Aces Ballpark

Aces Ballpark

Reno Aces, Pacific Coast League

6/10

                                    The famous "Reno" sign, next to the closed Fitzgerald's Casino

The interior of the park has a bit of a southwest feel.

                                          On the whole, it has a very clean, but sterile feel.

So, I am randomly drawing parks until I catch up. Reno was my 2nd last park on my 2009 loop from my hometown of Victoria, to LA and back. I decided to take the long way back(it wasn't that much longer actually) and take in the then brand-new park in somewhat-small-for-AAA Reno. That year, a group of investors bought the attendance-starved Tucson Sidwinders and moved them to Reno, to play in their brand new park, right in downtown. The stadium is part of the "Freight House District" development, which will have the park and numerous restaurants and such right downtown in an effort to revitalize what in 2009, was a city that appeared to be somewhat unhealthy. This meant that the park was only a five block walk from the Sands Regency, where I scored a room on Hotwire for something like 27 dollars.

The game itself saw the hometown Reno Aces battle their closest PCL opponent, the Sacramento River Cats. A slugging first baseman named Tommy Everidge(who I would see again the next spring in Phoenix) crushed two homeruns, much to the delight of the River Cat "team mom"(that's what her jersey said), who made the trip from Sac-Town. An Aces run would see these poles of strobe lights in right field go off, which got somewhat old.

The park itself was just a little too generic to be enjoyed. It's clean, well laid out and sightlines are great. But it's really just another bland minor-league park, which seems to be more of the rule than the exception with the parks opened in the last 10 years or so. The atmosphere involved the strobe-lights, a baseball that inflates over the batter's eye to "sing" Take Me Out To The Ballgame and believe a ton of sound effects. The food was about average, though I don't remember much about it. Overall, just a very non-descript place to watch a game.

Update 2016: Even under the new ratings, which are a little more forgiving, I still give this place a 6/10, deducting one point for atmosphere. Don't think I'll be back this season either. The Aces are drawing just under 5,400 people a game, with is good for 11th of 16 in the PCL. This is till around a thousand more than they drew in Tucson.

Linescore
 2009-09-01
                                                       123  456  789  RHE
Sacramento River Cats(OAK)             010  101  210  6 8 3
Reno Aces (ARI)                               052  100  00x  8 11 1
Temp:N/A Time 3:13  Att: 5,504

Yakima County Stadium

Yakima County Stadium

Vacant

5/10

The Stadium's Exterior was very plain.

 The stands were built on top of the clubhouse, meaning that sightlines could be very poor, especially towards the back. There was however, an excellent view of the rolling hills outside of the park.

Boomer the Bear works the crowd. Unbeknownst to him, his career would end 5 years later, his faithful service forgotten.

This is as good a place as any to start, because it's the namesake of the blog. Boomer the Bear was the mascot of the Yakima Bears of the Northwest League, who, after the 2012 season, moved to Oregon. Boomer the Bear was a good mascot, he tried hard, he minded his own business and like so many others in baseball, the game left him after a few short years. All that are left for him are memories.

I went to my one and only game at Yakima County Stadium in 2007, as part of a 3 game loop of the Northwest League. The Bears, who we had seen two nights before in Spokane, played the Eugene Emeralds, who we had seen the previous night in Eugene. I had read poor reviews of it prior to going and wasn't able to find much to the contrary. It was honestly, nothing too special. The stands were blue plastic seats and aluminum. Sightlines, as mentioned, could be very bad. The atmosphere was not the best, as at a lot of other poor parks, the game was a secondary attraction. Without a lot of options, the game was about the only thing going on. Still, the little things that make the game such a pleasure to watch were in full effect. We made fun of a pitcher's stretch, the incredibly hot day gave way to a hot, windless night and..there was baseball. Future major leaguer Josh Collmenter was a member of the Bears I cannot remember if he played.

The Bears had moved to Yakima in 1990 and moved into Yakima County Stadium in 1993. Only 19 years later, the Stadium was no longer adequate for the team's liking. Attendance was suffering and the worst of all for a Minor League team, the grass appeared to be much greener elsewhere, namely, in Portland, where there hadn't been professional baseball for two years after the Beavers moved away. Eventually, the Portland suburb of Hillsboro was selected, a brand new park was built and the Yakima Bears moved to become the Hillsboro Hops. Yakima County Stadium will host a team in the summer collegiate West Coast League in 2014, perhaps retaining the Bear nickname and perhaps, giving Boomer the Bear's life meaning again.


UPDATE: Yakima's WCL team will be known as the "Yakima Valley Pippins.

Update 2016: While the Bears are gone, the Pippins are drawing only slightly worse. The Bears drew in the around 1,600 a game in their last year and the Pippins draw around 1,400, good for 3rd in that league. While some people have clearly abandoned the seemingly lower brand of baseball, most have not and the stadium at least gets some use if nothing else.

With the new ratings system, the score is still the same, the somewhat tacky, baseball last atmosphere took a point, off, as did the stadium itself, for being entirely too much aluminum and the seating being on top of the clubhouses. Without major renos, this park will not be getting back into affiliated baseball, but for a summer league park, it's entirely adequate.

Linescore
2007-07-18

                                      123   456   789  R H  E

Eugene Emeralds(SD)      402   000   100  7  7  1

Yakima Bears(ARI)           211   000   000  4 12 2

Temp: 80F Time: 2:30 Att: 1,941