The Hardball Times -- Woody Studenmund http://www.hardballtimes.com/main Baseball. Insight. Daily. en studes@hardballtimes.com Copyright 2013 2013-05-21T08:09:15+00:00 Reviewing Marlins Park http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/reviewing-marlins-park/ http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/reviewing-marlins-park/#When:09:04:15
Miami’s civic leaders must be elated with Marlins Park. It’s close to downtown Miami and Miami Beach, it has a retractable roof, and it looks and feels like a real baseball stadium (not a leftover football field). In other words, it’s everything Sun Life Stadium (also known as Joe Robbie, Pro Player, Dolphins, and Land Shark Stadium) wasn’t.

There are quite a few things to like about the newest major league ballpark:

1. At its core, Marlins Park is a sound baseball stadium. It’s reasonably small (capacity around 38,000) with a grass field, good sight lines, and large nicely-floored concourses that sparkle with modern art. The playing field is just about symmetrical, the seats are comfortable, and the stands themselves are in three tiers, with bleachers in right field and a huge glass window in left field that faces downtown.

2. The retractable roof itself looks massive, sort of like the one at Rogers Centre, and yet it can be opened or closed in only 13 minutes using $10 in electricity. The glass window in left is independently retractable, so if it’s raining but the temperature is nice, the roof can be closed while the window is left open, providing fresh air and rain protection, much like Safeco does. One fun “roof fact” is that if the wind is blowing in the same direction that the roof is moving, there is a regenerative drive system that actually generates more power than it uses!

3. The food variety is fantastic. The stadium of course offers the usual baseball fare, but then it adds gluten-free food, kosher food, Cuban sandwiches, pork sandwiches, and ceviche. To top it all off, it does something I’ve never seen before by having a stand sell a signature food representing the visiting team! Everything I tried was terrific, though I must admit that I didn’t get around to the ceviche.

4. My favorite part of the stadium is the Bobblehead Museum, a huge, glass-enclosed trophy stand that contains nearly 700 bobbleheads from around the majors. The museum has some of the rarest bobbleheads in the world, and new heads are bobbling in all the time. To top it all off, the entire museum shakes constantly, which makes the bobbleheads … well … bobble.

5. The field level concourse columns that support the upper deck are decorated with large photos of Marlins players, as is done in many other stadiums. However, Marlins Park goes one step further and arranges these photos in the order of that day’s starting lineup. Thus, there must be a Marlins employee who goes around the stadium changing fairly large permanent-looking photographs every day. I hate to think what happens when Ozzie Guillen makes a switch at the last minute!

6. Don’t forget the fish tanks! There are two 450-gallon tropical fish tanks on the ground level right behind home plate. They’re protected by bullet-resistant acrylic panels, but they still look as though they might shatter if hit by an Aroldis Chapman wild pitch. I have a 270-gallon tank myself and was very interested in seeing what kinds of fish the Marlins chose, but I didn’t have the right kind of ticket and therefore wasn’t allowed to get close enough to the tanks despite my claim to be writing a review of the stadium. From afar, the tanks look great!

7. And last, but certainly not least, Marlins Park is a LEED-certified Gold structure, making it one of the most energy-efficient sports stadiums in the world.

As you’d expect, there were a few things I didn’t like about the ballpark. The pastel green color scheme is jarring to a traditional baseball fan, but it fits in well with the essence of Miami, and it certainly catches your attention. That’s more than you can say about the playing field configuration and the design of the stands themselves, which are not distinctive in any way and might even become boring after a few years.

And then there’s the sculpture. Smack dab in left-center field is a wildly pastel-hued vision of marlins, seagulls, flamingos, and flowers that jumps to life when a Marlin batter hits a homer. The seagulls and marlins rotate, the flowers appear to vibrate, and the whole sculpture seems to light up and take on a life of its own.

Now, Bill Veeck is one of my idols, but I have to tell you that only the fake rocks and waterfall in left field in Anaheim (uh, Angel Stadium in Los Angeles of Anaheim) come close to being as odd as Miami’s sculpture. I can’t quite put my finger on the reason, but in my opinion, it doesn’t work.

