Alex's Baseball Across America: Coors Field Review

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C O O R S F I E L D

August 5, 2011

Washington Nationals v. Colorado Rockies

6:40pm

Washington 5, Colorado 3

WP: Zimmermann (7-9, 3.12 ERA)

LP: Nicasio (4-4, 4.14 ERA)

S: Storen (28)

Attendance: 35,034

Time: 3:28

86 degrees, partly cloudy

Coors Field has been around since 1993. During construction, they found several dinosaur fossils, including a 7-foot long triceratops skull. It has a reputation as a homerun-friendly park. They knew this would be the case when the built it, so the outfield is huge. The lines are 347ft and 350ft. For reference, Fenway is 302ft to right. The average is somewhere in the 330s. Given the large outfield, it’s also known for giving up a lot of doubles. Coors Field sits at the edge of downtown and has a fair number of restaurants and bars across the street.

The website said the gates opened 2 hours prior to game time, but they actually gave you an extra 10 minutes. Yee haw! The extra time is only good if you are going to sit in the sun and take in BP, though. I chose not to because it was just too hot. They only open the outfield portion. You can’t go anywhere else...field box, upper deck, team store...you’re stuck. They rest of the stadium opens up 30 minutes later. Not a huge deal, but open ‘er up! The fans are there, and the ushers are all there just sitting around.

The Atmosphere: Good place for baseball, but the atmosphere is offset some by the team’s performance. I wish it was 2007 when the stormed into the playoffs and to the World Series. This place has the nicest staff of any stadium I’ve been to. I wonder if they’ve been “Disney trained”. They were almost overly courteous...I thought they’d try to offer me a timeshare when the game was over, but they didn’t.

The Scorecard: Exhausting! Holy Cow! The good: They do have a real scorecard. Bi-fold. $1.50. The bad: They want you to keep up with everything. The boxes are way too detailed for me. Balls. Strikes. Out numbers. A dugout looking thing in the corner where you are suppose to record the play, as oppose to on the diamond. I’m working on a Scorekeepers Bill of Rights, and one of the rights is to have a blank square. Everyone keeps score different and a blank square lets you do whatever you want to.

The Hot Dog: To the top spot! Think hard and you can guess the name. “Rockies Dog”. If you couldn’t figure that one out, you haven’t been paying attention. The STANDARD hot dog is a KOSHER DOG! Winner! Not only that, the STANDARD dog is GRILLED and a FOOT LONG. I went to a cart to get mine, but it’s even grilled at the standard concession places. They offer onions, and my only complaint is that they weren’t grilled enough. I still managed to eat them all, though. $6.25. They’ve set the bar for now. It’s no different than any other Kosher dog, but when that’s your only choice, you can’t go wrong! They do have stands called “Extreme Dogs” where you can get them dressed several different ways.

The Broadcasters: Descent. Not classic radio voices. Also, they made multiple mistakes. The announcer called an early play a hit, when it was an error and scored as such. It was later reversed (wrongly, in my opinion). One guy fouled a ball off and it hit him. The player claimed to have been hit. The ump appealed and the clear ruling was a strike. The announcer said he was getting to take his base. Huh? Pay attention, dude. Later on, Tulo got his second hit. He said that made him 2-for-4, when he was really 2-for-3...he walked once! There was a complicated fielder’s choice in the game that I scored 1-5-6-1. How did he score it? I don’t know. He never said! Shannon always gives you the official ruling if there’s a question.

Entertainment: Different. A pony cab race on the screen. The “hat dance” was done with salon chairs. I guess Denver is all about hair. Their mascot is Dinger. He’s a dinosaur. That makes some since since they found fossils on the site. At one point, though, he was wearing a jersey and in the place where the name goes it said “Sports Authority”. Are you kidding? Using the mascot as a billboard. First time I’ve seen that.

The Scorecard.

Kosher City!

No authentic items here.

Views from Around the Park:

Other words: Place to go for a guaranteed great dog! Just don’t go if there’s a chance for a snow-out.

Gripes: Clean up the scorecard.

S T A T I S T I C S U P D A T E

MLB Games Seen

11 of 31

Days

35 of 86

Driving Miles

8,347.4 of an estimated 18,735

(my estimation at this point in the trip was 8,350...HA!)

Estimated Gallons of Gas

439 of an estimated 1,102

Hot Dogs Eaten

10 of 30

States

13 of ? (I screwed this up by going to Yellowstone...

