Denver
Drive to Denver
Drive from Denver
Ballpark Assessment
| Category Score (0 to 10) | TOTAL (0 to 50) |
|---|
| Location | Atmosphere | Food | Exterior Architecture | Interior Architecture |
|---|
| 9 | 8 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 41 |
Great stadium, great atmosphere. There is a lot going on at Coors Field that makes it a great place to catch a game. The ballpark is located in downtown Denver, and has a bunch of bars and restaurants nearby.
The outside of the stadium is reminiscient of Minute Maid Park, Home of the Houston Astros, with its brick facade. However, the interior could not be any more different.
Coors Field has stunning views of both the surrounding Rocky Mountains and the skyline of downtown Denver. Given the immaculately kept shrubbery that surrounds each bullpen, and the vines that scale the batter's eye in center field, I suspect the Rockies have a landscape architect or a highly sophisticated groundskeeper on staff. Other stadium notables include the couple rows of purple-highlighted seats in the upper deck that circumvent the stadium to signify an elevation of one mile, and the Rockpile, a section of very cheap bleacher seats in right-center field that seems to be home to the loudest and roudiest fans in the stadium. Unfortunately, these $5/ticket for the game I went to were all sold out.
The food and beer selections were decent; nothing to write home about, but decent nonetheless.
I will say that I was a little miffed that I couldn't walk all the way around the stadium (I did drive 10 hours to get to the game!). A security guard wouldn't allow me to walk through the guarded parking lot behind the stadium's main entrance.
Game Comments (courtesy of MLB.com)
Game Date: June 19, 2010
Attendance: 39,192
Weather: 78 degrees F, cloudy
Length of Game: 3 hours, 34 minutes
Final Score: Colorado Rockies 8, Milwaukee Brewers 7
Dormant through six, the Colorado offense came to life for seven runs in the seventh and eighth innings for a comeback victory over the Brewers -- but not before things got interesting in a wild ninth inning.
Stories from the Road
The 10 hour drive from just east of Kansas City, MO to Denver, CO, although expectedly dull, did offer a bit of excitement. Namely, about midway through the trip I stumbled upon a weather pattern that looked to be forming into a tornado. Despite the fact that this was central Kansas, there were others on the road and we all seemed to forge right ahead through the intense 5 minutes of weather, which included a torrential downpour, hail and lightning/thunder. In fact, the weather was so severe that some of the other drivers ended up pulling over to the side of the road and under an underpass to wait until the weather system had passed. These 5 intense minutes were followed by bright sunshine that I enjoyed through the remainder of the drive. Strange.
To get me through this rather dull drive (aside from the 5 minute tornado encounter), I had decided to arm myself with a couple of audiobooks. Very early on Saturday morning I stopped off at the nearest Barnes & Nobles and began searching for a couple of books that would get me through a 10 hour drive to Denver. After about 1/2 an hour of searching, I found my what I was looking for: The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama and The Politician by Andrew Young (a former aide to John Edwards throughout his political career). Despite what these books may suggest about me, I tend to be rather apolitical on most matters. My decision to purchase these audiobooks hinged on nothing else than the perceived value that I was getting: roughly 20 hours of audio at a heavily discounted price (20% off on Barack's book, 50% off on Andrew's).
On a final note regarding the drive to Denver, I was pleasantly surprised to find a long stretch of highway in eastern Colorado, which was lined on either side with farm after farm of grazing black cattle, where the speed limit was 75 mph. Let met tell you ... after 7 hours of driving through shear vastness/openness, an extra 5 to 10 mph to get you to your final destination faster is much appreciated.
On my way back from Denver, I decided to take the route that took me through Nebraska and Iowa (2 states that I had previously never set foot in). I was perfectly content with nothing but open highway in front of me and Barack Obama's The Audacity of Hope to pass the time (Along the way I passed signs for "Fort Kearney" and "Pony Express Station", which made the drive seem that much more authentically western).
Somewhere in the first third of my 13-hour journey back to Illinois, I realized that I would be driving right through Omaha, NE, where the College World Series was being held. And, luckily, a game was scheduled for right around the time when I would be driving through the area. With a newly discovered goal in mind, I charged ahead ... through the great open wilderness/vastness/openness/(nothingness) of Nebraska on my way towards Omaha to catch one of the final games at Rosenblatt stadium (the home of the CWS since 1950 that would be replaced after this year by a more modern stadium under construction in Omaha).
Omaha was teeming with mud-soaked baseball fans moving this way and that. Apparently, rolling thunderstorms and rainshowers had delayed both games until later that evening, which gave me enough time to grab something to eat and walk around the area. After parking in a lot that looked like nothing more than a privately owned asphalt surface that, I assume, is converted into a money-making machine (to the tune of $10/car) around this time every year, I found myself scooped up into a sea of South Carolina and Oklahoma fans on their way to the stadium.
After snapping a few pictures of the stadium and surroundings, I headed over to the ticket counter where, to my shagrin, was told that all tickets were sold out. Uggh. Without a ticket, I wandered around the arena in hopes of finding someone selling tickets on the cheap. About 3/4 of the way around the stadium, I came across exactly what I was looking for, someone looking to offload one of his tickets in the cheap seats ($10). Perfect! With that, I went into the stadium, which definitely had the look and feel of a stadium that has been around since the 50s. There was definitely a college atmosphere in the air with the rightfield bleacher creatures yelling at the leftfield bleachers creatures as the "Wave" circumvented the stadium a few times. After watching about 5 innings of baseball, the thunderstorms struck (again) and the game was delayed indefinitely (again).
I couldn't stay or wait around any longer. It was about 8 o'clock and I still had five hours of driving through Iowa to get to my hotel room in Davenport, IA. On a final note, aside from the wind farms that I passed along the way from Omaha, I happened to pass a gas station along I-80 in Iowa (exit 284) that advertised that it was the largest truck stop in the US.