If we try to put everything into perspective, how does Miami’s new stadium stack up with the rest of the majors? Well, the park is a real move up for Miami, but the competition is so tough that Marlins Park doesn’t make the top half of my list, much less the top 10.

However, that’s less an indictment of Marlins Park than it is praise for the current crop of ballparks. This is the golden age of baseball stadiums, and virtually every major league franchise has an excellent place in which to watch games. At this point, there are only two teams (Tampa Bay and Oakland) that need new stadiums, an all-time low, so it might be awhile before I write my next review.

Speaking of my top 10, I’ve visited half of them within the last couple of years, and I’ve made a couple of revisions. Here’s my list:

1. San Francisco (AT&T)
2. Boston (Fenway)
3. Chicago NL (Wrigley)
4. Pittsburgh (PNC)
5. Seattle (Safeco)
6. Baltimore (Camden Yards)
7. Colorado (Coors)
8. New York AL (Yankee Stadium)
9. Los Angeles (Dodger Stadium)
10. Minnesota (Target)

Click here to learn about THT's download subscriptions.]]> Woody Studenmund 2012-08-27T09:04:15+00:00 Reviewing Target Field and Nationals Park http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/reviewing-target-field-and-nationals-park/ http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/reviewing-target-field-and-nationals-park/#When:10:45:15 reviewing the newest ballparks for the Hardball Times. This year I was delighted to get up to date by seeing games at Minnesota’s Target Field (which just opened) and Washington’s Nationals Park (which opened in 2008). The two stadiums are wonderful civic accomplishments, and they’re easily the best ballparks in the histories of the respective cities.

Target Field is an absolute delight that is perhaps the most beautiful baseball stadium to open since 2001, when Pittsburgh’s PNC Park was completed. Target is a moderately sized (42,000) ballpark that manages to achieve a friendly and welcoming feel without having to resort to any gimmicks other than some extremely well-done exhibits and photos. The ballpark has three levels of seating behind home plate, sports a mini-green-monster wall in right field, and has enough kinks in the outfield walls to keep doubles interesting.

The sight lines are very good, the colors are “Wrigley” green and blue, the building has beautiful stone touches, and there’s a nice view of downtown over the right field wall that positively glows when the sun sets. To top things off, the employees are cheerful and the food is very good, though I have to admit that I didn’t try the “Batter Dipped Walleye” or the “Pork Chop on a Stick.”

Target is environmentally friendly in a variety of ways. It’s a LEEDS Silver-certified building, and it houses a metro station, right at the ballpark, for the Hiawatha light rail line that runs directly to the airport and the Mall of America. Just as importantly, the stadium is in downtown Minneapolis, allowing people to walk to games from work or from their hotels, much as you can at Coors Field.

Perhaps the key to the success of Target Field, besides its location, is its welcoming and yet innovative architecture. For example, there are no light standards on top of the stands; instead, the lights are built into the roof, creating a continuous glow from foul pole to foul pole. There’s a stack of glass-enclosed seating and restaurants out by the left-field foul pole that’s a bit like a modern version of the Western Metal Supply Co. at Petco, and there’s a beautiful multi-storied, glass-walled season ticket-holder club that comes to a sharp point out by the right-field foul pole.

This glass point is aimed at perhaps the most unusual bleachers I’ve ever seen. The bleachers are extremely steep, almost surely steeper than the upper decks at US Cellular or the old Municipal Stadium in Cleveland. In addition, the bleachers are uneven in height, with about twice as many rows of seats in center field as there are in right center, giving the entire bleacher section a decided tilt to the right (perhaps to offset the state’s political orientation).

Despite all this praise, Target Field isn’t perfect. The scoreboard is a bit disappointing, in particular because the HD video screen seems small by today’s standards and also because useful information is spread around on different scoreboards rather than being collected in one easy-to-find location. Another problem is that the home bullpen is right behind the visiting bullpen and there’s not much of an elevation difference between the bullpens. As a result, it’s almost impossible to figure out who is warming up for the Twins unless you’re familiar with the throwing motion of the pitcher.

I haven’t seen any statistics yet, but my guess is that the stadium is a bit too pitcher-friendly for balanced play, given that it has a deep left field and that aforementioned high wall in right. Finally, but perhaps most importantly, Target Field is not a domed stadium, and we’re talking about Minnesota here! I certainly wouldn’t want to be in the park for a night game at the end of October, when the average daytime high temperature is 40 degrees!

