The final five ballparks that I have been too are all in the National League. Let's start with County Stadium in Milwaukee. I was there in the summer of 1998. At the time, Milwaukee was in the process of building their new stadium, Miller Park. I was in Chicago the previous day and drove to Milwaukee after the game in Chicago. So, I spent the night in Milwaukee. After I checked out of my hotel, I went to eat lunch at Burger King and then I was just going to look around the city until the 7:35 start time. So, I'm sitting in Burger King eating and reading the USA Today Sports section. It was about 12:15 and I'm looking at the baseball schedule for the day, and I notice that the game that I was planning on going to that evening was actually a 12:35 start. I had misread the schedule. Luckily, I was only a couple minutes from the stadium and I got there quickly. Once I got to the stadium, I was standing in line to get a ticket, and some guy came up to me and said he had an extra ticket, so he sold it to me. It turned out that my seat was in the third row right behind the home on-deck circle. You could literally hold a conversation with the on-deck batter. It was awesome. It was a way better seat than I would have gotten had I bought a ticket at the box office. The stadium itself was kind of old and run down at that time. The coolest feature of the stadium was a big beer mug behind the outfield wall that Bernie Brewer, the team's mascot, would slide into after Brewer home runs. They would also have their sausage races in between innings.
After leaving Milwaukee, I travelled to Colorado to visit my sister, who lives in Silverthorne, CO. After spending a few days there, I went down to Arizona to visit Bank One Ballpark, home of the Diamondbacks. The ballpark, now known as Chase Field, is one of the nicest that I have been to. It has a retractable roof, which can open for games in good weather. However, with Arizona's heat, the roof is closed for most games. There is a swimming pool beyond the home run fence that, for a large fee, fans can go swimming during the game. I did not partake in that. There was also a nightclub right outside the stadium gates that a lot of the players go to after the games. I went there and hung out for a while, but didn't notice any players. It was one of my favorite ballparks.
The next day, I headed towards Pennsylvania to start my journey home. On the way, I stopped in St. Louis to visit Busch Memorial Stadium. It has since been replaced by the "New" Busch Stadium. Busch Memorial was one of the stadiums in line with Three Rivers Stadium and Riverfront Stadium. It was a multi use stadium used for baseball and football. There was nothing special about this stadium, but one cool aspect of it was that you could see the St. Louis Arch behind the left field wall. Of all the ballparks I have been to, St. Louis probably has the best fans too. They are very knowledgeable and respectful of other teams fans.
A few years earlier, I visited my sister in Colorado with my parents. My dad and decided to get tickets to a game at Coors Field. This is the only stadium outside of Pittsburgh that I have been to with my dad. After getting lost driving to the stadium (my dad was driving), we had a great experience. We came the closest we have ever gotten to catching a foul ball, when a ball bounced off my dad's hands and landed in the row behind us.
The last stadium that I have been to is Turner Field in Atlanta. This is one of the newer ballparks in the country. However next baseball season is going to be the Braves last season at Turner Field. They will begin play in a new ballpark in the 2017 season. The best feature of this stadium was their monument park outside of the stadium. It had statues of many of the greats in Braves history, including Hank Aaron and Phil Niekro, as well as Ty Cobb, who was from Georgia.
This completes my tour of the ballparks I have been to. I hope to get to many more in the future. My dream is to visit every Major League park in one summer. Hopefully I'll be able to accomplish that one day. The one park that I hope to get to before it closes is Fenway Park in Boston.
