Tour Molly 2025: Newman Outdoor Field

All photos of Fargo, Moorhead, and Newman Outdoor Field available on Flickr.

The 2025 installment of Tour Molly took us to the 4th different state of our travels in 5 years: North Dakota.  In doing so, we logged Molly's 23rd ballpark visited and the 35th state I've seen a ballgame in.  More specifically, we were in Fargo, and it was about a 2 1/2 hour drive northwest from Cold Spring.  It's a very odd feeling driving that direction on I-94, almost like you're driving off the face of the earth into the great unknown.  Maybe it's because it's the furthest west I've ever driven on this particular interstate, or maybe it's because the Great Plains is so vast and desolate, or both.  But even a state that has fewer people than Milwaukee County has breweries, and we started our weekend at one of North Dakota's best - Drekker Brewing Company.  The brewery has become so big and popular that they opened an adjacent food & entertainment wonderland called "Brewhalla" a couple years ago, and that's where I took Molly for lunch.  This eclectic venue has a food hall, bar serving of course Drekker beer, and a market on the first floor; seating, pinball, some event spaces, and another bar on the 2nd floor; and a hotel on the 3rd and 4th floors, with a dramatic atrium piercing the industrial building all the way down from the roof to create a rectangular donut-shaped building.  This was probably my favorite non-baseball place we went the entire weekend and we spent a good hour exploring here.  Molly got to try pinball for the first time, and I got to pick up some beer to bring home, so it was a win-win.  I feel like every state and major city has that one brewery where your loved ones make you bring beer home if you're visiting out of town, and Drekker is definitely that place in Fargo, as evidenced by the haul my sister-in-law requested.  After Brewhalla, Molly burned off some energy at the local trampoline park and in the hotel pool before we ended the day at Space Aliens for dinner, which is a small chain restaurant featuring a retro space theme, arcade, and for some reason barbecue.  Molly and I have now been to 2 of its 3 locations, so we have no choice but to go to Bismarck on a future daddy-daughter trip to complete the tour.

Just as my trips with Erik have slowly become formulaic over time, so too have my trips with Molly.  There are a few tried-and-true activities and must-do's on our trips, and we hit a couple of those on Friday in the brewery and the pool.  Another must is a hotel with continental breakfast.  I'm pretty sure our vacations could just consist of driving 3 minutes to the local Cold Spring hotel to swim and eat breakfast in bed all day, and that would more than satiate my daughter (not surprisingly at all, Erik has the same travel priorities as a 7-year old).  Molly was mesmerized by this pancake conveyor belt contraption at our hotel that looked like it was from the 1950s and they were clearly cobbling together with eBay parts.  Those pancakes and a good morning swim would be the foundation of an extremely busy day we had planned before the 6pm ballgame.  We hit the West Acres Mall, Red River Zoo, Swing Barrel Brewing in Moorhead, and the Fargo Air Museum all in the span of about 6 hours.  Molly was visibly tired by midday, but she was a trooper and we had a blast at every stop, with the exception of the Air Museum which was kind of a dud.  To anybody considering a trip to Fargo, unless you were in the military or are an aviation buff, don't waste the money.  We were having so much fun that I totally forgot about the Roger Maris Museum in town, but I wouldn't have changed a thing that we did.  It was nice to have a bunch of activities that didn't take more than an hour and were able to hold a child's attention.  The zoo in particular was great because it was so small with so many winding paths that it really kept Molly engaged and not complaining about walking like kids that age usually do.  

Our last stop before the ballgame was purposely the Air Museum because it was just down the street from the ballpark, and by the time we got there around 4:45, there were already lines around the block for people trying to snag one of the giveaway jerseys to the first 1,000 fans.  I've never been one to refuse anything "free," but by the looks of the lines I was more concerned about just getting a ticket than the jersey.  We paid $3 to park across the street from the right field gate and hustled all the way to the main entrance to thankfully snag two GA seats for $11 apiece.  I then made poor Molly walk all the way back to the much shorter right field line, but she kept herself occupied with her newly acquired binoculars from the zoo.  We did end up getting the giveaway jerseys, and Molly donned her men's XL just long enough for a funny picture before shedding it.  The kids area was conveniently right inside the RF gate, and doubly convenient right next to the visiting bullpen, so we killed time here for a bit before grabbing some food and settling into the bleachers.