These are very minor points, however. The rest of Target Field is so superb that I’m confident that Twins fans will love their new stadium for decades to come. Well done!

Nationals Park has already earned a very favorable reputation as a great place to watch a ballgame, and the stadium has an aura of success about it that Nationals fans hope soon will be matched by similar success on the field. To start with, Nationals Park shares a number of Target Field’s strengths. The two stadiums are about the same size, are very near public transportation, and are LEEDS-certified Silver.

However, Nationals Park has a number of superb attributes that set it apart. In particular, the sight lines are simply wonderful throughout the stadium, and the seats are quite close to the field. As nearly as I could tell, there’s not a bad seat in the house! In addition, the scoreboard is the best I’ve ever seen. The HD screen is huge (the second-largest in baseball), and the use of photos, replays, and statistics is exceptional. The Nationals certainly deserve accolades for their superb scoreboard. Also worthy of praise is the center field entryway, which brings fans from the Metro station and parking into the ballpark through a welcoming funnel of restaurants, statues, ticket booths, mascots, and a huge “W” hat.

The stadium itself is a three-tiered park that uses a couple of interesting clumps of seats in the outfield to avoid being symmetrical. The structure is a sight for sore eyes, with a color scheme that includes a lot of “Fenway” green and a bit of beautiful stonework behind home plate. The bullpens are split, one in right and one in left, and run parallel to the outfield wall. Perhaps the most interesting facet of the stadium is a tall “stacked” restaurant in center field that provides an excellent view of the game while also being close to the Metro and parking.

Speaking of restaurants, the food was very good, particularly at two extremely popular chili outlets and at two impressive “private” clubs. One of these clubs sports a fantastic photographic history of U.S. presidents throwing out the first ball and even includes the seat that Jack Kennedy sat in after he did so. I also was impressed with the employees. We arrived at the stadium from the center-field side, but our tickets were at “will call” on the home-plate side. The employee we asked for directions, a gentleman named Mike Miller, actually walked us through the stadium and out the other side to save us time and make sure that we got to the right place!

While Nationals Park has a few weaknesses, many of these are fixable. For example, as good as the scoreboard is, it can’t be seen from some of the seats, but this could be fixed by building a good auxiliary scoreboard. The press box is the highest in the majors, and I’ve heard announcers complaining on air about this height. However, the Nationals mention the height of the press box positively on their website, so they’ve already acted to offset the problem as best they can.

Perhaps the most important “fixable” problem is that the surrounding area (the Navy Yard district) isn’t great, and the outside of the stadium behind home plate has a very bleak feel to it. Both of these problems could be fixed by a joint district/team effort to improve the neighborhood, particularly as the economy picks back up.

And then there’s the missed opportunity. Just behind the left-field foul pole is one of the most powerful sights in our country, the dome of the Capitol Building. The dome is lovely during the day, but at night it’s literally breath-taking. It’s very sad to realize that the creators of Nationals Park had the opportunity to have the Capitol Dome viewable from a majority of the stadium’s seats and didn’t move heaven and earth to get that view.

What would it have taken? Well, I’m not an architect, but it probably would have involved rotating the stadium counterclockwise perhaps 20 degrees (causing some sun problems), reducing the height of the stands in left field, and buying up some buildings between the stadium and the dome (perhaps to convert to parking lots) to protect the view. I admit that this would have cost millions of dollars and might have caused a few fly balls to get lost in the sun now and then, but the resulting stadium would have been spectacular. Here was a chance to create an iconic stadium view, on par with the one in San Francisco, and the opportunity was lost.

This lost opportunity aside, the rest of the problems I mention are fixable, so with proper management, Nationals Park is going to get better and better as time goes along. Since the stadium already is a pretty terrific place to watch a ballgame, it’s clear that the District and the Nationals have a real winner on their hands that will provide an enjoyable fan experience for decades to come.

