by some miracle the Brewers make it to the second round of the playoffs. We're already kicking an idea around for next summer, so stay tuned!
park rankings and statistics:
views from park - 1 (can really only see out from a couple balconies)
view to field - 9 (all seats are close and great views even from up high)
beer - 5 (hard to answer this category as we only drank one night and it was "free")
parking price/proximity - 6 (mile walk from hotel for free, there is also a shuttle)
team shop - 7 (points deducted for no 50th Anniversary merch)
kids area - 2 (on uppermost floor and pretty sad)
most unique stadium feature - field level suites / Lexus Club
best jumbotron feature - retro Texas Rangers animations
best between-inning feature - Dot Race making its way from old stadium, with addition of dots cheating to win
field dimensions - 329/407/326
starters - Ross Stripling (TOR) v. Dane Dunning (TEX); Kevin Gausman v. Kohei Arihara
opponent - Toronto Blue Jays
time of game - 2:49; 3:37
attendance - 21329; 28340
score - 4-3 L; 11-7 L
Brewers score that day - 8-2 L; 5-1 W
touch with baseball when his childhood heroes Robin Yount, Paul Molitor, and Jim Gantner retired but the Great Home Run Chase of 1998 reignited his passion. As a student at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Erik became involved with the campus chapter of Habitat for Humanity. With this group Erik traveled to Portland, OR and Baltimore, MD to work on construction projects and help the group raise $25,000 to partially sponsor a house in Milwaukee. Also at UWM, Erik met Peter Nagel. The two attended their first Brewers game together during Opening Weekend 2003. Despite their failure to ignite the coals at their first tailgate, the two had a blast and were soon making weekly trips to the ballpark. Erik has gone on to several colleges and changed careers several times, and has moved all the way out to New Hampshire, but has always stayed true to his baseball roots by holding part-time stadium usher jobs. To this day he looks back fondly on his incredible cross-country journey.