ABC Supply Stadium

All photos of ABC Supply Stadium available on Flickr.

I finally made it down to the much-needed and much-anticipated new Beloit ballpark yesterday.  Most people who move out of Wisconsin would probably not have "one last trip to Beloit" on their pre-move checklist, but as this blog has long established, I am not most people.  I met my friend Nate at a Park & Ride in Waukesha and we made the 50-minute drive together for the game.  Going to games with Nate is like going to games with my 28-year-old self, as he still gets to a ton of ballgames and ballparks a year and is an avid bobblehead collector.  We (he) needed to be in line prior to gates opening at 5:35 in order to make sure we received the Poopsie Mascot bobblehead.  While Nate talked about bobbleheads with all the other nerds in line, I meandered down Shirland Ave to snap some photos of the stadium.  The stadium site is very close to the state line of Wisconsin and Illinois - so close in fact that I actually had to cross to the other side of the road to Illinois to get some good exterior pictures.  The freeway exit to the park is even an Illinois exit.  So you can imagine the healthy mix of fans for a game in which Beloit played the South Bend Cubs.  We walked in right when the gates opened to receive our bobblehead vouchers and complimentary "paletas" (popsicles) for Copa Night.

I got the impression pretty immediately when we arrived at the ballpark that Beloit has fully embraced two strategies when designing this park - 1) build it and they will come, and 2) anything is better than Pohlman Field.  Beloit is clearly trying to make this ballpark the center of a downtown revitalization, as is the siren song of many urban ballparks.  It's a commendable effort for a city that was ravaged by the last two recessions, but I'm also just not sure it is realistic it is for one of the smallest markets in minor league baseball.  The daunting brick exterior that hugs the street, the connector to the Rock River riverwalk, and the adjacency to downtown and the bus depot all suggest that Beloit is really trying to make this park part of a destination.  They even allow fans the opportunity to rent suites and use the park on non-gamedays.  It's a very similar strategy to what Fort Wayne employed when they opened Parkview Field in 2009.  By all indications it has been an unmitigated success in Fort Wayne, but again that is a metro area that is about 10x the size of the Beloit-Janesville area.  So time will tell on ABC Supply Stadium, but what Beloit does have going for it - something it has always had in spades - is overwhelming community support.  Two major benefactors largely funded the construction of the new ballpark - Quint Studer the new owner, and Diane Hendricks the billionaire owner of ABC Supply - and committed to Beloit keeping a team in the area for the foreseeable future, at a time when their team was extremely close to contraction a few years ago when the minor leagues were reconfigured.  Over 1,400 fans were in attendance at a very steamy and smoky game on a Thursday night, which is more fans than you'd see in a typical week at Pohlman Field.  

Speaking of Pohlman Field, as I eluded to earlier, the bar that was set for the design of this ballpark seemed to be just "hey, it's better than nothing."  I'm not trying to suggest that it's an unattractive stadium - on the contrary it's one of the more aesthetically beautiful ones in the Midwest League - but there seem to just be a lot of things in execution that could have been better.  But every time I would notice any small nuance or think "oh this could have been done better," my mind always went back to "well, it's much better than what they had."  I think with a little more thought and effort this could have been a phenomenal top-5 minor league park and it certainly has the nuts and bolts to get there someday.  For instance it has a beautiful facade on Shirland Avenue that almost nobody goes in or will even see outside of their car.  It reminded me a little bit of the ballpark in Montgomery where it was designed to hold an urban edge and create an urban fabric, and not look necessarily like a ballpark.  This facade on what is the south side, or 1st base side, of the ballpark features a ticket window, a private suite entry, and what looks like a beautiful colonnade but upon closer inspection is not any sort of area you can walk under.  It's just columns and archways for their own sake that surround a bunch of window bays that you can't even see into as they are opaque glass.  I completely get why they would want a striking exterior on this road, but it makes it very disappointing and misleading when you can't even use it.  To bring up Parkview Field again, it is a very similar dynamic to Fort Wayne, where they have this wonderful street edge that is very architecturally interesting and what looks like it should be the main entry, but most if not all people enter in an unceremonious gate in the right field corner.  One of my biggest pet peeves in any ballpark is a main facade that does not serve as the main entry, and unfortunately that is not a problem unique to Beloit.  As an architect this just drives me crazy.  If you traverse even further down the road and turn to walk down the riverwalk along the west (3rd base) side, the building here is just masonry block.  There was no attempt made to create anything accessible or interesting on that side.  So again - beautiful aesthetically, but just not executed great in terms of entry and activation along the street front.  Once inside, there are some similar issues with design choices that could have been done a bit better.  The concourse is very discontinuous, which is partially due to the constraints and elevation changes on the site, but it makes getting from the main concourse to the outfield a little tricky with no real signs telling you where to go.  This discontinuity also means that there is no real integration with the river that is a stone's throw from the 3rd base line.  I kind of get why since it is a pretty stagnant and unattractive river, but still to just hide it behind a tall plinth and a cheap railing was not super thought out.  Another pet peeve of mine at any ballpark is when it is directly adjacent to water and does not celebrate that or integrate itself in any way.  There could have been a nice sititng/viewing area there at the very least.  The last major thing I thought was executed poorly was the concourse is almost completely uncovered.  There is this huge, intricate 2-story brick structure wrapping the concourse, which does provide some shade just because of how tall it is, but if there were canopies or covered sections that were attached to this building, it really would have reinforced that storefront feel on the interior of the stadium and naturally created some social areas to congregate near all of the concession stands.  The only real place to tuck away and cool off or escape a rain storm is the team shop right now, which plenty of people were taking advantage of on this hot night.