How do these two ballparks compare to the 28 others? Both easily are in the top half of MLB stadiums, and Target Field sneaks into my top 10, helped in part by my decision to drop my beloved Dodger Stadium out of the top 10 until the McCourts follow through with their promised improvements. I should point out, however, that a stadium doesn’t need to be in my top ten to be outstanding. With just three exceptions, every MLB ballpark is new or recently renovated and provides an extremely enjoyable fan experience. With Florida due to open a new stadium in 2012, baseball fans soon will have only two stadiums (Tampa Bay and Oakland) to complain about.

That said, my personal top 10 is:

1. San Francisco (AT+T)
2. Seattle (Safeco)
3. Boston (Fenway)
4. Chicago NL (Wrigley)
5. Pittsburgh (PNC)
6. Baltimore (Camden Yards)
7. Colorado (Coors)
8. Cleveland (Progressive)
9. New York AL (Yankee Stadium)
10. Minnesota (Target)

Click here to learn about THT's download subscriptions.]]> Woody Studenmund 2010-08-12T10:45:15+00:00 New York’s new ballparks http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/new-yorks-new-ballparks/ http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/new-yorks-new-ballparks/#When:05:04:15 to report on new stadiums in their first year, whether or not that happens to be convenient. So it was that I found myself flying coast to coast (and back two days later) with the express purpose of visiting New York’s two new ballparks.

It wasn’t exactly hardship duty, however, as the two new stadiums are absolute gems. In the same way that dogs and their owners sometimes look like each other, the two new stadiums almost perfectly mirror the franchises and the fans that they serve. The new Yankee Stadium is big, bold, impressive and expensive, and the new Citi Field is smaller, warmer, quirkier and a fun place to watch a game.

When I was young, I went to many games at the old Yankee Stadium, so I was expecting something special in the new version, and I wasn’t disappointed. The new Yankee Stadium is big. Big in every way (except perhaps in outfield dimensions). The “Yankee Stadium” signs are gigantic, the entry concourses are huge, the seats are roomy, and the curved HD Diamond Vision in center field is enormous. The stadium amenities continue this trend, as the stores, historical displays and bathrooms are plentiful and very high in quality. Perhaps best of all (after flying across the country, anyway) the padding on the seats was luxurious. We were reasonably far from home plate, but the padding was as comfortable as I’d experienced in any seat in any stadium.

The signage also sends the message that you’re at an important and impressive building. There’s a crossed blue “NY” everywhere you look, from the staff uniforms to the hot dog boxes, and even the waxed paper wrapper inside the hot dog boxes is clearly emblazoned with the Yankee logo. The food was terrific, with help from high quality brands like Boar’s Head, Johnny Rocket, Nathan’s and Carvel. In addition, the employees are off the charts in terms of their attitude and effort, right down to a grounds crew that danced to “YMCA” while dragging the infield between innings. All in all, Yankee Stadium is a monument to success, and it’s a ballpark that the Yankees and their fans will identify with and be proud of for decades to come.

No one is perfect, however, and that applies to even the most expensive baseball stadium in history. The most noticeable flaw is that the areas set aside to honor the many Yankees retired numbers and the many Yankees World Series victories are embarrassingly small and low in quality. It appears as though someone designed a great stadium and then, as an afterthought, remembered to include a display of retired numbers and World Series championships. Less importantly, the “out of town” scoreboard leaves much to be desired, as it shows only four games at a time and then still is missing some important details.

These problems probably can be fixed over the winter, but I’m not so sure it’ll be easy to fix the other major flaw, the propensity of the new Yankee Stadium to yield home run after home run after home run. Since the outfield dimensions are the same as the old Yankee Stadium, most people have blamed “unusual wind patterns” for the round-trip explosion, but a second factor that I haven’t heard mentioned is that the stands are significantly closer to home plate than in the old Stadium. Less foul territory means fewer foul outs, which means more homers. Just ask the folks at Dodger Stadium.

But surely these minor (and mainly fixable) problems don’t stop the new Yankee Stadium from being a major success. In my opinion, Yankee Stadium is a ballpark to seek out and enjoy. It’s a special place for a special franchise, and I’d recommend that every baseball fan, even the so-called “Yankee haters,” make a point to visit the Stadium.

After my experience at Yankee Stadium, I was almost worried that Citi Field would be anticlimactic, but I should have known better. Just as Yankee Stadium is perfect for its big, brash and rich franchise, so too is Citi Field just right for the enthusiastic yet knowledgeable and sarcastic yet self-effacing Mets and their fans.

