My Return to Reno

Reno was the last stop before San Francisco for Tom and I last summer as we were driving across the country.  I didn’t expect to ever get back.  But I needed one more stop before heading out to San Francisco on this trip.  It was Triple-A Opening Day (I did Triple-A Opening Day in Albuquerque in 2015) so I checked out some places between Omaha and San Francisco and Reno worked.  They were playing at home and I could take the bus the next day to San Francisco.  It was a cool drive so I didn’t mind doing that again (or so I thought).

I got to Reno early.  I was staying at Circus Circus, which is connected to the Eldorado where Tom and I stayed last summer.  Hotel rooms were ridiculously cheap.  I guess those casinos make their money off of people in other ways.  I just relaxed until the game at 6:35.  I had to respond to one of my former students asking for help on her AP World History project on the Mauryan Empire.  I wouldn't have responded, but this girl is one of my two favorite students ever.  She definitely didn't need my help.  I've told her that she's smarter than me.  Also, I was a history major and I had never even heard of the Mauryan Empire.  If she's taking AP World History (a class that didn't exist at Harborfields until I was too old for it), she knows more about the Mauryan Empire than I do.  But I googled it and sent her some links.  Then I checked out some odds at the sports book and didn't make any bets.  Because, you know, if I want to give away money, there are people who need it a lot more than casinos.  But the Jets had the worst odds to win the Super Bowl.  So that's exciting.  Anyway, the game was the Reno Aces against the Fresno Grizzles.  One of the first things I saw when I got to the stadium was a helicopter landing on the field.  Why?  It was carrying the Aces’ mascot.  They did all the Opening Day ceremony with the introductions of all the players and coaches.  One of the cool things about Triple-A is that you'll definitely recognize some of the names if you're a baseball fan.  Yasmany Tomas hit 31 home runs for the Diamndbacks two years ago, but he was starting this game in left field for the Aces (and he hit a home run in this game).  The Aces also have Socrates Brito, who has played 58 games in the Majors.  As you can imagine, Vin Scully enjoyed that name (check the video below).  The Aces are the Diamondbacks’ affiliate and the Grizzles are the Astros’ affiliate.  The Grizzles were the Giants’ affiliate for a long time so they still had uniforms that had a very Giants feel to them.  The Aces had uniforms that looked like the very silly Diamondbacks uniforms.

My view for the game

It wasn’t much of a game.  The Aces led 7-0 after two.  I left in the sixth with the Aces up 9-1.  I would have stayed for the whole game, but Notre Dame and Michigan were going to the third period in the semifinals of the NCAA hockey tournament tied at 2.  I’ll get to that in a minute.  But what did I think of Greater Nevada Field?  It was very good (attendance was listed at 5,634, but Google says the capacity is 9,013 and it seemed more full than 62.5%).  The crowd was good, there was a pretty good selection of food and beer.  But there were a few issues.  Some of the concession stands had lines that just did not move.  And then there was a taco stand out in the outfield that had no line.  I probably would have gone to that one if it wasn’t hidden out there (I realized this after I ate).  The concessions also need to describe some of the food options.  Like there was a hot dog stand that has a few options.  They do Vs. Dogs.  They’re hot dogs that have a theme related to the city of the opposing team.  But there was no indication of what the Vs. Dog for Fresno was.  I ended up getting the D-Backs Dog.  Again, there was no description.  I googled it and I was led to believe it was something more than it was.  It ended up just being a hot dog with beans on it.  It was fine, but I was looking for something more exciting.  Again, I wish I had gone to the taco stand.  As for the beer, they needed to spread out the good beer a little more.  There was a burger/craft beer stand.  It sounded like there were some good options there, but I couldn’t really tell what they were and the lines were way too long.  I ended up finding this little stand that had no line around the start of the fifth inning.  I got an Occidental Pilsner, which is from Oregon.  It was pretty good, but they need more Nevada beer in there.

So anyway, I drank my beer, watched the Aces get out of a bases loaded jam in the top of the sixth giving up only one run, and then walked back to my hotel for the end of the Notre Dame hockey game.  I got back with about ten minutes left in the third period.  Notre Dame had scored to go up 3-2.  I saw Michigan tie it, which wasn’t fun, but it set up the great finish.  Notre Dame got the puck deep in their own zone with time for one last rush in regulation.  They scored an amazing goal with 5.2 seconds left to win.  We vanquished the forces of evil in hockey.  Sadly, we lost in the championship game to Minnesota Duluth, but it was still a very good season.

I took this picture on the walk back to my hotel.

The next morning I got breakfast at Hash House A Go Go.  Adam went to one of their Las Vegas locations on Man vs. Food.  I got the Healthy Start Scramble.  It was egg whites with tomatoes, onions, and peppers served with fruit.  It was pretty good and I needed to eat something healthy.  After that, I went to take the bus to San Francisco.   The Reno Greyhound station is one the most depressing buildings I’ve ever been in, and it was an omen of bad things to come.  It was cool to be driving through the mountains at a different time of year.  It rained throughout the trip, but many of the mountains were still covered in snow.  There were good views, but the bus was way too hot and it got to San Francisco about two hours late.  I watched some Unsolved Mysteries on Amazon Prime to help me get through that trip.