Newman Outdoor Field has hosted the Fargo-Moorhead RedHawks of the independent American Association for their entire 30-year existence, and also hosts the North Dakota State Bison D-1 ball team.  The exterior of this stadium shares a look that several other minor/indy parks of this era seem to share as well (Joliet, Schaumburg, Durham, and Akron to name a few), in that it has a massive front entrance with a grand stair to ascend to the main level.  The imposing masonry walls and entrance are definitely what stick out about this park, and is a style for this size of ballpark that you don't often see anymore in newer parks.  The late '90s/early '00s were all about the retro craze with elegant brick and stone work, designed to look timeless before a game was even played there, whereas two-deck parks today tend to be much more open and inward focused.  Fargo's generation of ballpark - neither old nor new - should age pretty well, and it was a treat to be at a place that had an appealing and memorable exterior.  I think the fact that this park also serves NDSU and is literally on their campus also helps explain and justify the aesthetic choice.  The brick and stone colors seem to match nearby buildings, as collegiate architecture often does, and the grand sets of stairs scream old campus building.  The brick archways that were meant to look like infilled windows were a very nice touch and helped ground the tall walls and give them some human scale. I also loved the fountains and mature trees surrounding the building that really softened the hard edges.  What I didn't like about the exterior design was more from a practicality side, in that you have to walk up the stairs to buy a ticket, and then descend to wait in line, then re-ascend the stairs to gain entry.  Seems like they could have a ticket window at ground level to help alleviate that awkward issue and still allow you to have your grand entry stair.  The gate we entered in right field was at grade, and the stairs were on the inside, so that was kind of a cool way to enter the stadium.  It creates kind of a build-up to the panorama of the field once you get to the top - Beloit is a recent example that comes to mind that utilizes this technique.  Once you're on concourse level, it's not unlike any other modern concourse with an open view to the field.  It was a bit cramped, but that could have just been from the near sellout.  This park does not have outfield access, which was not uncommon for parks this old at this level, but is always a big letdown.  My favorite part of the interior was the press/club level, done in a simple metal panel.  Nothing fancy about this material - you might even say it's cheap - but when contrasted with the massive masonry exterior, I liked how it softened the view inside.  Doing the inside in brick as well would have been way too intimidating and unnecessary.  Our seats were in a lone section of GA bleachers in right field, but otherwise your run-of-the-mill 20 rows of seats from roughly dugout to dugout.  The football Fargodome and a practice facility can be seen beyond the outfield wall, which is packed to the gills with advertising as it should be.  What Newman Outdoor Field lacks in originality on the inside, it more than makes up for on the outside, and the two aspects work well in concert together, especially when coupled with the on-campus site.  Overall this was a very pleasant stadium, and one of the better ones in the AA.  I've now been to 9 of the 12 parks in this league and have my sights set on a trip to Winnipeg sometime in the next few years.

Molly got her second wind after scarfing down a bag of cotton candy and getting her picture taken with Hawkeye, but the energy was short-lived, and we only made it through 6 innings.  Fargo-Moorhead was winning 3-2 when we left, and the box score tells me that they held on for a 5-2 victory.  The visiting DockHounds started off with a bang by the first two batters parking the first two pitches of the game beyond the left field wall for no-doubt homers.  Kolby Kiser would settle down and those would be the only runs he allowed the rest of the way, and he actually earned the win.  Dillon Thomas and Alex Olund homered for the home team over the very short fences down the lines.  No names jumped out at me on either team as an "oh yeah I remember him, he's still playing ball?"  Although the starting pitcher for Lake Country is named Brett Conine, and he's only a year older than Griffin Conine, so I wouldn't be surprised if he's part of the MLB Conine family.