Citi Field is a haven for a devotee of “old-time” baseball, as it feels like a combination of Ebbets Field and Citizens Bank Park. Citi’s exteriors are warm, with rounded exteriors and well-weathered brick facings, and the entry rotunda, named for Jackie Robinson, makes entering the stadium feel like you’re going into a university lecture hall or a national monument.

The field itself is exceptionally well-designed. The stands rise up quickly behind home plate, meaning that a large majority of the ballpark’s seats are much closer to home plate than in the average stadium. When you combine this closeness with the small capacity of Citi Field, you end up with a cozy, welcoming ballpark that makes you feel right at home. The outfield has a number of lovable quirks, from small pointed sections of seats in both right and left fields to a “cut out” in right center field that seems sure to produce more than its share of triples. The food is good, and there are some great individual eateries, particularly out in a center field festival of food and fun activities. The staff is upbeat and welcoming, with none of the “whadda want” attitude that I’d grown up with at Shea.

While the Diamond Vision screen is only average in size, Citi Field makes up for that with a terrific “out of town” scoreboard high up in left field. The scoreboard has the traditional green and white look of Wrigley or Fenway, but it keeps fans up to date on all the action in the majors by tracking the score, outs, on base-situation, and pitchers of every game simultaneously. The scoreboard is so good that my son was able to follow his favorite team’s game virtually pitch by pitch while sitting in a ballpark 3,000 miles away.

As you’d expect, there are a couple of problems with Citi Field. The visiting bullpen is behind the Mets bullpen and isn’t elevated, so you can’t see who is warming up. In addition, the facings of the TV/press box and some of the outfield areas don’t use the same warm brick that the rest of the stadium features, so the designers missed a real opportunity to upgrade the feel of the stadium at a very low additional cost. Top it all off, whether by design or forced on the Mets by the recession, there is more advertising in the Citi Field stands than any ballpark I can remember.

And then, of course, there’s LaGuardia. Like Shea Stadium before it, Citi Field is directly in the flight path of airplane after airplane, contributing noise and distraction to a setting that otherwise might have seemed pastoral. I suppose that it’s unfair to criticize Citi Field for its location, but once you’ve been to San Francisco or Pittsburgh, it’s hard to ignore location as a major factor in a ballpark’s attractiveness.

Airplanes and bullpens are minor factors, however, when you compare them to the wonderful, enjoyable and welcoming place that is Citi Field. And when you think that it was built for something like half the cost of the new Yankee Stadium, it doesn’t take long to realize that Citi Field is as cost-effective as it is enjoyable. If I were a Mest fan (and I’ve got a close relative who is), I’d consider the upgrade from Shea to Citi a gift from the heavens!

So which do I like better? If I were going to watch just one game, I’d pick Citi Field. I love the cozy atmosphere and the “old time” feel of the place. In the long run, however, my guess is that Yankee Stadium will wear better and will become the more important ballpark, especially if the Yankees management chooses to make the changes that I’ve suggested.

At this point in my reviews, I usually rank all 30 ballparks, but that doesn’t seem fair any more. There are so many wonderful new stadiums in baseball that it’d be an insult to a terrific ballpark like the new Busch to rank it in the bottom third. After all, except for four stadiums (Minnesota, Tampa Bay, Florida and Oakland, but who’s counting?), every major league ballpark is simply and purely a delightful place to watch a game. Forty years from now, this may well be called the age of new stadiums, because we certainly are blessed.

So, instead of ranking all 30, I’ll limit myself to my personal top 10:

1. San Francisco (AT+T)
2. Seattle (SafeCo)
3. Boston (Fenway)
4. Chicago (Wrigley)
5. Baltimore (Camden Yards)
6. Pittsburgh (PNC)
7. Los Angeles (Dodger Stadium)
8. Colorado (Coors)
9. Cleveland (Progressive)
10. New York (Yankee Stadium)

Click here to learn about THT's download subscriptions.]]> Woody Studenmund 2009-09-11T05:04:15+00:00 Visiting the New Ballparks http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/visiting-the-new-ballparks/ http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/visiting-the-new-ballparks/#When:04:27:15 I've mentioned my brother before. I didn't mention that he has made it a point of having visited every major league ballpark for nearly 30 years. This year, he added the two newest ballparks to his collection, and he's graciously submitted his review of them to THT. Enjoy!

