fat EMO kid baseball blog

Road Trip ‘09 is officially in the books, and now it’s time for all of you to care what I think.  You can see more of the fun here, but for now here are my thoughts on Camden Yards in Baltimore, Citzen’s Bank park in Philly, and the new Yankee Stadium. 

Camden Yards:  It’s almost twenty years old now, but I’d still rather watch a game here than in most new stadiums.    The seat are affordable (especially when someone else pays), the people are friendly, and the views from everywhere are great.(http://fatemokid.com/scry/index.php?v=image&i=0&p=Road Trip 09/baltimore/DSCF2906.JPG)   The concourse between the warehouse and the right field wall is a great place to spend time before the game, and you are actually allowed to get into the outfield stands during batting practice for a chance at a homerun ball.  I’ve also heard good things about the daquiri’s…

Citizen’s Bank Park:  A beautiful day in Philly was capped off by a night game, in the rain, at Citizen’s Bank Park, which was very easy to get to, even for a scared white kid from NY.  The stadium is nice, but it’s typical of most of the other new stadiums, and really doesn’t stand out in any way, except for the concession stand which sells only “The Schmidter”.  Also, it’s apparently a felony in Philadelphia to print a Pete Rose jersey.  The highlight of the game was watching the Phillies fans boo Scott Rolen; I’m almost positive most of them had no idea why they were booing.  Overall it was very unimpressive, and while I would go again, I would not plan a trip around it. 

NEW Yankee Stadium:  The new Yankee Stadium is exacty what you would expect:  big, bright, and expensive.  After paying several tolls just to get to the stadium, you are treated to a nice $19 parking fee, which apparently can be avoided by purchasing “Special People” parking ahead of time online.  We had a nice 5 1/2 hour rain delay, so we got to experience pretty much everything the new stadium has to offer:  the team store, the Hard Rock, being told we aren’t rich enough to go to the Mohegan Sun Bar, and the Tommy Bahama bar full of drunk high school gym coaches.  A few hundred dollars later, you will realize that, while the new stadium is nice, you kind of miss the old place.  The new stadium is comfortable and clean, and has enough bright lights to give your grandmother a seizure, but part of the charm of the old stadium was sitting on hard, plastic seats, sticking to the ground when you walked, and having to wait in a line of cars for 2 hours just to get on to the highway to get back to Albany.  Maybe if there was no rain, or if the Yanks could have managed at least a run off of the Nationals (did you know Will Ferrell plays for them?), things would have been a little better.  All in all, while the new stadium is a great, I’d still rather be in the old dump watching the rats run by. 

Overall, while any Yankee Stadium will always be my favorite place to watch a game, Camden Yards was by far the best of the trip.  In terms of affordability, sitelines, and overall atmosphere, this was the best by far, it’s just too bad the Orioles have to play there.

Tags: Baseball, fantasy, fantasy baseball, mets, mlb, new york yankees, reds, sports, stadiums, yankees

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 14th, 2009 at 4:13 PM and is filed under Baseball, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.