Even if you spent the entire game in said team shop, just hearing the crack of the bat and watching the trajectory of almost every ball in the air would tell you how warm it was on this night.  South Bend defeated Beloit 6-0 behind a lot of loud contact and an onslaught of the Sky Carp's starter, Zach King.  Almost every ball put in play off of him was loud and deep (when he wasn't hitting batters).  King gave up 5 of the 6 runs and didn't make it out of the 3rd inning.  The bullpen gave a valiant effort, giving up only 1 additional run over 6.1 innings, but the Sky Carp hitters could not get anything going off of 2022 1st round pick Cade Horton.  He was masterful over 5.2 innings, giving up only 1 hit and touching up to 97 on the radar.  I was most impressed with Kevin Alcantara of the Cubs.  He only had one hit on the evening, but it was a long opposite field triple, and he also walked twice.  He had a great eye at the plate and had a nice easy swing out of the cleanup spot.

I've spent a large portion of this post shitting on this ballpark and Beloit in general, but I do want to emphasize that this is a DRASTIC improvement over Pohlman Field, and as you'll see from my rankings below, it is a very nice ballpark that the fans deserve and should be proud of.  The brick aesthetic makes the park feel lived-in but not kitschy, which is hard to pull off.  I also really appreciated that two areas that are typically afterthoughts in ballparks - the lawn seating and the kids area - were given very purposeful placement.  I'm always going to find things to nitpick in every ballpark I go to, but it truly is a pleasant place to watch a ballgame and it's exciting to see downtown Beloit making an effort.

park rankings and statistics:

aesthetics - 9
views from park - 5 (Beloit water tower)
view to field - 5 (lots of netting and obstructions)
surrounding area - 6 (downtown Beloit)
food variety - 7
nachos - 8
beer - 8
vendor price - 8
ticket price - 2 (probably the most expensive minor league tickets I've ever purchased)
atmosphere - 7
walk to park - 5
parking price/proximity - 7 (adjacent lot for free but the lots are very piecemeal)
concourses - 7 (would be a 9 or 10 if they were covered)
team shop - 8 (would be a 10 if they had Snappers retro gear)

kids area - 7

best food - Latin food stand
most unique stadium feature - main facade
best jumbotron feature - when they showed the final score featuring the wrong teams

best between-inning feature - bunch of kids chase a guy in a ketchup costume

field dimensions - 345/400/325

starters - Cade Horton (SB) v. Zach King (BEL)
opponent - South Bend Cubs
time of game - 2:35
attendance - 1434
score - 6-0 L
Brewers score that day - 3-2 W

STANDINGS AND UPCOMING SERIES AS OF 6/30/23:

Brewers 43-38, --; 3 @ Pirates, 4 v. Cubs, 3 v. Reds

Twins 40-42, --; 3 @ Orioles, 3 v. Royals, 3 v. Orioles

2023 GAMES ATTENDED:

Erik - 1

Peter - 11