Take Me Out To The Ball Game: Turner Field Edition

After an exhausting 3 days at Disneyland that featured lots of family fun and a touch of heat stroke, I’m back in the driver’s seat of regular life, which means getting back to blogging.  Thanks for letting me have a few days with the family!

I consider myself a diehard sports fan.  I’ll watch just about anything sports-related, I don’t even need a rooting interest.  Yes, I’ve watched those strong man competitions on ESPN.  And, a few frames of bowling (shudder, not a TV sport).  I’ve had a bucket list item for quite some time to watch a game at every MLB, NFL, NBA and NHL stadium in the country before I kick that bucket.  You would think with as much travel as I do I would have made more progress.  But, I haven’t crossed off a new stadium since a Sharks playoff game in 2013.  Luckily, I was able to hit a few this year, knocking out Turner Field (Braves), Minute Maid Park (Astros).  Since baseball season is wrapping up I thought I’d try to write these up real quick.  Turner Field is first up for stadium reviews this year.

I know Turner Field has been around a while, but it didn’t seem that way in my imagination dating back to when the Yankees were playing them in the World Series.  Oh, wait.  That was 20 years ago and a different stadium.  Jeebus, I’m old. The stadium opened in the mid-90s, and quite frankly, didn’t have much character when I visited.  I went to the game with a colleague who’s a friend and fellow sports junkie.  We bought a couple of beers on the way into the stadium and walked around.  There are some good sight lines in the outfield as well as some memorabilia of classic MLB parks.

After walking around the lower portion of the stadium, we realized virtually all the food was basic, run of the mill things like hot dogs and chicken fingers, nothing really exciting or authentic.

We ended up settling on burgers and fresh-cut fries from a place called H&F Burger.  The burger was decent, as were the fries.  2 burgers with fries and a couple of sodas was around $25, so not egregious by stadium standards.

The stadium has a kids play area as well as a museum/hall of fame for Braves diehards.  If you’re one of those, don’t forget Joe Torre, after losing the first two games of the World Series in Yankee Stadium 20 years ago, saying something along the lines of, “Well, we need to go down to Atlanta and win 3 games, then come back here and clinch in 6.”

We had picked a midweek day game right at the beginning of the season (to coincide with a short work trip).  The weather was nice, the game lightly attended.  That’s not much of a surprise for a day game early on.  The Marlins handled the Braves pretty easily so the crowd wasn’t very animated.  The stadium had good sight lines and I can’t imagine there are many places you wouldn’t be able get decent views of the action.  The team may not have been very good this year, but there’s plenty of wins from an earlier part of their history.

I doubt I’ll make it back to Atlanta for a baseball game before they close the stadium in a year or two, which only means I’ll have another stadium to knock off my list.

For those keeping track at home, here’s a list of stadiums I’ve visited (27 as of now).  There are also links for those that I’ve written about on the blog.

Sports fans, what does your list look like?

MLB:

• Yankee Stadium (One Final Night of Magic)
• Camden Yards (Baltimore Orioles)
• PacBell Park (San Francisco Giants)
• Safeco Field (Seattle Mariners)
• Chase Field (Arizona Diamondbacks)
• Shea Stadium (New York Mets)
• Wrigley Field (Chicago Cubs)
• Comerica Park (Detroit Tigers)
• Coors Field (Colorado Rockies)
• Nationals Park (Washington Nationals)
• Rogers Centre (Toronto Blue Jays)
• Fenway Park (Boston Red Sox)**The Red Sox will always be listed last any time I refer to baseball teams

NFL:

• Giants Stadium (Giants and Jets)
• FedEx Field (Washington Redskins)
• Qwest Field (Seattle Seahawks)
• M&T Bank Stadium (Baltimore Ravens)
• Soldier Field (Chicago Bears)
• Candlestick Park (San Francisco 49ers)

NBA:

• Pepsi Center (Denver Nuggets)
• Madison Square Garden (New York Knicks)
• Brendan Byrne/Continental Airlines Arena (New Jersey Nets)
• Verizon/MCI Center (Washington Wizards)
• United Center (Chicago Bulls)

NHL:

• Pepsi Center (Colorado Avalanche)
• Madison Square Garden (New York Rangers)
• Verizon/MCI Center (Washington Capitals)
• HP Pavilion (San Jose Sharks)