I’ll just keep count from now on)

Border Crossings

0 of 2

P R E D I C T I O N S U P D A T E

(AFTER 10 OF 30 GAMES)

Runs

96 of 249

(current pace: 288)

Hits

176 of 512

(current pace: 528)

Errors

14 of 36

(current pace: 42)

Home Runs

23 of 65

(current pace: 69)

Doubles

31 of 101

(current pace: 93)

Triples

5 of 10

(current pace: 15)

Sacrifices (Hits & Flies)

9 of 31

(current pace: 27)

Strikeouts

157 of 415

(current pace: 471)

Walks

65 of 189

(current pace: 195)

Home Team Wins

7 of 17

(current pace: 21)

Complete Games

0 of 1

Shutouts

1 of 2

Saves

5 of 15

(current pace: 15)

Blown Saves

0 of 7

(current pace: 0!)

Balks

1 of 2

(current pace: 3)

Wild Pitches

4 of 19

(current pace: 12)

Hit Batters

3 of 18

(current pace: 9)

Walk-offs

0 of 2

(current pace: 0)

Stolen Bases

13 of 40

(current pace: 39)

Caught Stealing

4 of 15

(current pace: 12)

Ejections

1 of 4

Smallest Crowd

18,640

The Coliseum, Oakland

July 27th, Tampa Bay v. Oakland

Largest Crowd

44,111

Angel Stadium of Anaheim, Anaheim

July 9th, Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim v. Seattle

B A L L P A R K R A N K I N G S

I’m limiting this to the Top 5,

so some places will start to drop off.

I’ll keep a running tab on “The Stadium”, however.

The Stadium

1. PETCO Park, San Diego

2. AT&T Park, San Francisco

3. Safeco Field, Seattle

4. Minute Maid Park, Houston

5. Chase Field, Phoenix

6. Coors Field, Denver

7. Rangers Ballpark in Arlington, Arlington

8. Dodger Stadium, Los Angeles

9. Angel Stadium of Anaheim, Anaheim

10. The Coliseum, Oakland

The Atmosphere

1. AT&T Park, San Francisco

2. PETCO Park, San Diego

3. Rangers Ballpark in Arlington, Arlington

4. Safeco Field, Seattle

5. Angel Stadium of Anaheim, Anaheim

The Crowd

1. AT&T Park, San Francisco

2. Rangers Ballpark in Arlington, Arlington

3. Dodger Stadium, Los Angeles

4. Angel Stadium of Anaheim, Anaheim

5. PETCO Park, San Diego

The Scorecard

1. AT&T Park, San Francisco

2. Rangers Ballpark in Arlington, Arlington

3. Minute Maid Park, Houston

4. Safeco Field, Seattle

5. Coors Field, Denver (for now)

The Hot Dog

1. Coors Field, Denver

2. AT&T Park, San Francisco

3. Safeco Field, Seattle

4. Minute Maid Park, Houston

5. Chase Field, Phoenix

The Broadcasters

1. Dodger Stadium, Los Angeles

2. AT&T Park, San Francisco

3. The Coliseum, Oakland

4. Safeco Field, Seattle

5. Angel Stadium of Anaheim, Anaheim

C O O R S F I E L D

D E N V E R , C O L O R A D O

H O M E O F T H E R O C K I E S

This game seemed like an American League game. Almost 3-1/2 hours long. Rockies starter Juan Nicasio got nailed on a line-drive in the second inning and ended up getting carted off. Apparently, he ended up breaking C-1 and he’s had surgery to repair it. Crazy. The Nationals took an early lead, the Rockies came back, but the Nats ended up hanging on.

The Crowd: Good size crowd given how the team is doing. Again, though, the “Get Loud” stuff on the scoreboard drives me nuts. I’m sure it’s a rule that they can’t have that on when the ball is in play, so it gets turned off, and the crowd shuts-up...right when they should be getting loud. Saw no radios. Saw no one keeping score.

The Stadium: Good stadium. Typical retro-style ballpark. There’s a couple rows of seats painted a different color than the rest indicating 5,280 feet. They have “Fantasy Broadcast”--I did this back in the early 1990s with a friend at old Busch. They have some tree/water feature in centerfield. I really don’t get those. They have a set of bleachers high in center called “The Rockpile”. Genuine cheap seats! $1 to $4.25!

The manual out-of-town board in right.

The Rockpile.

Mile High.

When do you have time to eat your hot dog?

I had not eaten all day, so I had a pizza, too. It was great. They make it right in front of you. Of note, I went to a game here last year. I ate in the LoDo area before the game so I never even paid attention to the hot dogs!