Tour 2023: Surprise Stadium

All photos of Surprise Stadium available on Flickr.

Erik and I made the joke on the way out to Surprise that the city must have gotten its name from the town's founder saying "Surprise, there's more Phoenix!"  The story of Surprise is not unlike any other Phoenix suburb - it started as little more than a tiny agricultural/industrial village on the outskirts, saw modest grown up until the turn of the century, and has now ballooned to a city of nearly 150,000 people.  Surprise Stadium is right at the center of that growth, opening in late 2002 and seating over 10,000 people.  The stadium has been the Spring Training home of the Kansas City Royals and Texas Rangers since its inception, and followed only a couple of years later with the first incarnation of the Surprise AFL team, now known as the Saguaros.  We arrived at about 6:00pm for a 6:30 first pitch and purchased our customary $12 GA tickets as we have been at every other AFL game.

Out of all the parks I was visiting for the first time on this trip, Surprise was my favorite one.  Perhaps I was unfairly swayed by the amazing sunset as we arrived, or the calm cool breeze, but it was a very welcoming ballpark to arrive to.  It has a very enchanting courtyard with a lone mature tree at its center, with the entry point arranged in a concave shape around the courtyard set between two towers to draw you in.  There is a ring of baseball-shaped bollards around the street side of the courtyard to complete the circle, and it all makes for one of the better thought out entry sequences in the Cactus League/AFL.  When we made our way through the gate, I immediately noticed that we were entering through the outfield which is something I normally detest, but then I noticed there is a nearly identical entry sequence in the left field corner.  This gives the park a beautiful symmetry which gives the outfield entries a purpose and design intent.  We were greeted by a bosque of the Saguaros' namesake plants, and made our way down the right field line towards home plate.  On the street side of the concourse is a sort of pavilion for a lack of a better term that I'm guessing holds team offices, and it reminded me a lot of the center field pavilion at the old Rangers Ballpark in Arlington.  Again, this same type of pavilion exists in the opposite corner to reinforce the symmetry, with the RF pavilion being the Rangers side and LF being the Royals side.  As you move from the outfield toward the infield, you walk under the suite level above the concourse, and I can only imagine that the balconies overhanging the suites coupled with an array of open concession stands would make this feel like a lively pedestrian street at a crowded Spring Training game.  On this night, it just served to make me feel snug and welcomed, just as many of the details at the park do.  The relatively short lower bowl of only 15-20 rows adds to that snugness as well.  You feel like the upper deck is right on top of you when you're sitting in the lower bowl, which is a pretty cool feeling at a park of this size.  This is the only park I ate an actual meal at this week, and I had a pretty sorry excuse of a "Manager's Special" which consisted of two tiny chicken strips served on a mound of barely-cooked tater tots that have probably been sitting in the back of a freezer since March.  A 24-oz Coors Banquet quickly remedied that, and we settled into the 3rd row for the night's action.

Stadium aside, this was the ballgame I was looking forward to the most of the week as the Surprise team features Brewers prospects on it.  Three different Brewers strapped 'em on in this game in the 5-2 victory over the visiting Salt River Rafters.  Wes Clarke was actually drafted twice by the Crew and signed as a 10th round pick in 2021.  He got the start at first base and hit cleanup, and he went 1-3 with a walk.  As of that game, he was tied for the AFL lead with 5 homeruns, but he has since been surpassed.  This is on top of the 26 bombs he notched in Biloxi this year, so hopefully he can hone that power threat for the big league club someday.  Adam Seminaris and Justin Yeager both tossed a scoreless inning apiece from the mound as well.  Both of them were picked up in trades this past offseason - Seminaris in the Hunter Renfroe deal, and Yeager in the William Contreras deal.  Unfortunately Brewers shortstop prospect and 2022 1st round pick Eric Brown Jr. did not play in this game, but he has been turning a lot of heads in the Fall League by all accounts.  Trent Palmer of the Blue Jays organization got the start for Surprise and was the only pitcher we saw all week go more than 3 innings.  He gave up 2 runs over 3.2, but that was still good enough as Surprise put up a 3-spot in the 1st against the Rafters' Dylan Smith (Tigers).  We joked that there were zero Reds or Rockies prospects that got in the game for Surprise or Salt River, so I'm glad we are not fans of those particular teams.

Following the brisk game, we had a drive of over an hour back to Tempe, and we unsuccessfully tried to pretend we were young again at a bar on ASU campus before calling it a night.

park rankings and statistics:

aesthetics - 8
views from park - 2
view to field - 9 (all seats very close)
surrounding area - 1 (single family homes and vacant land)
food variety - 6
nachos - 5
beer - 7
vendor price - 8
ticket price - 9
atmosphere - 6
walk to park - 5
parking price/proximity - 10 (adjacent lot for free)
concourses - 8
team shop - 5

kids area - n/a

best food - anything but the "Manager's Special"
most unique stadium feature - entry/outfield pavilions
best jumbotron feature - n/a

best between-inning feature - n/a

field dimensions - 350/400/350

starters - Dylan Smith (SR) v. Trent Palmer (SUR)
opponent - Salt River Rafters
time of game - 2:24
attendance - 385
score - 5-2 W