I think you can guess the two things we did at the hotel before we left to head back home Sunday morning.  It was another phenomenal trip, and I'm so glad that Molly is still as excited as I am to go on these adventures with me, and that she even indulges me with a little baseball.  Sioux Falls has still been my favorite city we've visited so far, but we always have a blast no matter where we are.  I'm already scouring the schedules to see what the next town ball game is we can go to together, and I'm already looking forward to Tour Molly 2026.

park rankings and statistics:

aesthetics - 8
views from park - 5 (Fargodome)
view to field - 8
surrounding area - 5 (NDSU)
food variety - 4
nachos - 7 (bonus points for nacho helmet)
beer - 10 (they sell Drekker, Hamms, and 2/$6 Pabst Light...if that doesn't get you a 10 I don't know what does)
vendor price - 9 (don't see $3 dogs that much anymore)
ticket price - 9
atmosphere - 7
walk to park - 5 (pretty walk around the building)
parking price/proximity - 9 ($3 across the street, easy in/out)
concourses - 6 (a bit cramped, points deducted for no outfield access)
team shop - 7

kids area - 8 (bullpen adjacent...would be a 10 if there was a beer stand nearby)

best food - tacos
most unique stadium feature - main entry/exterior
best jumbotron feature - ads for Fargo Blues Festival

best between-inning feature - giant inflatable bowling

field dimensions - 318/408/314

starters - Brett Conine (LC) v. Kolby Kiser (FM)
opponent - Lake Country DockHounds
time of game - 2:22
attendance - 3875
score - 5-2 W

Brewers score that day - 8-5 L

STANDINGS AND UPCOMING SERIES AS OF 6/16/25:

Brewers 39-34, -5.5; 3 @ Cubs, 3 @ Twins, 3 v. Pirates, 3 v. Rockies

Twins 36-35, -9.0; 3 @ Reds, 3 v. Brewers, 4 v. Mariners, 3 @ Tigers
Athletics 29-44, -13.0; 4 v. Astros, 3 v. Guardians, 3 @ Tigers, 3 @ Yankees

2025 GAMES ATTENDED:

Erik - 6
Peter - 15

Tour 2025: Oracle Park

All photos of San Francisco, Golden Gate Bridge, and Oracle Park available on Flickr.

The final stop of our trip was the day I was the most excited about - Oracle Park in San Francisco!  I was pumped for a few reasons: 1) we were getting out of the 90° heat, 2) this was my first time back to SF since the original Tour in 2007, 3) we had amazing seats in Levi's Landing, 4) we had an amazing hotel, and 5) it was an afternoon game, so we'd in theory have a free evening to explore, which we rarely do - more on that later.  We were on the road before 9am and it was about a 90 minute drive west through the Diablo Mountain Range.  These certainly were not tall mountains, but when juxtaposed with the flat valleys near sea level on either side, it was a stark contrast.  I'm no geologist, but I assume the mountains are part of what keep the valley hot and the Bay Area cool, because the temperature dropped about 15 degrees as we passed through them on I-580.  The drive through Oakland over the Bay Bridge was breathtaking, and it was hard to concentrate on the road as we descended into a foggy San Francisco.  We dropped off the car at our hotel in the SoMa (South of Market) neighborhood and it was about a 3/4 mile walk southeast to the ballpark.

It's hard to believe that Oracle Park is already celebrating its 25th anniversary this year.  It has this interesting duality to it where it still feels like a completely modern ballpark, but at the same time, it feels like it was meant for its site and has been there forever.  As a 42-year old, I barely even remember a time when the Giants played anywhere else.  It has a real sense of permanence and place to it and has a seamless fabric with the surrounding area.  There are many urban ballparks that are retro style just for their own sake, but the sense of scale and texture and rhythm of the masonry at Oracle Park ties into the street front very well.  We circumnavigated the stadium before gates opened and began our walk heading east from Willie Mays Plaza, and it almost felt like we were walking around Fenway Park or Wrigley Field, in the sense that this was truly a ballpark that was an integral part of a neighborhood, and not just randomly plopped somewhere downtown.  Part of Oracle Park's mystique and perfect fit with its site is of course derived from the fact that it is surrounded by water on two of its four sides.  This park is right up there with Pittsburgh and Seattle as one of the most beautiful sites in all of MLB.  McCovey Cove is on its southern border and empties into San Francisco Bay on its eastern edge.  Turning south from King Street onto 2nd street, we passed rows and rows of boat docks, a yacht club, and a seal statue commemorating the old San Francisco Seals baseball team.  Even on this side, which I would consider the "back" of the stadium if you can even call it that, there was the same attention to detail paid to security gates and loading docks as there was at every public facing façade.  Our walk continued west on a promenade running along the cove, and we then crossed over the Lefty O' Doul Bridge, which had a massive concrete counterweight hanging over the street and we had a fun time speculating how the hell this bridge actually worked.  The bridge takes you to the other side of the cove and features a statue bearing the cove's likeness, Willie McCovey.  This statue is within China Basin Park, which is a spunky little park that hosts gameday events, including a Pride Day celebration on this day.  We watched some performances for a little while before making our way back to the O'Doul Gate to get in as soon as gates opened at 11:05.