This is not what Adam Richman had on Man vs. Food.

There were some good views, but this was a rough bus ride.

Anyway, I'll finish with updated minor league/college stadium rankings:

15. Arm & Hammer Park in Trenton
14. Dehler Park in Billings
13. Arvest Ballpark in Springdale
12. Autozone Park in Memphis
11. TD Bank Ballpark in Bridgewater, New Jersey
10. Memorial Stadium in Boise
9. KeySpan Park in Brooklyn
8. Newman Outdoor Field in Fargo
7. Isotopes Park in Albuquerque
6. TD Ameritrade Park in Omaha- It's tough to rank this one because it's known for the College World Series and my expierence was not at all like the College World Series.  If I had gone to the College World Series, it's probably higher, maybe even number 1.
5. Daniel S. Frawley Stadium in Wilmington
4. Greater Nevada Field
3. Joseph P. Riley Jr. Park in Charleston
2. Dunkin Donuts Park in Hartford
1. Regions Field in Birmingham

Peyton Manning's Favorite City

For stop number 2 on my Easter Vacation trip, I went to Omaha, Nebraska.  In 2015, I visited Dennis in Minnesota and knocked out four other states on the trip:  Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota, and North Dakota.  I spent the least amount of time in Nebraska (probably about 45 minutes).  I wanted to check out TD Ameritrade Park in Omaha.  That’s where the College World Series is played.  It’s also Creighton’s home field.  So I was going to the Creighton game against Kansas State at night.  But first, I was hoping to knock out a few states that I still had left on the beer list.  Nebraska was obvious.  Iowa is right across the river from Omaha (there was actually a tiny section of Iowa that I passed through going between the airport and my hotel) so I was pretty confident on that one.  I was hoping to get at least one other state.  I did some googling and found the Crescent Moon Ale House, which is the best beer bar in Omaha.  So after getting to my hotel, I took a walk over there.

Before I got to the bar, I stopped on the way on Creighton’s campus.  I haven’t actually spent much time on campus at other Catholic universities with a couple of obvious exceptions.  My first stop at Creighton was St. John’s Church.  A statue outside confirmed that it was named for St. John the Apostle, who was the saint I picked for my confirmation name.  I stopped inside.  It was a nice church.  Not as nice as the Basilica of the Sacred Heart at Notre Dame, but nicer than the church at Georgetown.  After that, I found the St. Ignatius Loyola statue outside the library.  The campus wasn’t all that exciting.  I’ll give Georgetown the overall edge even if Creighton has the nicer church.  Other Catholic universities I’ve been to:  Providence, Boston College, Villanova (all of those were in the mid-90s, I don’t remember them), and St. Thomas in St. Paul (Dennis and Courtney got married in the church there).  I think that’s it.

Then I got to the bar.  I was able to get five states.  I wasn’t looking to get hammered, so it was a good thing that they do flights of four beers (five ounces each).  I had a flight with beers from South Dakota (Crow Peak IPA), Oklahoma (COOP Alpha Hive), Kansas (Defiance Fuzzy Knuckles), and Iowa (West O Blackberry Coco Stout).  The South Dakota one was an IPA that didn’t taste like an IPA.  That was my least favorite.  The others were good.  The Iowa beer had a fruity and chocolatey flavor.  I liked it more as I drank more of it.  Then I had a pint of Prairie Pride Trouble in Dublin (Nebraska) with a burger.  The beer was an Irish red, which I generally like, and the burger had bleu cheese and bacon.  The beer was solid.  The burger was underwhelming.  Not bad, but definitely nothing special.  So with that, I have four states left to get a beer from:  Indiana, Arkansas, West Virginia, and Alaska.  Indiana and Arkansas are happening later this year.  Alaska will happen whenever I get to Alaska (maybe next year).  West Virginia is a tricky one.  I might have to take a trip to Charleston, West Virginia.  They have a minor league team.  I could check that out and get some beer.  If anybody else knows of an easier way that I could get some West Virginia beer, let me know.

South Dakota, Oklahoma, Kansas, Iowa

It's in a Dogfish Head glass, but it's a Nebraska beer.

I went back to my hotel to rest before the game.  I watched the end of another bad Dodger game (rough start for them, but they should be fine).  And then I took a nap.  I had 36 ounces of beer.  I wasn’t drunk, but it was not a negligible amount of beer.  Between the alcohol and the lack of sleep the previous two nights with flights to get up for, I overslept.  I set an alarm for 6:00 and the game was at 6:35.  The mistake I made was not putting my phone away from the bed so that I would have to get up to turn off the alarm.  I turned off the alarm and went right back to sleep.  I woke up later and found that it was 8:30.  So I panicked a little bit.  I checked the game and it was in the sixth inning.  Fortunately it was a short walk from my hotel.  So I got there with Creighton up 8-0 in the sixth.  Bad job by me, but I was really more interested in checking out the stadium than I was in the game.  I was rooting for Creighton, but if they lost, it’s not like I was going to be upset about it.  Anyway, it was a really tiny crowd.  I expected that.  I would say that at most, there were 200 people there.  When I bought my ticket, it looked like a lot of the seats near home plate were taken.  My guess is that there are a decent number of season ticket holders who didn’t feel like showing up with it being a Wednesday night in April against Kansas State with temperatures in the high 30s.  It was definitely a cool stadium.  It’s a lot bigger than any minor league stadium that I’ve been to.  It’s the biggest college stadium by about 9,000 seats.  Mississippi State has the second biggest.  It’s bigger than the biggest minor league stadium (Buffalo) by about 5,000 seats.

