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 Molly 2024: Sioux Falls Stadium

All photos of Sioux Falls and Sioux Falls Stadium available on Flickr.

This past weekend was Year 4 of "Tour Molly" in lovely Sioux Falls, South Dakota, which at about 200,000 people is the largest city in the state and also the largest city of our daddy-daughter trips thus far.  It was my first time ever visiting or even driving through South Dakota and became the 34th state I've seen a ballgame in.  It was a mere 3-hour drive from our house in Cold Spring, which was nothing compared to the 6+ hour trek to Lansing, Michigan last year.  Our trips from Milwaukee were certainly starting to test the limits of how long I could keep a small child in a car and still make it worth it, and we likely would have been exploring obscure Illinois or Indiana towns for the foreseeable future if we were still living there, so from a strictly ballpark travel perspective, the timing of our move to Minnesota couldn't have been better.  We now have an untapped swath of travel options to our west and north that I likely would have never been able to reach before, so I'm excited for what the future holds for Molly and I.  But for this year, it was Sioux Falls, and I must say my first impression of South Dakota got off to a rocky start when the freeway speed limit immediately changed to 80 mph upon entering the state.  But that would quickly change when we arrived at beautiful Falls Park around noon.  We had lunch and played games at Severance Brewing across the street and then walked around the falls for awhile, and I was completely awestruck by it.  There's just something about the sight and sound of rushing water that draws you in and instantly calms you, and it really helped ground me and clear my mind for the start of the weekend.  I also learned from visiting Falls Park that some rivers can naturally flow north, which I never knew!  There was a lot more around the park that we would explore on Saturday, but for now it was off to the hotel to do the one thing Molly always cares about most - swimming in the hotel pool.  I was originally going to take her out to dinner Friday night and do the ballgame on Saturday, but I flipped those because of the weather forecast, so we were off to the park by about 5:45 for a 7:05 first pitch.

There is conflicting information on when this park actually opened for business.  Wikipedia and several various ballpark websites give the date of 1941, but the team's own website says 1964.  In either case, the main point here is it's an old stadium that has not been renovated in over 20 years, and it shows.  Approaching from the parking lot, there is not even really a "facade" to the stadium, and you basically just see the exposed concrete structure/seating bowl and inner workings of the concourse.  Based on this unapologetic brutalist expression, I'm more inclined to believe that the current form of the stadium is a 1960s era construction.  Nothing at this ballpark is hidden from view behind drywall or cladding or ceilings of any kind and it is just out for the world to see - which might have been cool whenever it was built and I certainly find the simplicity interesting as an architect, but that also means you're seeing all of the park's flaws too.  All of the concrete that is stained or chipping, the rusting exposed rebar, and the peeling paint are on full display.  It would be completely expected for a 60-80 year old park to have these issues, and there are certainly many instances of ballparks that have exposed structure, but here at "The Birdcage" as it is affectionately referred to, there is also nothing to distract you from it either.  There's very little in the way of signage, plaques, or interesting aesthetic features, or a glob of concession stands, or even a pop of color to draw your eye aside from the canary-yellow beer ads.  It's a very gray and drab park with lots of tall open space that seemed mostly empty.  It felt more of the scale of a football stadium given its height and openness.  When you have the type of ballpark where the main circulation is under the seating bowl, you really need to put some thought into the visual aspect of the concourse, and the Canaries just clearly did not.  You can get away with a lot more when the concourse is on top of a seating bowl and most people are just looking towards the field as they walk.  The ballpark was also only at about 50% capacity and there were only 2 or 3 concession stands open, which only further contributed to the empty and cold feeling.  I just did not feel welcomed at any point during our visit.  There was only one concession stand open when the gates opened and it did not have any food yet - they literally make the food somewhere else in the stadium and two kids run it over to the concession stand on mobile carts.  There was no staff near the children's area which made me very uncomfortable.  I was sold a $23 obstructed view ticket without any warning, and I could not find one usher to complain to about it.  I know South Dakota is big on personal freedom and no rules, but I would have appreciated a little effort in any aspect of our time there.  However, even at the worst parks, you can always find something enjoyable, so I will say that there were ample alcohol stands with a decent variety, including a nice little right field pavilion and a frozen daiquiri stand that seemed very popular, and I also appreciated the lack of protective netting in a day and age that it's getting out of hand at a lot of parks.  Unfortunately, as I mentioned, we just happened to be sold seats that were behind one of the few giant posts holding the small amount of netting there was, so Molly and I moved a few sections over and settled in for an evening of independent league baseball.

