Tour 2023: Peoria Sports Complex

All photos of Papago Park and Peoria Sports Complex available on Flickr.

Friday was our first of two consecutive doubleheaders, as we would be seeing 4 games in 2 different sports in the span of about 30 hours.  But I'm proud of the fact that, even with all of the ballgames we cram into our trips, we always still make time to explore the area we're staying a little bit.  We spent Friday morning hiking around Papago Park, which is a massive municipal park spanning nearly 1500 acres across Phoenix and Tempe.  It is a vast desert landscape with red sandstone as far as the eye can see and various hills and geological formations to climb, including the famous Hole-in-the-Rock landmark which we traversed to the top of.  The park also includes the Phoenix Zoo, the home of Sandra Day O'Connor, and Hunt's Tomb (all of which we somehow missed), but it was a breathtaking couple of hours that made me all too aware just how badly out of shape I am.  We grabbed a quick shower and a lunch after our hike and were off to Peoria for a 2:30pm start.

To put it bluntly, Peoria Sports Complex is the worst ballpark in the Cactus League/AFL in my opinion.  It opened for business in 1994, so in its hey-day it served a good 10-year run as the newest park in the circuit and the first shared team complex in the Valley.  Nearly 30 years later and the park now pales in comparison to all of the other new and renovated complexes that have passed it by.  The exterior is very off-putting with a lot of weird angles, lots of desert-colored EIFS, and not that many vantage points to see inside.  It is ringed by a circular road all the way around, so I thought it was cool you could essentially see the entire exterior of the stadium from your car before parking, but there wasn't much to see whether on foot or in a car.  Once inside, it is the type of park where the concourse is behind the grandstand at grade level and you have to walk through tunnels to emerge to the seating bowl.  This type of setup is always a big clue to when a park was built, and while it can be charming in very old parks, it's very antiquated in a park that is younger than me.  The seating bowl was very forgettable but we did appreciate that it was separated into essentially 3 tiers/levels to provide some shade and a variety of seating options.  We found the seats themselves to be very stiff and uncomfortable and likely would have spent our day at the Sam Adams bar/party deck up on the 3rd tier, but not surprisingly that was closed for an AFL game.  What the park lacked in pizzazz it did make up for in atmosphere, as this was by far the most well attended game of the week with over 600 people.  The Javelinas seem to have a lot of day games in the AFL while most teams play 6:30pm starts, and I suspect the reason is due to the fact that this stadium gets used for so many events year round, including the Vans Warped Tour.  There were ads for many of these of events on the jumbotron between innings.  Peoria seemed to be one of the nicer cities of the Cactus League/AFL circuit with one of the livelier central business districts, so it is clear that they take great pride in the team and stadium here, but exploring the downtown would be the only reason I ever go back to Peoria if and when I make it back out for Spring Training.

Peoria beat the Mesa Solar Sox by a score of 8-7, with Marlins prospect Jacob Berry hitting the game-winning sac fly in the 8th.  I recognized Berry from when I visited Beloit back in June and he had a nice little day with 2 RBI and solid defense at 3rd base.  There were several big name prospects in this game.  Kevin Alcantara, a Cubs top prospect, went 2-5 with a booming triple.  Max Muncy (not that Max Muncy - the A's prospect) went hitless on the day for Mesa as well.  Chase DeLauter and Kyle Manzardo, both Guardians prospects, batted 1-2 for the Javelinas and went a combined 1-8.  We had never of Shane Sasaki, but he was one of the players that Erik and I were the most impressed with.  He was a 3rd round pick of the Rays a few years ago and had 3 hits, 3 RBI, and 2 steals out of the 9-hole for Peoria.  He's only in A-ball in his 4th year in the minors so we'll see if he ends up being another classic diamond in the rough for Tampa Bay.  Nobody really stood out pitching wise as this was a back-and-forth affair all day.  There were only 2 innings in the entire game in which a run was not scored by either team.

Following the Javelinas win, with the sun setting in front of us, we drove even further west to the very outskirts of the Phoenix metro area to Surprise for game #2 of our doubleheader.

park rankings and statistics:

aesthetics - 2
views from park - 5 (can see the mountains from the upper tiers)
view to field - 8 (older park means less safety netting)
surrounding area - 8
food variety - 5 (I am judging all concessions based on average compared to other AFL games - not everything you would find at a Cactus League game was offered)
nachos - 5
beer - 6
vendor price - 8
ticket price - 9
atmosphere - 7
walk to park - 1
parking price/proximity - 10 (adjacent lot for free)
concourses - 2
team shop - 5

kids area - 8 (one of the only parks I saw that actually had one)

best food - hot dog (most parks only sold dogs, nachos, and peanuts)
most unique stadium feature - 3 seating tiers
best jumbotron feature - ads for other Peoria Sports Complex events

best between-inning feature - n/a

field dimensions - 340/410/340

starters - Nick Hull (MES) v. Ross Carver (PEO)
opponent - Mesa Solar Sox
time of game - 2:53
attendance - 635
score - 8-7 W