We barely got inside and my immediate thought was that I had no idea why I ever had this ballpark ranked so low.  I think I had this at 8 or 9 in my rankings prior to this visit, and I pushed it all the way up to #2 right behind PNC Park.  When Erik and I were last here 18 years ago, we were so focused and excited to watch Barry Bonds potentially break the homerun record that I don't think we allowed ourselves the time or attention to truly appreciate this park.  We also had upper deck seats back then, which offer a really nice view of the bay, but are nowhere near the experience as the main level is at this park.  The designers of this park could have just phoned it in and let the waterfront view do the talking, but all of the unique corners of this building and attention to detail really make it sing.  One of my favorite parts of the building was the concourses were designed to feel like a street.  The concession stands had a "storefront" look to them, the gritty concrete framework was accented with brick pillars, and I loved the touch of giving the concourses jogs and nooks to allow for places of aspect and refuge and to visually break up the long aisle, just like every great street does.  Every square inch of the concourse had purpose and really made it feel "lived in," just like the exterior does.  This park does an excellent job of feeling authentically retro yet not kitschy, and that is really, really hard to pull off.  

The outfield has an open-air concessions plaza with picnic tables that I definitely do not remember from last time (sort of like the area behind home plate at Warner Park) and this is where we ate our lunch for the day - decadent crab sandwiches.  They tasted almost like lobster rolls except with crab, on luxurious buttered toasted bread.  Left field has probably the most famous part of the park - the Coke bottle slide.  I was super bummed that the slide was only for kids 14 and under as I had been looking forward to going down it all week, but you know a ballpark is doing something right if even their kids area is cool.  One of the new areas of the park is a vegetable garden, which is down the stairs from the concessions plaza and directly inside the Marina Gate.  The stadium literally grows and uses this produce in some of their food, which could not be any more San Francisco.  This is also the area where the ballpark finally added bullpens (the park infamously forgot to include them in the original design) and there is a boardwalk-style arcade down here as well.  We ascended back up the stairs and ended our interior lap at Levi's Landing, which is where we had tickets and where I've always wanted to sit if I ever returned to Oracle Park.  It's literally only 3 rows of seats wedged between the tall right field wall and a 10' wide walkway, and then directly behind that walkway is McCovey Cove.  You feel right on top of the action here and I imagine it's what sitting on top of the Green Monster is like in Boston.  The only difference is, people park bombs on top of the Monster almost every game, but there have only been 106 balls ever hit beyond our section into the cove in the 25+ year history of this ballpark.  It almost felt like we were in a private club area sitting here surrounded by only a small handful of fans in our section, and we had a great time chatting with our neighbors during the game.  The couple sitting next to us stopped in SF on the way back home to Indiana from their Polynesian honeymoon just to log their 14th ballpark.  I didn't bother upstaging them by telling them we had already been to all 30, as they seemed too jet-lagged and madly in love to care.

Speaking of love, today's game was Pride Day at Oracle Park.  Almost every team has some sort of Pride Day, but it can sometimes feel like a contrived token gesture.  Going to Pride Day in San Francisco was a true celebration and held real significance, and it was very inspiring and emotional to be present for, particularly under our current administration that has made it an open mission to squash inclusivity of all kinds.  As a privileged, straight, upper-middle class white dude, it's easy to take for granted how cushy my life is, and I can't even imagine how marginalized people of the LGBTQIA+ community must feel these days, particularly outside of a welcoming place like San Fran.  I proudly clapped and cheered as an ally, I wore my giveaway Pride bucket hat in solidarity, I coughed up $40 for a souvenir sparkly margarita, and it was really fun to be in a progressive city again for a day.