The Sioux Falls Canaries play in the West Division of the American Association and took on the Fargo-Moorhead RedHawks on this night.  Molly was completely gassed so we only made it 5 innings, but we did manage to be in our seats that entire time, and got to see a well-pitched game for the half that we saw.  In indy ball, you never really know if you're seeing good pitching or just bad hitting, or vice versa, but the score was 1-0 Sioux Falls when we left.  Both starters ended up going 7 innings.  As a game is prone to do when you leave early, the score would not remain that way, and the Red Hawks ended up exploding for 7 unanswered runs to win the game 7-1.  Ismael Alcantara was by far the most impressive position player on the field.  He went 2-3 with 2 walks, an RBI, and 4 stolen bases for Fargo, raising his average to .357 in the process and giving him a total of 28 steals on the season.  Looks like he was a Dodgers international signing back in 2017 and was demoted to A-ball last year before being released, so this is his first foray into independent baseball.  Usually in these games you'll see a name and have an "oh yeah I remember him" moment, but the only name I recognized was Jordan Barth for the Canaries, and the only reason I knew him was because he played for the Cold Spring Springers for a number of years.  He was 0-4 on the day but played a good game defensively at shortstop.  Before retiring to the hotel for the evening, we made our customary visit to the team store, at which I had to explain to Molly she could only buy one thing.  She chose a foam canary hand, which she proudly wore for most of the weekend.

For as disappointing as Sioux Falls Stadium was, I was equally surprised and impressed with Sioux Falls as a city.  We started our day on Saturday back at the Falls Park area, where we visited the Stockyards AG Experience, which was a sort of agricultural history museum of the area, and then had lunch at Overlook Cafe, which was a former hydroelectric plant that was converted into a grab-and-go cafe.  We also went up to the top of an observation tower in the Sioux Falls visitor center, also within Falls Park, and enjoyed the beautiful view of the falls from up top for a while.  The bulk of our afternoon was spent at Washington Pavilion, a hodgepodge sort of building featuring a planetarium, science/kids museum, several theaters, and an art gallery.  There is more than enough at this place to keep a family occupied for an entire day, but we were primarily in the science/kids portion of the building.  There was one floor dedicated to space exploration and also had a water play room, one floor dedicated to dinosaurs and agriculture and South Dakota in general, and the top floor was mostly about the human body.  It was very interactive and it was fun even for me; I would highly recommend for anybody with kids visiting Sioux Falls.  From there, daddy needed a beer after 4+ hours of learnin' stuff, so I found a brewery that had lots of outdoor games to keep Molly occupied, and she was completely enthralled watching people play pickleball and cheering them on with her foam hand.  The place was called Remedy Brewing and it was one of my favorite parts of the trip.  We concluded our long day with dinner at Mackenzie River Pizza Pub.

Again, I was so amazed by Sioux Falls, and it's definitely high up there in terms of my "best ballpark cities."  Right or wrong, the Dakotas never really acknowledged the COVID outbreak, and as a result, the Sioux Falls downtown has a pre-2020 vibrancy that is uncommon in cities these days.  It was hard to find a storefront that was empty, or a bar or store that wasn't full, and I was not expecting the city to be as crowded, energetic, historical, or cultural as it was.  Molly and I had the best time, and I would love to go back someday.  Every year, Molly can do a little bit more and conversate a little more meaningfully, and I am trying to cherish these trips for as long as she'll let me, before she starts middle school and inevitably wants nothing to do with me.

park rankings and statistics: 
aesthetics - 2
views from park – 2
view to field - 5 (good down the lines with no netting, many are obstructed by poles behind the netting)
surrounding area – 6 (convention center, stadiums, airport, Terrace Park - 5 min from downtown)
food variety - 2
nachos - 9 (nacho bar)
beer - 7 ($9 for 16oz, decent variety)
vendor price - 8
ticket price - 1 ($35 behind home plate for indy ball!)
atmosphere - 3
walk to park – 3
parking price/proximity - 10 (adjacent lot for free)
concourses - 2
team shop - 6
kids area - 7 (a good variety but not supervised)

best food – adult frozen cocktail stand
most unique stadium feature – turf infield and grass outfield
best jumbotron feature – Harry Canary runs through promos for upcoming homestand
best between-inning feature – kids Ketchup & Mustard Race

field dimensions – 313/410/312

starters – Davis Feldman (FM) v. Ty Culbreth (SXF)
opponent – Fargo-Moorhead RedHawks
time of game – 3:02
attendance – 2712
score – 7-1 L
Brewers score that day – 6-5 L

STANDINGS AND UPCOMING SERIES AS OF 6/17/24:

Brewers 42-29, +6.5; 3 @ Angels, 4 @ Padres, 3 v. Rangers

Twins 40-33, -5.5; 3 v. Rays, 3 @ Athletics, 3 @ Diamondbacks

Orioles 47-24, -1.5; 3 @ Yankees, 3 @ Astros, 3 v. Guardians

2024 GAMES ATTENDED:

Erik - 3

Peter - 14

Tour Molly 2023: Jackson Field

All photos of Lansing and Jackson Field are available on Flickr.

