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I'm running around this morning, getting things ready so I can head to Baltimore and New York for the next couple of series for the Blue Jays, so I'm just asking a question this morning.
Tell us about the ballparks you have visited and which one is your favorite? Let us know your favorite MLB park. Favorite minor league park. And, if you have been away, favorite foreign park.
Of the Major League parks (I'm going to name them by home team, I can never keep track of all the companies that buy naming rights), I've been to:
- Dodgers: which I liked, but getting out of the parking lot after was terrible. It was years ago, and maybe they have improved things, but there was no mass transit way to get there. 40,000 people all jumping into cars, trying to get out of the parking lot at the same time. Everyone had the radio on, you heard Vin Scully's voice like it was coming out of the stadium speakers, except for the game we sat in the cheap seats, then it was the Mexican broadcast.
- A's: ugly stadium in an ugly area. Not much for food choices, but lots of good micro brew beers. It was cheap to get good tickets and you can get a good hotel in Oakland cheap too. It's a quick ride on the BART system to get to San Francisco.
- Angels: very nice park. Tons of food choices. Great seats.
- Mariners: Maybe my favorite place to watch a ball game. Terrific food choices. They had a craft beer area. Easy to get great seats. And, there were a lot of Blue Jays fans at the games. Seattle also is a beautiful city to explore.
- Phillies: also a great park. I really enjoyed it there, other than the Jays played terrible. We had nice Phillies fans sitting around us, so that helped.
- Red Sox: uncomfortable seats, pretty ugly stadium and, one game, we had obnoxious Red Sox fans sitting around us, just lousy people, but then all teams have some lousy fans. But there is the history, and we enjoyed taking the tour of the stadium, even if the old guy leading it used the same joke from when the park was built. I got carded buying beer, so it has to rank as one of my favorite parks.
- Old Yankee Stadium: we went the last year of old Yankee stadium. Unlike Boston, we had very nice people sitting around us at each of the games there. Sat in the bleachers for one game and it seemed like a community of friends. But you could see why they wanted a new park. Concourses were narrow and ugly, there wasn't much space for concessions. Very much enjoyed the tour of the stadium. Got to sit in the dugout, look around monument park, and see the press box.
- Twins: Another really nice park. Good food, good beers, nice people. The park is downtown, so lots of choices of places to eat after. Another place where there were a lot of Blue Jays fans.
Of the minor league parks, I really liked Nat Bailey in Vancouver. We did find it funny that the park was fun, but very few people seemed to be paying any attention to the game. But it is a beautiful park. I liked the park in Dunedin too, but maybe because it was spring training and I was getting away from a lousy winter to enjoy some sun.
Which park is your favorite?