On to the actual game, the Giants faced off against the Braves in this Saturday matinee.  The game ended with a walk-off, 2-out, 2-run homer in the 9th by Matt Chapman, and was an exhilarating way to end our final game of the trip.  The awesome pitching matchup of Bryce Elder and Logan Webb lived up to its billing, with the starters going 8 and 6 innings respectively with a combined 22 strikeouts.  As the Braves bullpen has been apt to do during their unexplainable freefall, they ruined a great pitching performance in less than an inning, as Pierce Johnson was the scapegoat in this game.  Former Brewers star Willy Adames started at shortstop for the Giants and went hitless out of the 6-hole, and still seems to be trying to hone his swing for this bigger ballpark as he's batting under .200 on the season.  Fan favorite Jung Hoo Lee was out of the starting lineup, but did strikeout in a pinch hit appearance.  Ronald Acuna Jr. continued his torrid start to the season for Atlanta since returning from injury by notching another hit and upping his average to .321 as of this game.  

It was yet another quick game at just a shade over 2 hours, and this afforded us what we hoped would be a long night on the town, but by the time we made the walk back to our hotel and checked in, we were dead tired.  We settled for a couple cocktails at our gorgeous rooftop bar at the Canopy Hilton, and enjoyed a rare sit-down dinner at a cute little dim sum restaurant a few blocks away.  Sunday morning was a familiar schedule of Erik waking up before dawn to catch an early flight while I slept in.  I was supposed to be on a 3:45pm flight home, but it got delayed so much that I was able to switch to an earlier flight.  I did still have enough time before heading to the airport to make one final tourist stop - the Golden Gate National Recreational Area.  This is part of the National Park system on the north side of the Golden Gate Bridge and offers miles of hiking trails with several distinct ecosystems, but what most people go here for is to get stunning views of the bridge from atop a hill, myself included.  I figured I may never be out this way again, so I needed to make time to drive over the bridge, and I'm really glad that I did.

Another year in the books, and another year feeling grateful that Erik and I still get to do this all these years later.  We are now middle-aged and can't (nor want to) party like we used to - and these last few trips have made that very apparent - but we still always enjoy our common denominators of travel, baseball, and friendship.  We've already got an idea in mind for next year, but until then, Tour Molly is just 3 short days away!

park rankings and statistics

(see original rankings from 8/7/07):

aesthetics - increases to 10
views from park - 10
view to field - 7
surrounding area - 7
food variety - increases to 7
nachos - 8
beer - decreases to 6
vendor price - decreases to 6
ticket price - 6
atmosphere - 10
walk to park - increases to 7
parking price/proximity - 1
concourses - increases to 9
team shop - 9

kids area - 10 (best in MLB - Coke bottle slide!)

best food - crab sandwich, and garlic fries are a staple
most unique stadium feature - Landing in RF/McCovey Cove
best jumbotron feature - Giants team song in 5th which I had never heard before

best between-inning feature - drag queens sing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" for Pride Day

field dimensions - 339/391/309

starters - Bryce Elder (ATL) v. Logan Webb (SF)
opponent - Atlanta Braves
time of game - 2:05
attendance - 35162
score - 3-2 W

Brewers score that day - 4-3 W

Tour 2025: John Thurman Field

All photos of Modesto and John Thurman Field available on Flickr.