I spent my final weekend before the big move to Minnesota on the 3rd installment of "Tour Molly" in Lansing, Michigan.  We left Milwaukee at 8:30am and it was about a 6-hour drive, which included a very important stop at IHOP in Michigan City to appease a 5-year old that was demanding pancakes for lunch.  We only went to a ballgame on Saturday, so Friday night was spent swimming at the hotel pool (a must-have on our trips) and spending some time downtown.  We had a delicious dinner at Lansing Brewing Company and some ice cream at the Lansing Shuffle, which is a super cool marketplace type of building right on the Grand River.  I had one of the best IPAs and some of the best ice cream I've ever had and this was definitely my favorite part of the trip besides the game.  

Saturday was a very busy but fun-filled day that started with a walk to the Impression 5 Children's Museum at 9:30.  As impressed as I was with the downtown and the stadium district areas on Friday night, I was equally disappointed with them on Saturday morning.  Lansing is certainly not a big city by any means but it's not small either - the population is over 100,000 and it has a major state university - so I was shocked to see it so quiet and dead.  Lansing is what I would describe as "gritty" and has many of the hallmarks of what an urban center looked like 20 years ago - nobody there before 5pm on a weekend, a concrete jungle, not pedestrian friendly, a river-walk that is disconnected and goes nowhere, and lots of one-way streets to get people out as fast as possible.  It reminded me a lot of living in Waterloo.  The ballpark opened in 1996 as the center of a major redevelopment district right in the middle of downtown, so the city is certainly trying, and the one-block radius surrounding the park is very nice, including some really cool apartments in center field that I will talk about later.  But outside of that immediate area and obviously Michigan State University to the east, it is kind of a sleepy and weathered city.  Anyways, I mentioned the children's museum - we spent a few hours there and was well worth the visit.  We probably could have spent almost an entire day there if we didn't have anything else to do.  By the time we got out around noon we were starving and walked to another local brewery for lunch called Midtown.  Still not seeing a lot of action downtown after lunch, we decided to hop in the car and drive to a beautiful park called Frances Park which featured a rose garden overlooking the river.  After another round of swimming back at the hotel, we did Molly's favorite thing of the entire trip - ran across the pedestrian skybridge to downtown.  I introduced Molly to shuffleboard back at Lansing Shuffle (hence the name) and then it was finally game time.

I'll start with what I did like about Jackson Field - site, location, and atmosphere.  This was one of the most urban and active ballpark areas I've been in all of the minor leagues, and probably 2nd to only Fort Wayne in the Midwest League.  Back when this stadium broke ground nearly 30 years ago, ballpark districts were not a thing, and building ballparks downtown was just in its infancy of becoming a popular concept.  So for Lansing to have the foresight to use this ballpark as a development catalyst - regardless of your stance of if that actually works or not - is quite commendable.  Certainly there are times I love being at the small, quiet minor league parks that serve smaller communities, but the urban ballparks are always my favorite and I love the life that they bring to a downtown on gameday.  There were a ton of people there on this night for a Big Lug Bobblehead giveaway that we unfortunately got there too late to receive, but it was not a novelty crowd just for the bobblehead.  The Lugnuts are perennially near the top of not just Midwest League attendance but all of minor league baseball, and have drawn in excess of 7000 people several times this season.  Besides being a downtown site, the block that the ballpark is wedged in also makes it very unique.  The park faces directly north on a very long and skinny block that runs north-south, so this causes the park to be pinched down the lines and shoehorned into the block, similarly to Dozer Park in Peoria.  When you walk down the lines near the foul poles at the widest part of the stadium, the only thing separating you from the public sidewalk is a fence.  This make the ballpark very active not just from the outside in, but the inside out as there is a direct line of sight from the street inside from many areas.  There were several times when I saw people just walk by the fence and stop for a moment to peer inside and catch a few moments of free baseball.  And speaking of free baseball, the coolest part of the site is the apartment building that was added about 10 years ago.  Known as the Outfield Lofts, it is a 4-story building that has balconies hanging over the outfield concourse and facing the stadium.  I have no doubt in my mind that if I was single and lived anywhere near Lansing that I would move into those apartments for the rest of my life.  The ground level of the apartment building has restaurants, bars, and retail that faces both the street on the north side, but also opens up into the stadium on gamedays.  I can't even imagine what this ballpark looked and felt like prior to these apartments being built - they really bookend the stadium and define the boundaries quite dramatically, in an area that is overlooked in the design of many minor league ballparks.  Between the narrow site and the apartments, and the proximity to the street, it all serves to give quite an intimate setting to the ballpark, and when you couple that with huge crowds on most nights, it was a very lively and raucous atmosphere to be a part of.