- Dave

Visiting the 2004 New Baseball Stadiums

Since one of my hobbies is visiting every major league baseball stadium, this is a great time of the year. I first completed my “collection” in 1975 or so, and I’ve kept up to date ever since. I just returned from games at PetCo Park in San Diego and Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia, and I thought you might be interested in my evaluations of the new stadiums.

PetCo is a true gem. Set in the Gaslamp district just two blocks from San Diego bay, PetCo is so close to the surrounding downtown hotels, restaurants, and bars that it even has a bridge from the second deck to the lobby of the Omni Hotel next door. The stadium itself is small (low 40,000s in capacity) but unique.

The outside is sheathed in a glowing tan rock facade that is quite different from anything I’ve seen. In addition, the structure of the upper decks at PetCo isn’t continuous -- it’s almost like three different stadiums broken up by fairly tall (and wide) light towers behind first and third. The stands actually come to a halt for these towers, and it’s impossible for a fan to walk from one section to another. I’ve never seen anything like it.

Finally, and most endearingly, the stadium was built around a century-old brick structure, Western Metal Supply. It’s a great idea. You can walk from new to old without a hitch, a portion of the old building is in fair territory, and each floor of the factory has been converted to a luxury suite, complete with an overhanging deck. My guess is that the Western Metal Supply building will become Petco’s signature feature, and deservedly so.

The field itself is free from gimmicks except for a fun “porch” in right field that juts out just left of the foul pole and then scoots abruptly back not long after. You can expect a ton of triples (off the odd angles) and some extra homers to dead right, but, except for that, the stadium looks to be a pitchers’ park. Not only are the power alleys fairly deep, but the sea air seems to hold the ball up.

The amenities, including the food, in the stadium are good but not great, but all the other basics are fantastic. The sight lines are superb (though some seats aren’t angled quite right), and the two upper decks are very close to the field and very steep. As a result, everyone in the ballpark (including those in the upper decks) feels close to the game. Given that, and given that the grass is real and the scoreboards are numerous, the overall feel is quite similar to Coors or the Jake. It’s a blast!

Nothing is perfect, so it won’t surprise you that PetCo has a couple of weaknesses, at least one of which really can’t be fixed. What you notice first is a shortage of bathrooms. I’ve been to many parks where I’ve seen lines outside of women’s rooms, and I’ve even been to a couple where I’ve seen lines outside of men’s rooms around the 7th inning, so I’m not expecting perfection here. However, Petco is so short of bathrooms (and the bathrooms have so few fixtures) that there seemed to be long lines outside every men’s room during every inning.

A second weakness is that it may well be too much of a pitchers’ park. Time and time again, the deep power alleys combined with the moist, heavy sea air to convert extra base hits into flyouts. Whether this will change when the weather heats up is questionable, since the bay is so close.

The final and most important drawback to the park is that it doesn’t take advantage of its location. If you’re sitting in the stadium, you really have no idea that you’re right next to a beautiful bay. When you walk to your car, you see craggy Point Loma, the soaring Coronado bridge, the huge aircraft carriers at the naval airbase, and hundreds of sailboats, but in the stadium, you might as well be landlocked. I understand that pointing the stadium at the bay might have caused some sun problems for someone, but it’s still a shame to have had a chance to rival PacBell (uh, SBC) and to have dropped the ball.

Even given these drawbacks, however, PetCo is a smashing success. It’s bound to provide a wonderful venue for the Padres long after the excitement of a new stadium is gone.

Eight days after I attended opening day in PetCo, I was at the first night game ever in Philadelphia’s Citizens Bank Park, and I was immediately struck by a number of parallels between the two stadiums. They’re quite similar in seating capacity, they avoid glitzy gimmicks, and they’ve got a cozy, “high quality” look to them. After that, however, some interesting differences grab your attention.