Having no interest in exploring Stockton any further, we left for Modesto around 10am, and it was about a half-hour drive through mostly fields of long dry grass.  The landscape in this part of the country looks like throwing a lit cigarette out the car window would set hundreds of acres ablaze in a matter of minutes, so it's easy to see why there are so many wildfires out here.  Based solely on Google Maps alone, in my mind I was figuring Stockton would be nice and Modesto would be a dump before we left on this trip, and it turned out to be the opposite.  I was pleasantly surprised with Modesto's downtown, which was extra buzzy on a Friday morning due to their annual American Graffiti parade and festival kicking off that night.  After walking around downtown a bit to get the lay of the land, we started our day at Churchkey, which was a phenomenal gastropub and probably my favorite non-ballpark place that we to went the entire trip.  We imbibed for a few hours at the bar while watching NCAA Super Regionals (which conveniently began at 9am PDT), and were actually there so long that we had two meals.  Everything we ate and drank was delicious and it was a beautifully designed space as well.  I didn't want to leave, but we figured we should check into our room at the Motel 6 while still coherent.  As compared to our somewhat classy Motel 6 in Stockton, this one was more what we were expecting - I think you can create your own visual on what that means.  We made one more stop at Contentment Brewing Company en route to the Nuts game.  This was a cool industrial space featuring games and live music and we loved the beer here as well.  It was a really unexpected and fun day in Modesto, but alas duty called, and we made our way a couple miles south for the 6:40pm first pitch.

John Thurman Field was the only ballpark we had to drive to on our trip, and it was a reasonable $10 for parking.  This stadium has more or less only hosted some form of the Nuts throughout its long history, and 2025 marks its 70th and final season, which is the main reason we had to stop here on this trip.  John Thurman Field, much like Funko Field in Everett last year, is one of the many old parks that is falling victim to the MLB/MiLB facility standards that were implemented in the last CBA.  The Mariners (Nuts parent franchise) and the City of Modesto kept the lights on as long as they could but could not come to any ballpark improvement agreements beyond this season, so they sold the team to Diamond Baseball Holdings, who as their name implies is quickly become the major holding company for dozens of minor league teams throughout the country.  The days of the mom-and-pop community-centric MiLB teams are fading fast, and this is unfortunately the new reality.  There are certainly many good reasons to have standards, such as improving player facilities, standardizing the product, better fan experience, and increased revenue, but the downside is when a long-standing baseball community like Modesto gets left in the dust.  You wouldn't know it by Friday night's attendance, but the Nuts have been a lifeblood of this city for 80 years, and it's a sad reminder that baseball is ultimately about the almighty dollar just like every other business.  Erik and I don't take it lightly that we were blessed to get to see the Nuts in their final season, and hopefully John Thurman Field will find new life with another team in the future.

That being said, I'm not going to glorify this stadium as being architecturally significant or beautiful in any way just because it's old and it's a sad situation.  I mean, there is a reason after all that the team is moving, and that's because it is just not an adequate minor league ballpark by today's standards.  Everything from concessions, to seating, to bullpens and player facilities, and even the playing surface, were all varying degrees of sub-optimal.  Like most older parks, almost the entirety of the concourse is behind the seating bowl, and you have to ascend up ramps and metal stairs to your seats, which is less than ideal and certainly does not meet today's accessibility codes.  These types of stadiums create a major dark tunnel effect where concession stands and bathrooms are stuffed into food trucks and shanty-like structures under bleachers, of which the Nuts had aplenty.  But horrendously, no nut stand!  How do you not even sell basic peanuts at a team called the Nuts that has three nut-themed mascots?!  They did partially redeem this atrocity with full-sized helmet nachos.  The concourse reminded me of Sioux Falls in that most of it seemed eerily empty and understaffed.  We did find a nice little craft beer & food stand in the right field corner where I crushed an IPA and a delicious mac & cheese burger, but its juxtaposition right next to the bullpen staring directly at us was just one of many examples of the Nuts trying to make the best with what they have.  Other examples of this were a kids bounce house in a forgotten back corner that was completely unused, and some vacant "party decks" at the top of the grandstands that were just empty slabs of concrete with no chairs.  It's about what I expected for a park that I knew was in its final months of existence, so it's hard to say I was disappointed, and ultimately the game was all that mattered anyways since my rankings for this park will be pretty pointless (most of this blog is pointless so don't worry I'm still doing rankings).

