Coors Field Renovation

All photos of Coors Field, Denver, Vail, and Basalt available on Flickr.

Our summer of travel continued this past weekend as my wife and I were in Colorado for a wedding.  We flew into Denver on Thursday and decided to spend our first night in town before heading up into the mountains, so Megan was of course not surprised when the first thing I did was check the Rockies schedule.  Sure enough, they were playing a matinee game about 45 minutes after we were scheduled to land.  With no checked bags or kids to worry about on this trip, we were able to hustle into a Lyft and get checked into our hotel downtown, and made it into the park in the top of the 2nd inning.  We bought the cheapest tickets that were available, and remarkably, inflation has not affected the $4 Rockpile bleacher seats in center field.  I checked the blog from my last visit on the Tour in 2007, and the price was indeed the same 15 years ago.  This is a section of bleachers in dead-center above the batter's eye that pays homage to old Mile High Stadium where, for the brief period the Rockies played there before Coors Field opened, you could sit in the furthest section away from home plate for a buck.

We purchased these cheap seats knowing that we would be walking around the park most of the game and had no intention of ever sitting there.  Instead, we entered in the left field gate and made a bee-line straight for the newest section of Coors Field called "The Rooftop."  This was a major remodel completed in time for the 2014 season in which the Rockies essentially blew out most of the seats in the 3rd deck in right field in favor of a massive rooftop space.  The result was converting what were a large glob of seats in a 50,000+ capacity ballpark that were seldom used into the biggest concessions generator in the entire stadium, and at the time it was constructed, it was the first rooftop space and largest deck/patio space on any level in all of professional sports.  Since then some other teams have followed suit, such as the renovation Erik and I visited in Cleveland a few years ago, and a similar area at the new Atlanta park, but because of its sheer size and stunning view to the Rocky Mountains at a mile above sea level, Coors Field's Rooftop remains as the most splendid such area in baseball.  The area is 46,000 square feet in total spread over two open tiers that includes several food stands and bars, both indoor and outdoor spaces, and a connection bridge.  It also ranges widely in scale and intimacy, with some private cabanas on the lower tier, tables and chairs on one end, and also massive open bar and standing areas with drink rails with full view to the field.  Most importantly, this area is open to ALL fans and is something I've always yearned for at AmFam Field.  It does look like you can buy tickets specifically for the Rooftop that are for some reason 4x what we paid for just our bleacher seats, so that is a nice little hack for anybody visiting the park - just buy the cheap seats if you want to go up there.  There are a couple of disadvantages that you could probably expect from such a space - little area for shade, and long crowded concessions lines.  It's an area of the ballpark where you can certainly see the field and know what's going on, but it is social in nature and not the ideal place to actually watch 9 innings of baseball, which is always the appropriate compromise and intent of a space like this in any ballpark.  We made it about 3 innings up there before the 96° sun had baked us sufficiently and made our way back down to the main level with silos of Coors Banquet in hand.

We walked around some more and took in some of the other more minor renovations done to the ballpark since my last visit, which include a massive new mountain-shaped jumbotron as well as a concessions overhaul.  These two upgrades are not uncommon for any ballpark of this age (approaching 30 years now) and certainly keep Coors Field current while also retaining the charm of when it first opened.  We settled in the left field bleachers for a few more innings and then took off a little bit early as the heat and altitude were starting to affect us.  Unfortunately, there are actually very few areas of refuge from the sun at Coors Field aside from standing in the concourse, and that is something we could have really used on this day.  But aside from that minor complaint, Coors Field remains in my top 10 and is a very well-done ballpark.  As for the game, the Rockies won an 8-5 barnburner that dragged to almost 4 hours.  Kyle Freeland and Blake Snell both gave up 5 runs each and were out of the game before the 5th inning.  Former Brewer Jhoulys Chacin held down the fort for 2 scoreless innings as a part of 5 scoreless from the Rockies bullpen.  The only homerun in this notoriously hitter-friendly park was by Padre Trent Grisham (also a former Brewer) who still could not muster to creep his average above the Mendoza line.  $182M man Kris Bryant went 0-4 with an RBI for Colorado.

