Volcanoes Stadium

Salem-Keizer Volcanoes, Northwest League

7/10

 Batting Practice just wrapping up prior to the Canadians/Volcanoes. That van is on I-5. It's that close.

 The seats in the back are all club seating.

The masses enjoy a decent night at a decent park.

I went here in July of 2008 for the final game of my 2nd Northwest League trip. We had driven by on the way out of town from a Eugene Emeralds game the previous year, with the park all lit up, having just finished a game as well. I noted at the time it was literally directly next to Interstate 5, which seemed a little interesting.

Well. Fast forward to the next year and we pulled in for a game between the Volcanoes and Vancouver Canadians. The Volcanoes were in the midst of a stretch of amazing seasons, which resulted in a period of around 4 years where they were at least tied for 1st place every day of the season. The Giants take their farmhands seriously, and it showed.

Anyhow, this is a pretty average ballpark located, as mentioned, right next to I-5, which honestly, imposes some pretty big limits on the experience right away. I-5 is busy and traffic goes by constantly throughout the game. In addition, there is a driving range style net, which is required to keep homeruns from ending up on the freeway, which they reasonably could without it, it's that close. The most mind boggling thing of all though is that while access was ok, getting out of the parking lot, back onto the highway, was quite time consuming, as there's only one overpass in the area. Most other off-ramp ballparks have a few, to divide up the traffic.

Besides my location rant, the ballpark is pretty decent. The configuration focuses pretty heavily on a club behind home plate, but still leaves plenty of good seats for the rest of us. The food here is above average, with lots of unique options. The team store featured clearance bobbleheads of team mascot, "Crater" who is a half-baseball/half dinosaur. For 7 dollars, I decided to get one. The park does have the smallest video screen I have ever seen. It was difficult to really watch, but it turned into a decent auxiliary scoreboard once the game started.

Overall, this is an average park, which has the plus of a good menu, but the big knock of being pretty much on the shoulder of an Interstate highway.

Update 2016: I have still not been back here, it'll be 9 years between visits this year, so it's at the top of my list in the northwest this season. I thought the team was continuing to draw acceptably, but attendance has dropped from 2,900 to 2,100, which in 2016, was the lowest in the NWL. I'm not entirely sure why this is, but with no obvious market trying to lure a team and the ballpark still being acceptable, I don't expect much controversy surrounding this team for at least 5 more seasons.

Linescore
2008-07-15
                                                 123   456   789   R H E
Vancouver Canadians(OAK)          510  000  101   8  8  0
Salem-Keizer Volcanoes(SF)        000  531  00x   9 11 2
Temp: 84F  Time: 3:13  Att:  2,628