US Cellular Field (Chicago White Sox)

Chicago

  

Ballpark Assessment

Category Score (0 to 10)					TOTAL (0 to 50)
Location	Atmosphere	Food	Exterior Architecture	Interior Architecture
6	6	7	7	7	33

US Cellular Field is a middle of the pack stadium.  Average.  Although the stadium is accessible by the "L" (which is nice), there isn't much of an atmosphere outside of the turnstiles to speak of (except for a few large parking lots and the Dan Ryan).  Inside the turnstiles, the steel truss construction that supports the flood lights in the outfield limits the openness of the stadium.

On a more positive note, the stadium is very family friendly.  There are ton of baseball-related games to play throughout.  Also, I will say that the food is nothing to sneeze at.  There is good variety throughout and plenty of healthy options to choose from.

Game Comments (courtesy of MLB.com)

Game Date: July 30, 2010

Attendance: 29,431

Weather: 74 degrees F, cloudy

Length of Game: 2 hours, 34 minutes
Final Score: Chicago White Sox 6, Oakland Athletics 1

The White Sox extended their winning streak to five games and their home winning streak to 12 with a victory over the A's. Righty Lucas Harrell's Major League debut started shaky, but he worked through it for the win.

Stories from the Road
Chicago = Awesome!  After work on Thursday, I drove to Chicago with a colleague who was nice enough to let me crash at his place.  On Friday, I worked from the Chicago office, which is right next to the landmark building in Chicago, Willis Tower (formerly known as the Sears Tower).  After taking my slightly obligatory photo in front of Willis Tower, I went back to my colleague's place and got ready for the White Sox game.  I ended up going to the game with my colleague and his wife, who works at the same firm.  We sat with the MBA interns who had a section of seats courtesy of the firm.

It was a pretty relaxed couple of days in the Windy City, and it was great to experience the city as if I (sort of) lived there (going to work, etc.).  Definitely a great city with a lot to offer.

Oakland Colesium (Oakland Athletics)

Oakland

  

  

San Francisco

   

Ballpark Assessment

Category Score (0 to 10)					TOTAL (0 to 50)
Location	Atmosphere	Food	Exterior Architecture	Interior Architecture
6	5	3	3	2	19

Wow, horrible.  The A's share Oakland Colesium with the Raiders, and it is clear that the stadium was designed for the NFL team.  The stadium is sized to hold 63K people, which makes it look really empty when 15K people show up for a baseball game.  The upper deck was completely closed and the seats in that level are covered with Oakland A's signs.  The food options are very limited, and you can't see the field from the concourse as it is behind concrete walls that needlessly separate the field from the concession areas.  Also, the barbed wire that separated the Oakland Colesium from the railroad tracks and the BART stop was a particularly nice touch.

Despite the poor interior and exterior of the standium, it is easy to get to/from as it is a stop on orange and green lines of the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) system.  That is what I used to travel to the game.

Side note: For what it's worth, the stadium is right next door to the Oracle Arena, Home of the Golden State Warriors.

Game Comments (courtesy of MLB.com)

Game Date: July 25, 2010

Attendance: 17,148

Weather: 63 degrees F, sunny

Length of Game: 2 hours, 46 minutes
Final Score: Oakland Athletics 6, Chicago White Sox 4

After a record nine winless starts following his perfect game on May 9, Dallas Braden had the stuff and got the run support to get back in the victory column and give the A's a series win over the White Sox.

Stories from the Road
I took a late Saturday afternoonflight from Seattle to San Francisco.  That night I had decided to stay at a Sheraton Four Points near the airport, which seemed to offer the best value that hotel points could buy.  However, I was a little miffed when I had to pay for breakfast the next morning at the hotel when I could I have gotten a free breakfast a nearby Marriott property for a little more hotel points.  Oh well.  Live and learn.

Sunday morning, after a little bit of exercise at the hotel gym and an unnecessarily expensive hotel breakfast, I met my uncle for the game.  We parked in downtown Oakland, next to Lake Merritt, and took BART to the game.

After the game ended in the late afternoon, we walked around downtown Oakland for a bit and then drove around the Bay Area for a couple of hours where I got the abridged version of a Bay Area sight-seeing tour.  I was really shocked how cold and windy it was throughout the city.  Chicago has nothing on Bay Area wind!  We walked across THE Golden Gate Bridge against VERY strong wind and, I suspect, near freezing temperatures.  You really feel the brunt of Pacific Ocean wind when you are standing in the middle of that Bay.  I now have a greater appreciation of Pacific Coast deep sea fishermen.  Afterwards, we headed to Japantown for dinner and passed by some of the city government buildings in downtown before I headed to the airport for my red eye flight to Chicago.

Safeco Field (Seattle Mariners)

Seattle
Safeco Field (In and Around)

  

  

  

  

Space Needle

  



  Experience Music Project (EMP)

  Pike Place Market (Home of the first Starbucks)

  

  

 Ballpark Assessment

Category Score (0 to 10)					TOTAL (0 to 50)
Location	Atmosphere	Food	Exterior Architecture	Interior Architecture
5	6	10	9	8	38

Safeco FIeld is located next door to Qwest Field, home of the Seattle Seahawks (and Seattle Sounders FC).  The complex is an easy walk from the Seattle's primary train station, King Street Station, and offers great views of downtown Seattle, Qwest Field, Puget Sound and the Seattle seaport.

Safeco has a wide variety of food selections throughout the stadium from sushi to barbeque and anything inbetween.  There is a really nice beer garden and restaurant just across the street from the stadium, which sets the tone for the entire game.