One of my favorite things about Coors Field is not just the park itself, but it is in one of the coolest and most vibrant neighborhoods you'll find at any ballpark - LoDo, or Lower Downtown.  We met up with some friends we were going to the wedding with after the game for dinner at a delicious taco joint just two blocks from the park.  Every bar and restaurant within a few block radius was packed even for a weekday afternoon game.  We ventured further east and found that as you move further away, the downtown gets a bit sleepier, but we had a great time exploring the city on foot nonetheless, and even stumbled upon a French street festival off of the 16th Street Pedestrian Mall.  We headed out Friday morning from our downtown hotel and drove 3 hours into the mountains up to Basalt, also stopping in Vail along the way, and had a phenomenal time celebrating (congrats Katie and Stokes)!  The wedding was beautiful and it was wonderful to see some old friends, but I'm grateful we got to spend a day in Denver as well, and of course, fit in some ball.

updated park stats and rankings (see original post from 8/26/07):
aesthetics - 8
views from park - 6
view to field - 6
surrounding area - 10
food variety - increases to 7
nachos - 9
beer - increases to 5
vendor price - 5
ticket price - 9 (remarkably, inflation has not affected the $4 Rockpile bleacher seats 15 years later)
atmosphere - 5
walk to park - 9
parking price/proximity - decreases to 8
concourses - 9
team shop - 5

best food - Polidori Sausage stand
most unique stadium feature - "The Rooftop" in right field
best jumbotron feature - n/a
best between-inning feature - tradition of playing of "Hey Baby" by DJ Otzi during 7th inning stretch

field dimensions - 347/415/350
starters - Blake Snell (SD) v. Kyle Freeland (COL)
opponent - San Diego Padres
time of game - 3:42
attendance - 28077
score - 8-5 W
Brewers score that day - 3-2 W

STANDINGS AND UPCOMING SERIES AS OF 7/18/22:

Brewers 50-43, +0.5; 4 v. Rockies, 2 v. Twins, 3 @ Red Sox

Twins 50-44, +2.0; 2 @ Tigers, 2 @ Brewers, 3 @ Padres

2022 GAMES ATTENDED:

Erik - 1

Peter - 14

Wisconsin Brewing Company Park

All photos of Wisconsin Brewing Company Park available on Flickr.

Yesterday, I took the family to see the newest member of the thriving southeastern Wisconsin baseball scene - the Lake Country DockHounds of the independent American Association.  They play in the brand new Wisconsin Brewing Company Park in the Pabst Farms area of Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, which is in the heart of the "Lake Country" region of Waukesha County, hence the team moniker.  It was only about a 25-minute drive from where we live on the west side of Milwaukee, which is actually not that much further than driving down to see their inter-metro rival, the Milwaukee Milkmen.  We got to the park right around first pitch, which was conveniently located within eyesight of I-94, but not so conveniently cost an obscene $5 to park there.

I wrote a little bit about the origins of this team last May when the team was announced if you care to read a bit about the background of the ballpark, but the finished product seats about 3,600 people and from what I could tell driving by occasionally on the freeway, it was certainly a race to get it finished.  My office is actually in Madison, and I can recall driving out there the last week of April and the park looked nowhere near done with about three weeks to go before the home opener.  None of the seats were in, cladding and glazing were not done, the turf was not in yet - it looked unfinished to the degree that I told Megan I was unsure if it was worth going out there this year because the park would probably open unfinished.  However, miraculously the park did open with a full certificate of occupancy on Opening Day, and by all accounts was a success.  The turf rolled out quickly as it is 100% field turf, the seats got screwed in quickly in an array of colors sort of akin to Franklin Field, and the primarily EIFS façade proved to be a great design choice with a time crunch (although aesthetically, debatable at best).  We bought seats in the left field corner GA grass berm area figuring that we would be spending most of the game walking around with the kids, which proved to be true, but it was still a great view for the few innings we did spend there.  The berm area featured a nearby concession stand that was sort of hidden and never busy like the main stand, as well as close proximity to the restrooms, both of which were very smart to put in the vicinity of a seating area that is usually mostly families.