And it was definitely a great game to watch, as we had 2nd row seats behind home plate, and the seats were a little closer to the field than in Stockton.  We watched the Nuts take down the Padres-affiliated Lake Elsinore Storm by a final score of 4-1.  I always enjoy looking up the teams' top prospects when I write minor league posts, and it looks like the highest ranked prospect in the game was Kavares Tears of the Padres, who is #7 in their organization.  He's listed as an outfielder but went 0-4 as the DH in this game.  The Nuts did not have any of their top 30 prospects in the game and managed only 5 total hits despite the win.  Walter Ford, a 2022 comp round pick, delivered perhaps the best pitching performance we saw of the week, giving up only 1 run in 7 innings for the home team and striking out 6, with an incredibly efficient 70 pitches.  From where we were sitting so close, I didn't really notice a ton of movement on his pitches, but he seemed to be missing a lot of barrels so whatever he was doing was working.  Abraham Parra surrendered 3 runs (2 earned) over 5 in a losing effort.  As an aside, it's worth noting that all of the stadium turmoil and deficiencies have not affected the Nuts' performance on the field, as they've won back-to-back California League championships and are in 2nd place this season.

The game was so fast that the sun was still up when we left, so we felt obligated to go out for one final beer in Modesto.  We did not stay out too long, however, as we needed to be back to our motel before the parking lot security gate closed at 10pm.  We were in bed at a responsible time again this evening to rest up for the final gameday of our trip.

park rankings and statistics:

aesthetics - 2
views from park - 1
view to field - 7
surrounding area - 2 (downtown is nice but not mostly residential near park)
food variety - 4
nachos - 8 (bonus points for full-sized helmet)
beer - 6
vendor price - 8
ticket price - 8
atmosphere - 4
walk to park - 2
parking price/proximity - 7 (adjacent lot for $10)
concourses - 2
team shop - 4 (I was impressed what they had considering the team is leaving)

kids area - 1 (one bounce house that's it)

best food - full-sized helmet taco nachos
most unique stadium feature - bullpen very close to beer pavilion in RF
best jumbotron feature - a look back at John Thurman Field history

best between-inning feature - kids run the bases mid-game

field dimensions - 312/400/315

starters - Abraham Parra (LE) v. Walter Ford (MOD)
opponent - Lake Elsinore Storm
time of game - 1:51
attendance - 641
score - 4-1 W

Brewers score that day - 2-0 L

Tour 2025: Banner Island Ballpark

All photos of Stockton and Banner Island Ballpark available on Flickr.

Due to some traffic, it was about an hour drive to Stockton for our next stop of the tour and second game of the day.  We still arrived in plenty of time not only to check into our room at the Studio 6 Suites downtown, but also to enjoy a quick dip in its pool.  This was not a glamorous place by any means - especially when compared to the accommodations we just enjoyed in Sacramento - but it was certainly classy for a Motel 6, and as we'd come to realize over the next 18 hours or so, it was pretty damn nice for Stockton.  The friend I had lunch with on Wednesday is in the law enforcement field, and his wife is from there, so he warned me that Stockton has a reputation of being very dirty and unsafe, and Reddit is quick to back that up.  We were basically only at the ballpark and in a very concentrated downtown area, so we didn't experience that per se, but I couldn't help but keep my guard up the entire time.  We went to a decent cocktail bar called FED before the game, and then walked across a bridge over McLeod Lake to the ballpark.  The waterfront and cool dock area was one of the few redeeming qualities of Stockton, and let's just say it's one of those cities I would have never visited if there wasn't a baseball team there.

