Great American Ball Park Review

The Great American Ball Park review is now up.  CLICK HERE to see it.

G R E A T   A M E R I C A N

B A L L   P A R K

August 11, 2011

Colorado Rockies v. Cincinnati Reds

12:35pm

Cincinnati 2, Colorado 1

WP:  Cueto (8-5, 1.94 ERA)

LP:  Chacin (9-9, 1.39 ERA)

S:  Cordero (22)

Attendance: 20,546

Time:  2:29

73 degrees, sunny

 

Great American Ball Park sits on the riverfront in Cincinnati, just across from the state of Kentucky.  It shares some things in common with Busch.  It’s downtown.  It’s close to the river.  It’s got red seats.  This park replaced Riverfront Stadium, one of the cookie cutter stadiums.  You can get here by car, foot, or you can choose to go by ferry across the Ohio River.  Honestly, it’s not that far a walk across the bridge, though.

The gates are scheduled to open 1-1/2 hours prior to game time.  I guess they were open then.  I-65 shutdown outside Lafayette, IN, so I missed all of BP and considered myself lucky to get there 30 minutes prior to the game.

The Atmosphere:  Not a lot.  Small crowd for the weather they had.  I know I was off a little because I was running behind, but I don’t think being relaxed and on time would have picked up the atmosphere much here.  Very quiet.

The Scorecard:  Walk up to the program guy.  “One scorecard.”  “Nope, I don’t sell those anymore, go to customer service.”  Huh?  They are there, and they are free.  Look just like Petco’s card.  Single sheet with scoring areas on either side.  I grabbed 2 so I could actually right on them.

The Hot Dog:  Well, this is confusing.  They sell Kosher here.  A BIG PLUS.  But, they also sell John Morrell.  They are all grilled at all stands.  I went up and asked for a hot dog thinking I would get a Kosher dog because that’s all I saw.  I didn’t know they had another brand, and that’s what I got.  I wasn’t in the mood to argue and my card had already been swiped so I gave it a shot.  Dud.  No taste.  And, it looks like it was grilled medium rare.  Put some burns on there.

The Broadcasters:  They did okay.  One guy had a half-way descent radio voice.  Not enough to crack the top 5, but they were good to listen to.

Entertainment:  Big scoreboard for your face.  The “hat dance” feature bowls of chili, because that’s what you want on a warm summer day.  They have 3 mascots.  No clue why.  The main one is “Redlegs”.  He has a baseball for a head.  Then there is a Betty Boop looking character.  Then there is something called “Gapper”--I have no idea what the inspiration for him was.  The mascots have a race at one point but it’s one of those computerized things on the scoreboard...weak.

The Scorecard.

Hot Dog.

The do have a number of authentic items in the main store.  I’m going to call back and try and get a ball from today.  Should be $25 which is pretty good.  They also have lineup cards for $50 which is not bad, and those are definitely unique...there’s just one from each dugout per game.

Views from Around the Park:

Other words:  Don’t make a special trip until the team improves.  Maybe people will starting coming then.

Gripes:  Nothing wrong with the stadium, just need some folks who wanna see baseball show up.

G R E A T   A M E R I C A N   B A L L   P A R K

C I N C I N N A T I ,   O H I O

H O M E   O F   T H E   R E D S

A well pitched, fast paced game on both sides.  2-1 score in under 2-1/2 hours.  Cueto bettered his ERA to under 2.  He can pitch, but as a fan of baseball he’s kind of hard to respect.  Brandon Phillips was not in the lineup.  Again, as a Cardinal fan, that made me happy!  You can easily google to find out more.

The Crowd:  Not into it.  In fact, they finally proved that the “Get Louder” meters are fake!  It starts out at ‘1’ and goes up to ’10’ as the crowd gets louder.  This one went to ’10’ without the crowd doing anything at all.  Bogus.  No scorekeepers.  No radios.  20,000 people on a crisp, clear day is sad.  Take off work and come to the game!

The Stadium:  The stadium is nice.  Easy to get around, though not so easy to find the main team store.  If you pay $17, you can park right under the stadium.  I did that since I was late.  Took an elevator up one floor and I was in.  Red seats.  The stadium itself is similar in style to Target.

During play, small vertical boards in right tell you the pitching stats and also keep up with the plays of the inning.

Redlegs.

Unique menu.  They serve up whoever they are playing...

City I took my boards in.  Made my hands sweat temporarily.  Not sure why the stand is named after Goodyear.

S T A T I S T I C S   U P D A T E

MLB Games Seen

15 of 31

Days

41 of 86

Driving Miles

10,027 of an estimated 18,735

States

20

Estimated Gallons of Gas

527 of an estimated 1,102

Hot Dogs Eaten

Too Many

Border Crossings

0 of 2

P R E D I C T I O N S   U P D A T E

(AFTER 14 OF 30 GAMES)

Runs

126 of 249

Hits

245 of 512

Errors

20 of 36

Home Runs

32 of 65

Doubles

49 of 101

Triples

6 of 10

Sacrifices (Hits & Flies)

12 of 31

Strikeouts

221 of 415

Walks

82 of 189

Home Team Wins

9 of 17

Complete Games

1 of 1

(Yep, the losing pitcher today pitched a complete game!)

Shutouts

1 of 2

Saves

8 of 15

Blown Saves

1 of 7

Balks

1 of 2

Wild Pitches

4 of 19

Hit Batters

4 of 18

Walk-offs

0 of 2

Stolen Bases

14 of 40

Caught Stealing

7 of 15

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

The Stadium 

1.  PETCO Park, San Diego

2.  AT&T Park, San Francisco

3.  Target Field, Minneapolis

4.  Wrigley Field, Chicago

5.  Safeco Field, Seattle

6.  Minute Maid Park, Houston

7.  Chase Field, Phoenix

8.  Coors Field, Denver

9.  Great American Ball Park, Cincinnati

10.  Rangers Ballpark in Arlington, Arlington

11.  Kauffman Stadium, Kansas City

12.  Dodger Stadium, Los Angeles

13.  Angel Stadium of Anaheim, Anaheim

14.  The Coliseum, Oakland

The Atmosphere

1.  AT&T Park, San Francisco

2.  Target Field, Minneapolis

3.  PETCO Park, San Diego

4.  Wrigley Field, Chicago

5.  Rangers Ballpark in Arlington, Arlington

The Crowd

1.  AT&T Park, San Francisco

2.  Target Field, Minneapolis

3.  Rangers Ballpark in Arlington, Arlington

4.  Dodger Stadium, Los Angeles

5.  Angel Stadium of Anaheim, Anaheim

The Scorecard

1.  Target Field, Minneapolis

2.  AT&T Park, San Francisco

3.  Rangers Ballpark in Arlington, Arlington

4.  Minute Maid Park, Houston

5.  Safeco Field, Seattle

The Hot Dog

1.  Coors Field, Denver

2.  AT&T Park, San Francisco

3.  Wrigley Field, Chicago

4.  Safeco Field, Seattle

5.  Target Field, Minneapolis

The Broadcasters

1.  Dodger Stadium, Los Angeles

2.  AT&T Park, San Francisco

3.  Target Field, Minneapolis

4.  The Coliseum, Oakland

5.  Wrigley Field, Chicago

They show the NL standings between innings.

They are all about riverboats here.

Gapper...

Home of the Bengals as seen from Great American.