First Tennessee Park

Nashville Sounds, Pacific Coast League

9/10

The facade is NOT redbrick, but instead, glass and polished metal.

The park has a great view of the Nashville skyline, plus an LED board in the shape of the old guitar scoreboard.

The park is slowly over capacity on a good night.

I made a long drive from just outside Beloit, to head down to Nashville, for this game against Omaha. Nashville is an old American Association city that moved to the Pacific Coast League. This is a new park as of 2015, built on the site of the old Nashville ballpark, Sulphur Dell. It has two tiers and a wide, wrap around concourse. The atmosphere is a little more consistent with a lower level of baseball, while the park itself presents something a little more "big league".

The concessions are major league calibre in my opinion. I had the Nashville Hot Chicken sandwich, which I liked quite a bit. Overall, I'd give this place a point for food and facility and a half point for the atmosphere. The other noteworthy detail was the city of Nashville, I ended up seeing the area around the ballpark, part of downtown and ended up staying out by the Vanderbilt University campus and was pretty impressed. I ended up back there the following March for a Predators game and have it on the list to visit with the wife soon enough. 

Update 2019: I've finally gotten a review for this one up. This year, the Sounds will be affiliated with the Texas Rangers. 

Linescore
2017-05-25
                                                123    456   789   RHE
Omaha Storm Chasers(KC)         010    230  002   890
Nashville Sounds(OAK)               010    001  200   482
Temp: 74F  Time: 2:52 Att: 10,442

Rangers Ballpark in Arlington

Texas Rangers, American League

8/10

I took this picture walking in from the parking lots. It's very obvious from this photo that the park is largely off by itself.

The view in from Right Field.

The Rangers and Rays line up for the national anthem prior to game 1 of the 2011 ALDS.

Firstly, this park again has a corporate sponsor, making it Globe Life Park in Arlington. When I went, it was Rangers Ballpark in Arlington, so it is on here as well.

Firstly, the most interesting part of my trip to Texas was even getting there in the first place. I had my home base in Phoenix for a few weeks in September of 2011 and before heading down, figured the Rangers were going to make the playoffs instead of Oakland. I had tickets to the Rangers first home game of the Division series, which I figured would be Game 3 against Detroit, on the next Tuesday. 2011 was the year of Game 162, which I spent at Chase Field, watching the Dodgers and Diamondbacks in a game that meant relatively little. I spent the time watching the out of town scores and texting people who asked what my plan would be, which made it that much more important for me to get another game in there. Anyway, the Rays won and the Red Sox lost, which meant the Rangers ended up with home field advantage, which meant that I ended up leaving that same night for the 15 hour drive to Arlington. After many driving adventures and overnights in Tucson, AZ and Midland, TX, I rolled into Arlington for Game 1 of the division series.

The ballpark is located not far from I-30, between Fort Worth and Dallas in the Suburb of Arlington. The area is dedicated to Sports and Entertainment and is also home to AT&T Stadium and the Dallas Cowboys, as well as the Six Flags over Texas theme park. Unfortunately, besides that, it is surrounded by parking lots. Within a few blocks are a ton of restaurants, but they're a bit of a hike. Public transit doesn't appear to really factor in to a trip to a ballgame for most people.

The game was game 1 of the ALDS. The Tampa Bay Rays, fresh off their epic comeback against the New York Yankees sent Matt Moore to the hill in his rookie season, with little prior experience. The taunt from Rangers fans was "Matt Who?". By the end of the game, with the Rays having cruised 9-0, I doubted that any Ranger fan would struggle with Moore's last name ever again. Still, this Ranger team bounced back to go to the World Series, where they took St. Louis to one strike from victory, before the Cardinals came back and won game 6, then game 7. 

The park itself is a Retro-Modern design, built not long after Camden Yards changed the whole school of thought on Ballpark design, so it still seems quite modern. The biggest knock against the park, which I didn't really experience, is the lack of a retractable roof, or even very much shade. In the 110 degree heat of a Texan summer, this can present a problem. The only other major drawback is the neighbourhood and the fact that while its a very serviceable ballpark, it's in the middle of a parking lot, in the middle of other parking lots, next to the interstate. There has been chatter of a new park, but it hasn't gone too far.

But there are many plusses. The overall design is not too bad, with several distinctive features. The "Home Run Porch" in right field is very well shaded and I'm sure is very popular on summer afternoons. Fans scrambling onto the grass batter's eye after homeruns looking for souvenirs is a staple of this place, but with the Rangers failing to advance a runner past 2nd base, I didn't see it. I ended up with some relatively unmemorable food here and didn't notice much in the way of special amenities.

But, keeping in mind that this was the first playoff game I'd ever been to, the atmosphere was what kept me interested. The fans weren't outwardly hostile, mostly because the Rays don't have any fans to get mad at, but they were vehemently supporting their nine and only turned on them somewhat when they fell behind. I would like to come back here for a regular season game, as part of a Texas loop.

Update 2016: I considered coming back here on my Texas loop in 2015, but opted for a new park in San Antonio instead. Sooner rather than later though. I'd give this place a half point for each of atmosphere and facility, so 8/10 stands.