The location of the home and away team bullpens are of particularly special note.  Located in left-center field, the bullpens are are separated from the fan by nothing more than a chincy thread fence so you can watch the starters, relievers and closers warm up (and heckle them to your hearts content) from about 10 feet away.

Game Comments (courtesy of MLB.com)

Game Date: July 23, 2010

Attendance: 34,932

Weather: 74 degrees F, clear

Length of Game: 2 hours, 37 minutes
Final Score: Boston Red Sox 2, Seattle Mariners 1

Josh Beckett allowed one run on five hits and struck out five in 5 2/3 innings in his first start since May. Bill Hall broke a tie in the seventh with a solo homer. Seattle's Jason Vargas pitched seven strong innings.

Stories from the Road

Apparently, it isn't cloudy, rainy and overall dreary in Seattle all the time.  The weather was absolutely perfect when I was there, mid 60s, light wind and not a cloud in the sky.  Most of my time in Seattle was spent walking from one tourist trap/attraction to the next:

Tourist Trap 1 - Space Needle.  The views of Mt Rainier, the city skyline and surrounding areas from the observatory deck can be absolutely fantastic, if the weather is good.  I lucked out as I visited the Space Needle (and paid my $18) during one of the best days of visibility during the summer.

Tourist Attraction 2 - Experience Music Project.  EMP is a museum dedicated to telling the story of the Pacific Northwest music scene.  In addition to the standard walk-through of the origins of Seattle grunge (replete with guitars, costumes and album covers behind glass encasings), there is an entire floor of the museum dedicated to "experiencing music."  People can walk into one of roughly 20 sound rooms and bang on drums, strum on a guitar/bass, play a piano, sing, etc for up to 10 minutes to their hearts content.  It really makes the place worth visiting.  I walked a labyrinth located right outside of the EMP building for the first time in my life (The experience wasn't as soothing as some people suggest).  Is this better than the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland?  Absolutely!

Tourist Trap 3 - Pike Place Market.  The original (and  always jam-packed) Starbucks can be found here along with the fish market, which has been made famous by the occassional "fish toss".  People will literally stand near some of the fish racks for 30 minutes just to see one fisherman toss a fish to another fisherman.  I'm sure none of these people are actually from Seattle.  One of the more famous fish racks was giving out samples of smoked salmon, which turned out to be the best smoked salmon I have ever had.

Finally, a couple side notes about Seattle:
1) The city is really hilly.  I wasn't expecting this, which made the my 5-mile walk around the city that much more tiresome/treacherous (That's right, I was risking life and limb to complete this project).

2) Lewis Black's famous Starbucks rant could have worked equally well for Seattle as it did for Houston, TX.  While Houston might be home to a Starbucks across the street from a Starbucks, Seattle is home to a never-ending string of Starbucks locations.  The chain is so prevelant in Seattle that you can probably start your day at one end of the city with a Starbucks coffee in hand, and walk to the other end of the city without ever having to go without a cup of coffee in your hand.  As you make your way across the city, drinking your coffee as you go, you will inevitably pass a Starbucks at the precise time at which you finish your first cup, second cup, etc.

Dodger Stadium (Los Angeles Dodgers)

Los Angeles

   

     

  

 

  

 Ballpark Assessment

Category Score (0 to 10)					TOTAL (0 to 50)
Location	Atmosphere	Food	Exterior Architecture	Interior Architecture
4	6	4	4	5	25

Well, this stadium was surely different from many of the others; not necessarily in a good way.

First of all, the exterior of the stadium was very difficult to navigate.  The entrances were not clearly marked and, in many cases, you couldn't get from one entrance to another on the exterior of the stadium without ascending or descending flights of stairs.

Second, the fonts used on some of the Dodgers signs scattered throughout the stadium look really really old.
Third, the stadium is only accessible by car as it is located at the intersection of the 5, the 110 and the 101.  However, I guess it wouldn't be LA if public transportation was an option.

On a more positive note, the stadium is massize!  It takes a while to walk around the entire thing.  Also, the stadium does have one healthly food stand with salads, etc. (although it did run out of food about two thirds through the game).

Game Comments (courtesy of MLB.com)

Game Date: July 5, 2010

Attendance: 47,801

Weather: 70 degrees F, clear

Length of Game: 2 hours, 44 minutes
Final Score: Florida Marlins 6, Los Angeles Dodgers 5

The Marlins put the Dodgers in an early hole, and the Dodgers could never climb out. Wes Helms keyed Florida's outburst with a two-run single, and LA's near-recovery was powered in part by Rafael Furcal's homer.

Stories from the Road

The next morning I visited Santa Monica pier (aka Muscle Beach).  Not much to report here although I did see a large chess board and a guy punching the air to music.

Mid afternoon, I went to see the famous La Brea Tar Pits.  Growing up I had hear and read a lot about the tar pits, which were right in the middle of the city.  Somehow, I had gotten images of vast holes in the ground with excavators removing skeletons of prehistoric animals amidst a bustling city with cars going every which way.  What I saw turned out to be slightly different from what I had imagined.  There were statues of elephant-like animals in and around the tar pits, which were within a small gated park with a visitor center.  The whole park smelled of a type of griese that I imagine would eminate from a tire manufacturing facility.

Next up was the obligatory picture of the Hollywood sign, which took me a good half hour to initially spot (and another half hour to find a suitable location for a picture).  Afterwards, I drove around Hollywood for a while before heading off to Pasadena to visit my friend from college before we both head to Dodger Stadium.

After the game I had to make a mad dash to LAX to catch my red eye flight back to Chicago.  Crazy!