It's natural to compare Wisconsin Brewing Company Park and Franklin Field, so I won't try to hide from that fact.  They both opened within 3 years of each other for two expansion teams in the same league and the same metropolitan area, and are also roughly the same size.  They also both feature 100% field turf and a scattering of colorful seats as I mentioned earlier, and are both built on long undereveloped, challenging sites.  However, once you get into the nuts and bolts of the design, that is where the similarities end.  WBC Park was designed by Jendusa out of nearby Hartland, WI who advertise themselves primarily as a structural engineering firm, and that fact really tells you a lot about the end product.  As you approach the main gate, the first thing you notice is the elegant steel truss archway that holds up the signage at the ballpark's highest point.  You then enter under the exposed floor above, comprised of galvanized, unpainted roof deck spread over an array of beautiful castellated beams.  It is definitely a type of entry that a structural engineer would be proud to show off - simple yet elegant in the detailing and without a need for embellishment.  And even as an architect I can humbly say that it was my favorite part of the park.  After you cast your gaze downward from studying the structure above (when I say "you" I probably just mean me...no other nerd is doing that), the very first thing you see in front of you is not the field, or a food stand, or any sort of structure, but rather a long bar with an old map of Oconomowoc etched onto some translucent resin panels, which is beautiful but actually completely blocks any view to the field.  It's also very much like an engineer to just get right to the point and not dance around the obvious - the first thing most adults do when they get into a ballpark is grab a beer, and at this park it's within 10 feet of your face immediately when you walk in.  In hindsight, I can't say I was surprised that a park sponsored by a brewery would do this, but I did think it would be somewhat attached to the brewery that is actually on site.  Wisconsin Brewing Company features a pilot brewery on site as a part of the ballpark, and I was disappointed that it was not really engaged with the stadium in any way.  I couldn't even find a way in and there from inside the park, nor is there any signage for it on the outside, so it definitely seemed like a missed opportunity.  And that's really a good way to sum up a lot of the park - missed opportunities.  It's a park in a wide open field that didn't take advantage of a wrap-around concourse.  They have a cool little area in right field called Stamas Dentistry Beach that is in no way an actual beach.  They have these cool pontoon boats you can reserve and sit in as an ode to Lake Country that should be front and center and are tucked in the corner.  They have an ample kids area that has absolutely nothing appropriate for any kids under 10.  And the unnecessarily narrow concourse has zero views to the field; instead you see the lovely backside and underside of the grandstand and the bathrooms.  The park definitely has one of the coolest and most original entries I've seen in a park that size, and some individual unique elements, but cohesively as a park it lacks execution and pales in comparison to Franklin Field.  Franklin Field is a great example of how simple doesn't necessarily mean bad or boring if it's done well, and Wisconsin Brewing Company Park is just the opposite - lots of nice individual gestures, but it does not come together well.  I'm not trying to sound snobby or condescending, but the park seems to have a lack of attention to detail that you would only get with the services of an architecture-specific firm.  I'd be interested to go back with just Megan or my folks sometime as I think we'd have a great time at that front bar, but if any of the five people who read this blog have small kids of their own, I would suggest spending your money on the Milkmen.

The game itself saw the visiting Cleburne (TX) Railroaders eke out the DockHounds 5-4 in a feisty battle between the two cellar-dwelling teams of the East Division.  It sure seems like every win that the Railroaders get should almost count double for being two states away from their nearest opponent, whereas the DockHounds have the luxury of playing in a division with 5 teams within a 75-mile radius.  We left in the 7th inning when the game was nodded at 2, and has been the trend lately for me, most of the action happened after we left.  Edwin Arroyo smashed his 3rd homer of the year to give Cleburne a 5-2 lead in the 8th and they held on to win behind Nick Gardewine's 4th save of the season.  I was curious how this ballpark would play being within a stone's throw of the interstate, but it seemed to be a bit of a bandbox as there were 4 total bombs in the game and the ball carried well in the gaps.  Both starters gave up 2 over 6 and were nothing spectacular.  Usually at an indy ball game, I will recognize a "has-been" or two still scrounging around with hopes of being noticed by a big league team, and while I didn't recognize any players, there was one name I couldn't help but notice - Clemens.  Kacy even wears his dad's #22 for the Railroaders and is actually having a nice year, hitting .378 with 20 RBI in 74 at-bats.  He hit 5th in the lineup and manned 1st base on this day, and went 1-3 with an RBI and 2 walks.

Megan and I had an extensive debate on the way home from the game whether or not we liked this park better or Franklin Field.  As I eluded to earlier, certainly from the perspective of bringing our two small children, the Milkmen win hands down.  While it doesn't have a true kids area, it has more ample space for children to run around with a bigger lawn area, and it has the 360° concourse with a view of the field which makes it easier to walk a stroller around.  And there were certainly parts we enjoyed out in Lake Country as well which I've already talked about.  But in the end, we both arrived at the conclusion that we're kind of spoiled in the first place to even be able to have such a debate over which of our Milwaukee area baseball teams PLURAL is a better experience.  With the addition of the DockHounds, there are now 7 ball teams above collegiate level within an hour drive of Milwaukee, and that is something that I try to never take for granted.