Linescores
2011-10-
                     123  456   789  R H E
Tampa Bay     033  020   011  9 11 0
Texas             000  000  000   0 2  1
Temp: 84F  Time: 3:00  Att: 50,498
Note: Game one of Division Series 

Avista Stadium

Spokane Indians, Northwest League

10/10

A nice summer evening sees Spokane host Yakima. This is the only picture from my original trip deemed worthy of staying.

The exterior before the first Saturday home game of the season vs. Eugene.

A great crowd was on hand considering the weather was overcast with occasional showers.

Pre-game vs. Eugene in 2014, you can literally see the moisture.

We attended Avista Stadium in Spokane on night 1 of a 3 game tour of Washington and Oregon, which was my first trip specifically to go to new ballparks. This explains why my pictures were somewhat lacking, and all generally of the same thing. The park is the top draw for attendance in the Northwest League every year. The park may have something to do with it, but Spokane has approximately 650 thousand people in the area surrounding and into Idaho, so there are more than a few people to market the team to.

I don't have many photos of this one and don't remember much about it, so this will be brief(I realized this after and took many more photos of the other two parks, both in Eugene and Yakima). But it is a relatively run of the mill minor-league stadium. There is the mascot a "Spokanasaurus." We were grilled mercilessly by our border guard on the way down, even being told "What you wanna go to Spokane for? I been there. There's nothin' there. Nothin'."

As far as I remember, the park was very average. The game was an eyelash over 5 hours, not wrapping up until around quarter after 11. Writing this, I realize that Spokane may end up on my list for this summer, possibly even as a long weekend road trip. For now, it will be remembered as an average park, with an average score.

Update 2016: I was typing this in early 2014 and mentioned it to my then girlfriend and alluded to needing to go back at some point. She just said "Let's go!" I checked and seeing  it was around 12 or 13 hours from the house, I knew it was possible. So we went down in June 2014 and I am now engaged to the same girl. The next year, on a trip to California, I was looking for an NWL game for night 2. When it was only the all star game, I hoped that it would be in Spokane and sure enough it was, with a new format featuring the Pioneer League all-stars vs. the Northwest.

Having a bit more to work with as far as sample size, I realized this place is great. The stadium was built in the 1950's, but I originally thought it was from the 80's, it's so modern(ish). There's both box seating further back and decent seats closer to the action, if you can get them. I've never had my pick of seats here, it's usually what's left. The smallest crowd in 3 games here was still 4,500, with for Short Season A is really good. This leads into a good atmosphere here, baseball first, random stuff second. Lastly, is the food, with stand names like "Intentional Wok" for a Chinese food booth, you know you're doing ok. While the dollar hot dogs in 2014 had gotten quite cold, I still think the concessions here are good as well and while I can only remember so much about them, the variety of items was some of the best I've seen anywhere. Overall, this place was vastly underappreciated under my old review and a few more visits have put me up to a 10/10. There's not a thing wrong with this park, which is why it's a perennial attendance leader(2nd of 8 in 2015) in the NWL.


Linescores
2007-07-17
                                        123   456    789   R  H  E
Yakima Bears(ARI)             200  120   050   10 13 3
Spokane Indians(TEX)        100   600   100  8   7   7
Temp: 90F  Time: 3:38  Att: 4,518

2014-06-14
                                      123   456    789   R H  E
Eugene Emeralds(SD)      010   000   200   3  9   1
Spokane Indians(TEX)      202  100    00x   5 12 0
Temp: 65F  Time: 2:25  Att: 6,709

2015-08-04
                                                123   456    789  10  R H E
Pioneer League All-Stars            011  001    020   0   5 9  0
Northwest League All-Stars        100  010    021   1    6 10 1
Temp: 88F  Time: 3:28  Att: 7,083

Surprise Stadium

Texas Rangers, Kansas City Royals (Spring Training)

9/10

The third base gate is used more for leaving than entering, the front door isn't much more notable.

The view from behind home plate for 2011 Fall League action.

The view from centre field shows the grandstand, press boxes and a bit of the 2nd level seating.

I first came here in 2010 for a Cactus League contest and as of 2015, have been a total of 7 times, for 6 Cactus League games and one Fall League game in 2011, which featured a young Bryce Harper.

As the name suggests, the park is in the Phoenix suburb of Surprise, about 40 minutes northwest of downtown. The Kansas City Royals and Texas Rangers have been training here since 2003. 2005 saw Golden League baseball here as well, with the Surprise Fightin' Falcons lasting just the one season. It's more of an AAA style ballpark than one of the bigger stadiums built lately. It's pretty well laid out, with a ton of shade in the infield, a pretty wide concourse, that is a little dark, but nothing too wild. The two sections of upper deck seating are popular and are well shaded with a good sight line. The quirkiest plus of the park is the unique design of the roof, which has circle-shaped depressions in it to stop foul balls from rolling back down and landing on spectators. 

Concessions here are pretty good too, embracing the local tastes of the two teams. Kansas City naturally features BBQ, which in this case, meant a pulled pork sandwich. I beleive that Tex-Mex also featured prominently, as do usual ballpark favourites.

Atmosphere here is subdued, rarely crowded, but always interested in the action on the field. There's no mascot or promotions as far as I can remember.

Overall, I am generally so engrossed in enjoying a game and the experience that I remember little else about it. This is among about 5 parks in the Cactus League that I would go to anytime, just a very enjoyable ballpark. A point for concession, plus a half point for the park and atmosphere gives it a 9.