Banner Island Ballpark is an unofficial name adopted by locals in reference to the area it's in, which used to be an island within a river delta, but due to landfill is now just a peninsula in sort of a dead-end channel.  Even the team calls it Banner Island Ballpark, but its real official name is simply Stockton Ballpark, as it is owned by the city.  Stockton's claim to fame in baseball lore is that an old team there from the 19th century supposedly served as the inspiration for the "Mudville Nine" in "Casey at the Bat," but the current team in town dates back a mere 84 years.  The Ports have called Banner Island Ballpark home since it opened in 2005.  Its listed capacity is 5,200 but it was only about 10% full on this Thursday night.  The first person we were greeted by upon entry was the mascot Splash, whom Erik got his picture with of course.  Besides a charming masonry tower and long entry canopy, and the site being water-adjacent, there isn't much of an exterior, but there are some nice details once you get inside.  It's got the standard 15 rows of seats spanning from pole to pole, bullpens in left field, and a berm in right field, all of which are easily accessible.  This park does lack a second level of any kind which you don't see much in newer parks, so it offers a sleek low profile, which really reinforces the entry datum and tower as focal points.  The lack of a second level pushes suites and the press box down to the back of the main level behind home plate, sort of like Fox Cities Stadium.  This causes your view of the field to be interrupted when walking around the concourse, which is annoying, but architecturally speaking the breaking up of the seating bowl makes it visually interesting.  Probably the most unique area of the park is the Black Oak Casino Back Porch in right field.  It features Adirondack chairs under a covered "porch" hence the name, with its own private bar, and a little bump-out into right field to give it some prominence.  Unfortunately, this is a private area so we couldn't go inside, but it seemed to be well used even on a weeknight.  We just bought GA tickets for this game so we moved around a lot, and we spent most of the evening watching from the outfield and behind the bullpens.  We chatted with some of the players out here during the game, and there were also some hilarious drunk fans who spent a lot of time trying to coax a player into throwing them a ball.  Besides being in Stockton, I guess poor concessions would be my biggest complaint about the park.  The food and drink selection was very mediocre and bare bones - you can get away with that if you've got a vibrant atmosphere or a historic ballpark, but at your typical sleepy A-ball game at a modern park, it stands out as an issue.  Erik and I had a sad excuse for a cheeseburger and nachos for dinner, which I washed down with a barely palatable blood orange ale.

Tonight was the first of a string of very quick games to close out our trip, played at 2:26 officially despite 9 runs being scored in 10 innings.  If I'm being honest, I was glad it was a fast game, because I was not prepared in my shorts and t-shirt for the steady cold wind after the sun went down.  The Ports (Athletics affiliate) faced off against the Fresno Grizzlies (Rockies affiliate) on this night.  Unfortunately for us - but probably fortunately if you're a fan of either of these teams - most of their organizational top prospects seem to be at higher levels right now, so we didn't really see any big names on either side.  The only prospect ranked in either team's Top 30 that played in the game was Kelvin Hidalgo, who is the #21 Rockies prospect.  He lived up to that billing by being the offensive star of the game, going 3-5 out of the leadoff spot with a homer and a double.  I was hoping that last year's #3 overall draft pick Charlie Condon would be on the Grizzlies roster, but it looks like he skipped low-A entirely.  Fresno tallied single runs in the 1st, 4th, and 5th, until coughing up the lead in the bottom half of the 5th on a Gunnar Gouldsmith 2-run double.  The score would remain 3-3 and go to extra racks, and the Grizzlies immediately scored their ghost runner on consecutive hits by Tommy Hopfe and Derek Bernard.  They would tack on two more insurance runs, and Tyler Hampu shut down the Ports 1-2-3 in the bottom of the 10th to secure the victory.  The starting pitchers went 5 and 3 innings respectively.  I thought that the Ports starter Wei-En Lin fared pretty well, giving up only 1 unearned run, but for some reason he was pulled after only 36 pitches.

We were pretty tired after 19 innings of ball in two cities, so we headed straight back to our motel following the game to tune into some NCAA Super Regional action and rest up for Day 3.

park rankings and statistics:

aesthetics - 5
views from park - 4 (unfortunately cannot see water except from outfield)
view to field - 3 (tons of foul ground and all seating areas far away)
surrounding area - 2 (hockey/G League arena next door and not much else)
food variety - 2
nachos - 2
beer - 3
vendor price - 8
ticket price - 7
atmosphere - 2
walk to park - 6 (depends what direction you come from...walking along the water is nice)
parking price/proximity - 7 (we walked but adjacent lot for $10)
concourses - 3 (very disjointed concessions and bathrooms and not enough of them)
team shop - 7

kids area - 0 (closed)

best food - ice cream
most unique stadium feature - Black Oak Casino Back Porch
best jumbotron feature - Chug Cam

best between-inning feature - flip cup

field dimensions - 300/399/326

starters - Marcos Herrera (FRE) v. Wei-En Lin (STK)
opponent - Fresno Grizzlies
time of game - 2:26
attendance - 912
score - 6-3 L

Brewers score that day - off