Citizens Bank Park is just yards away from a demolished Vet, but it’s light years away in terms of quality. The outside of the new stadium is all brick, the insides are painted a Fenway green, and the seats are all deep blue. The seats are comfortable and well-angled, and there’s a metal “Phillies” logo at the end of each row of seats. The result is a rich, textured, five-tiered “old time stadium” that grows on you without getting “old.” It’s clearly a fan’s ballpark!

Sitting behind home plate, five magnificent attractions are all in view simultaneously. In left is perhaps the best scoreboard in baseball, rising high into the night with a huge script “Phillies” logo on top. Even better, the “diamond vision” portion of the scoreboard is the clearest I’ve ever seen -- imagine a digital image four times the size of the Dodger Stadium scoreboard, and you’ll be about right. At times, I was tempted to watch the game on the scoreboard rather than directly … that’s how unbelievable it was!

Off in center are the bullpens, situated side by side at different levels, so that they appear to be stacked on top of one another if viewed from home plate. In right center, the stands approach the field in a series of sharp angles (one on each of three levels) that narrow to a point, one seat wide, from which the occupant is literally surrounded by baseball … the field in front and the bullpen behind.

Behind all this is a food court, aptly named for Richie Ashburn, that outdoes them all (with the possible exception of Atlanta) with wonderful BBQ from “Bull Luzinski” (see Boog Powell), foot-long hot dogs, Philly cheesesteaks, and various entertainments. Finally, off in right field, there’s a huge neon “Liberty Bell” that swings and “bongs” whenever a Phillie hits a homer. All in all, it’s one spectacular outfield.

I suppose that’s it’s picky to point out that the stadium was opened before it was complete, so that the scoreboard wasn’t fully ready and the floors had a distinctly unfinished and scruffy look to them. And it’s obviously unfair to quote that architectural reviewer who derided the park for looking as if it were in a suburban mall. Considering that Citizens Bank Park is in a huge parking lot in South Philly, a suburban mall might actually be a good thing!

These quibbles aside, I do have two criticisms of the ballpark. First, the field level has too many seats and the slope of the aisles is too shallow; this results in some difficult sight lines and frequent “Siddown ya jerk” calls from behind. In addition, the extra seats mean that all the upper decks are too far from the field.

Second, as spunky as the outfield is, the regular stands and the field itself are almost completely lacking in individuality. I understand that we go to a stadium to watch the game, and I hate those gimmicks in Enron/MinuteMaid, but at least one quirk would have made things a bit more fun, no?

All that said, what the fans in Philadelphia have is one of the best new ballparks built to date. My guess is that fans will love this park as they loved Shibe … a great and personal place to watch the Phils.

Which new stadium, you ask, do I like better? Well, I like the two almost equally, but if I had to pick one (which I obviously do), I’d rank Citizens Bank a hair ahead of PetCo. Both, however, are superb ballparks. In comparison to the rest of the new major league stadiums, they fit nicely between the true brilliance that thrives in San Francisco and Pittsburgh and the acceptable new parks that have been built in Milwaukee and Detroit.

My current rankings (with apologies to your favorite) are:
1.	SBC (San Francisco)
2.	Safeco (Seattle)
3.	Wrigley (Chicago Cubs)
4.	Camden Yards (Baltimore)
5.	Fenway (Boston)
6.	PNC (Pittsburgh)
7.	Jacobs (Cleveland)
8.	Coors (Colorado)
9.	Dodger Stadium (LA)
10.	Yankee Stadium (NY)
11.	Citizens Bank (Philadelphia)
12.	PetCo (San Diego)
13.	The Great American Ballpark (Cincinnati)
14.	Kaufman (Kansas City)
15.	Skydome (Toronto)
16.	Turner (Atlanta)
17.	Minute Maid (Houston)
18.	The BOB (Arizona)
19.	Comerica (Detroit)
20.	Angels Stadium (Anaheim)
21.	Miller (Milwaukee)
22.	The Ballpark (Texas)
23.	Busch (St. Louis)
24.	Comiskey (Chicago Sox)
25.	Network (Oakland)
26.	Metrodome (Minnesota)
27.	Shea (NY Mets)
28.	Pro Player (Florida)
29.	Olympic (Montreal)
30.	Tropicana (Tampa Bay)
That should do it for this year. I note with joy that only six unimproved old ballparks remain in the majors and that the Expos should be playing in a new stadium by next year.

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