park rankings and statistics: 

aesthetics - 5 (the entry salvages this category)

views from park - 4 (I-94)

view to field - 9 (seats all close to field and good views down the lines)

surrounding area - 6 (they don't call it "Lake Country" for nothing)

food variety - 3

nachos - 5

beer - 7 (points deducted for basically only one beer stand)

vendor price - 7

ticket price - 8 ($8 GA)

atmosphere - 6

walk to park - 1

parking price/proximity - 3 (no team of this caliber should ever charge for parking)

concourses - 2 (camped, under grandstand, zero view to field)

team shop - 7

kids area - 3 (not an appropriate age level that a kids area should be)

best food - burger (standard ballpark fare)

most unique stadium feature - entry/bar in entry

best jumbotron feature - "Homerun with RE/MAX" animation

best between-inning feature - kids mini-e-bike race

field dimensions - 325/400/325

starters - Garrett Alexander (CLE) v. Evan Kruczynski (LC)

opponent - Cleburne Railroaders

time of game - 3:09

attendance - 1720

score - 5-4 L

Brewers score that day - 8-6 L

STANDINGS AND UPCOMING SERIES AS OF 7/11/22:

Brewers 48-39, +2.0; 2 @ Twins, 4 @ Giants

Twins 48-40, +4.0; 2 v. Brewers, 4 v. White Sox

2022 GAMES ATTENDED:

Erik - 1

Peter - 13

Tour Molly 2022: Homer Stryker Field

All photos of Kalamazoo and Homer Stryker Field available on Flickr.

My daughter and I sat in bed until almost 9 AM Saturday morning eating breakfast together and watching Looney Tunes, and on most Saturdays, that would have been the highlight of my day.  But alas, Molly and I had a full day planned which started with a dip in the aggressively chlorinated hotel pool.  I'm not a person who likes to complain to staff about anything trivial, but had we not been illegally swimming an hour before the pool opened, I probably would have said something to the front desk.  I could barely open my eyes for a couple of hours after we got out of the pool, but somehow I managed to drive 10 minutes to downtown K-Zoo for our next stop of the day at the Kalamazoo Valley Museum.  This was my favorite part of our trip other than the ballgames.  It was a really fun mash-up of a museum, with a planetarium and history of Kalamazoo on the 1st floor, an interactive/science zone with children's area on the 2nd floor, and a Mummy exhibit and special exhibit space on the 3rd floor.  The special exhibit at this time was a room full of Rube Goldberg machines.  For those who don't know, Goldberg was a famous inventor and cartoonist known for his cartoons that depicted hilariously convoluted machines that resulted in a simple output, like ringing a bell - think of the Breakfast Machine from the Pee-Wee Herman movie.  Molly and I had an absolute blast, and there was enough on the 2nd floor alone to keep us both occupied for hours.  We wedged ourselves free around 1pm for a quick lunch at nearby Bell's Brewery before a long nap at the hotel.  Overall I was much more impressed with Kalamazoo as a city than I was Battle Creek, which is probably unfair to say since we spent a lot more time in "The Zoo" as it is so nicknamed, but Battle Creek definitely seemed a lot more "rough around the edges."  

We headed out to the ballpark around 5:30 for another 6:35 first pitch.  Homer Stryker Field is part of Mayor's Riverfront Park along the Kalamazoo River, just east of downtown, and also next door to a stadium that is home to a lower-tier professional soccer team.  It has a similar history to that of the Battle Creek ballpark, except it is about 30 years older.  It opened in 1963 largely just to host local sporting events and state tournaments for the first 30 years of its life, until it hosted a couple of Frontier League teams in the '90s and '00s, most recently the Kalamazoo Kings.  It was again somewhat dormant until 2014 when the Growlers were created.  The last major renovation took place in 1995 which included adding the press box and bleachers down the lines, but it looked like some of the out-buildings and the party areas in the outfield were somewhat newer as well.

Any fan of the Northwoods League and anybody who's visited what I think is unequivocally the best park and experience on the circuit - the Madison Mallards - will love Homer Stryker Field.  Warner Park is still leaps and bounds above the rest, but Kalamazoo's park had a ton of similarities and a similar feel.  You enter in the outfield corner just as you do at Warner Park, both parks feature a hodge-podge of out buildings rather than one unified structure, the grandstands are set up similarly where the concourse is behind the bleachers, they both have party decks in both corners, they both have a "home plate club" in the main grandstand behind home plate, they both make plenty of use of repurposed or upcycled materials, and they both even face the exact same incorrect direction with the sun setting in the right field corner.  Whereas Battle Creek seemed to be more no-frills, Kalamazoo was all about a full entertainment experience with the zany jumbotron and between-innings extracurriculars that you would expect from any Northwoods League game, again just like the Mallards.  I did not get to go into either of the party areas as these were actually occupied and private unlike Battle Creek, but the Bell's Bear Cave one in particular looked super cool and from what I can tell hosts weddings and events year-round.  If you remember earlier, we went to Bell's Brewery for lunch, so you can probably put together the brewery heritage in Kalamazoo - hence, the play on words with the team name "Growlers."  