The large, raucous atmosphere does have a negative side effect however and leads directly into what I did not like about the stadium - the general operations of the park were a joke.  There were only two main concession stands (similar to the setup in Appleton) that literally had 30-60 minute lines for the entire game.  The only thing I could actually grab for Molly and I to eat without spending the entire night in line was popcorn and ice cream.  And it's not like these stands served like specialty items or things that were slow to cook, we're talking standard ballpark fare.  The team store was also WAY too small for a ballpark of this size and was uncomfortably crowded at all times.  I will say the congestion in the concourse was not as bad as I was expecting for the tight nature of the stadium footprint, so kudos on that.  And perhaps having only two concession stands alleviates some of that congestion, so I get that it's certainly a give-and-take.  The last thing I hated was that the entire park was cashless - and proudly stated as such on their website and all over the park - except for the kids area.  So I had to go all the way back to the overcrowded team store to buy "Lugnuts Bucks" with my debit card specifically to use at the bounce house for Molly.  That's not a symptom of a tight footprint, or poor design, or staffing shortage - that is just a flat out horrible oversight that can be easily rectified.

Molly has progressively been able to stay attentive to more and more of the game with each passing year of our trips, and we made it into the 5th inning on Saturday.  I think our first year in Green Bay she watched MAYBE 2 innings - and by watched, I mean was distracted with food.  So between the 4 1/2 innings from our seats and the bounce house being conveniently located directly behind the left field pole with full view of the field, I actually got to watch most of the game.  The Lugnuts defeated the Great Lakes Loons by a score of 7-5, and powered by an offensive barrage the likes of which I have rarely seen in the Midwest League.  There were eight extra-base hits in the game, including a 3-run homerun by 2B Brennan Milone, a 6th round pick of the A's last year.  That homer gave the 'Nuts the lead in the 3rd and the lead stuck.  Junior Perez also homered for the home team as part of a 3-hit night.  If he keeps that up, the A's will certainly come calling soon, or more likely trade him.  Yehizon Sanchez gave up 5 runs in 3 innings in his Midwest League debut, and Yeiner Fernandez and Chris Alleyne homered for the Loons in a losing effort.  We stayed as long as we could, but after a long day of activities, Molly was visibly exhausted by 9pm and we called it a day.

Following a quick round #3 of swimming on Sunday morning, and some breakfast across the street from the ballpark where some players were clearly there picking up coffee, we headed back to Milwaukee around 10am.  Once you have a second child, watching just one child is a breeze, and it was so nice to have a fun, relatively stress-free time all to ourselves and to spend some quality time together before our big life shift this week.

park rankings and statistics:

aesthetics - 8 (points are primarily for site layout)
views from park - 7 (apartments, downtown Lansing)
view to field - 9
surrounding area - 7
food variety - 1
nachos - 1
beer - 7 (bonus points for Labatt's)
vendor price - 7
ticket price - 6
atmosphere - 9
walk to park - 7
parking price/proximity - 6 (we walked but there are lots of street options)
concourses - 8
team shop - 2 (way too small)

kids area - 6 (this one is tough to rank - bonus points for proximity to field but points deducted for being the only thing in the park that requires cash)

best food - ice cream I guess?  didn't get to try any
most unique stadium feature - site, apartments in outfield
best jumbotron feature - Lansing Board of Water & Light "Flip the Switch" to turn on the stadium lights

best between-inning feature - Nutty Golf

field dimensions - 305/404/305

starters - Jerming Rosario (GL) v. Yehizon Sancez (LAN)
opponent - Great Lakes Loons
time of game - 2:37
attendance - 7780
score - 7-5 W
Brewers score that day - 6-1 W

STANDINGS AND UPCOMING SERIES AS OF 8/21/23

Brewers 68-57, +3.0; 2 v. Twins, 3 v. Padres, 3 @ Cubs, 3 v. Phillies

Twins 65-60, +6.0; 2 @ Brewers, 4 v. Rangers, 3 v. Guardians, 3 @ Rangers

2023 GAMES ATTENDED:

Erik - 3

Peter - 17

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