This park also sold plush mascot dolls and ice cream in a cup, neither of which Battle Creek had, so I know I speak for Molly when I say this was her favorite of the two parks as well.  Molly also greatly enjoyed the kids area, which in terms of stuff was great - it had a full playground as well as bounce houses, speed pitch, and prize games, but it was actually in Mayors Riverfront Park outside of the stadium, so it had zero interaction or attachment with the park whatsoever, which I obviously didn't like.  It was so detached in fact that we had to sprint into the ballpark in the 7th inning for Molly to use the restroom.  But it's a great thing we got back into the park when we did, because apparently K-Zoo does all kids run the bases in the middle of the game!  Molly got to run from the 1st base line to the 3rd base line during the 7th inning stretch, and even though she got plowed over by some big dumb kid, she loved it and was even given a freeze pop at the end by the staff for her effort.  I thought this was a great idea for those younger kids like my daughter that probably couldn't have made it to the end of the game to run the bases.  We sat primarily high up on the 1st base side away from the sun, but after the kids' base run, we watched another inning from the 3rd base side before we left in the middle of the 8th.

The game was a drubbing by the visiting team, which was just fine with me because that visiting team was our "hometown" Kenosha Kingfish.  The Growlers made a game of it after we left so the final score was a lot closer than the majority of the game.  Kenosha jumped out to an early 6-1 lead over The Zoo with multiple run-scoring hits from Ian Collier, Drake Westcott, and Taylor Darden.  The Kingfish and Growlers traded blows in the 5th and 6th to put the Kingfish up 8-3, and the Growlers tallied a few meaningless runs in the 8th to make the final score 8-6.  The pitching was not nearly as stellar as it was the night before in Battle Creek.  The Zoo's starter Travis Densmore only lasted 2 innings and gave up 3 runs, and he was followed by Carson Byers who was pretty horrible to put it bluntly.  He gave up 5 earned runs which included 3 walks, 3 wild pitches, 2 hit batsmen, and a homer, but for some reason he was allowed to toss 4 frames.  Victor Loa was just good enough to get the win, giving up 3 over 5 with 5 K's.

I would like to end this post and put a stamp on our trip by doing something I don't normally do - give a plug to the wonderful hotel we stayed in, the Clarion Inn off I-94 in Kalamazoo.  Generally some of the most memorable moments of my trips are the sketchy hotels Erik and I choose to voluntarily stay in, and while the Clarion Inn was certainly not glamourous, they were nothing but courteous and really made my experience with Molly that much more enjoyable (aside from the chlorine incident).  They gave me free water when I arrived simply because I asked if they sold water, they were very friendly with myself and my daughter, the guy who was about to clean the pool when we were in there too early left us some towels and said it was ok to stay in, and one lady at the front desk even found an extra hair tie for Molly when we needed one.  So if you ever find yourself in need for affordable and comfortable lodging in Southwest Michigan, look them up!

park rankings and statistics: 

aesthetics - 4

views from park - 2

view to field - 7 (really good down the lines, lots of obstructions behind the plate)

surrounding area - 5 (Mayor's Riverfront Park)

food variety - 2

nachos - n/a

beer - 5

vendor price - 7

ticket price - 7 ($12 bleachers)

atmosphere - 5

walk to park - 2

parking price/proximity - 10 (adjacent lot fo' free)

concourses - 2 (discontinuous, behind grandstand)

team shop - 8

kids area - 5 (points for lots to do, but it is detached from ballpark with no restrooms)

best food - supposedly the "Bear Claw Burger" which I could not find

most unique stadium feature - Bell's Brewery Bear Cave

best jumbotron feature - playing "We Got 'Em" video from capture of Saddam Hussein for final out of inning

best between-inning feature - Molly/all kids run the bases during 7th inning stretch

field dimensions - 300/400/330

starters - Victor Loa (KEN) v. Travis Densmore (KZO)

opponent - Kenosha Kingfish

time of game - 3:27

attendance - 1110

score - 8-6 L

Brewers score that day - 7-4 L