The statue outside the stadium

My view for most of my time at the game

First row behind the dugout

I’m sure TD Ameritrade Park is much different with a big College World Series crowd.  It would be cool to see that.  I had thought about taking a trip to Omaha in the past for the College World Series, but it’s not really convenient with my school schedule.  Anyway, with the tiny crowd there was only one concession stand open and it didn’t have anything exciting.  I didn’t get anything to eat or drink.  It looks like there would have been some interesting options if all the concession stands were open.  Around the concourse, you can see the past champions of the College World Series and some pictures of players.  The two I found interesting were Dave Winfield and Terry Francona.  I took a lap around the stadium.  I watched a half inning from the front row behind the Creighton dugout and the rest from where I was supposed to be sitting behind home plate.  Creighton ended up winning 8-3.

It would be awesome if Notre Dame made it to Omaha.  We’ve only been in the College World Series twice (1957 and 2002).  When I was a student, we finished off our last two appearances of eight straight in the NCAA tournament (I don’t have any memory of that).  Since then, not good.  We made the tournament in 2015, but that’s it.  Notre Dame had some success in the Big East, but we’ve struggled in the ACC.  I would love to see Notre Dame get good at baseball again, but I don’t really expect that to happen any time soon.  Notre Dame has one obvious problem.  I can’t imagine why any baseball player without any particular loyalty to a school growing up would want to play college baseball in the North.  It was cold at that Creighton game.  And with the college season starting when it does, it can be a lot colder than that.  I suspect the reason why a lot of players end up at Notre Dame or Creighton or any other Northern school would be that they didn’t have any scholarship offers from Southern schools.  At least Creighton has the advantage of playing in TD Ameritrade Park.  It’s got to be cooler to play there than in the tiny baseball stadiums that a lot of colleges have.

So I liked TD Ameritrade even if it was a tiny crowd and it was cold.  If I had been there at the start of the game, I don’t think I would have lasted all nine innings with the weather.  Even though it was cold, I picked the right day to be there.  Creighton was supposed to play the day before against Kansas, but it was rained out.  After the Kansas State game, they had a day off and then they were supposed to start a three-game series at home against Butler.  On the off day, they announced that the whole series was cancelled due to the forecast of rain, snow, and cold for all three days of the series.  It turns out that they did play two of the games, but they were moved to Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.  So I was fortunate to get to TD Ameritrade Park, even if it was only for a few innings.  The only thing I’m upset about with oversleeping was that I didn’t get to see it before the sun went down.  Oh well.

Baseball and Waffle House

I always try to make use of my Easter vacation to get to some baseball or take some other kind of trip.  Here’s what I’ve done since I started the blog:

2013:  Los Angeles (Part 1 and Part 2) and Milwaukee
2014:  Los Angeles and San Francisco
2015:  Salt Lake City, Albuquerque, and Dallas
2016:  New Orleans and Biloxi
2017:  Trenton

This year I had a few things in mind.  I wanted to get to Atlanta because Suntrust Park opened last year and I hadn’t been there yet.  And I wanted to end in San Francisco because the Dodgers were going to be there and Tom is only living in San Francisco for a few more months.  So I started in Atlanta and ended in San Francisco and I wanted to figure out a stop or two in between (I’ll get to that in other posts).

So Atlanta was first.  I had been to Atlanta twice before.  I was there in 2006 when Notre Dame opened the season with a win against Georgia Tech.  And I was there in 2013 to see Turner Field when Dennis was living there.  Dennis has moved to Minnesota so I was there on my own this time.  I started by getting lunch at a barbecue place by my hotel.  I had a brisket sandwich with baked beans.  It was good, but I’ve had better.  I tried the barbecue sauces they had and I liked the spicy one better than the sweet one, but I didn’t love either.  Dennis took me to a place that was better back in 2013.  And my former coworker Owen makes some pulled pork with his own barbecue sauce that was better than what I had this time.

After that, I headed to Suntrust Park to take the stadium tour.  It was a pretty good tour.  You go up to the top and then work your way down to the field.  It’s a nice looking ballpark, but I had some issues with it.  It just seemed like there’s way too much other stuff to do other than watch baseball.  You have all these bars and clubs or whatever.  I know all the new stadiums do that, but it seemed like Suntrust Park had more of that than other places.  There was also a rock climbing wall and a zip line in the outfield.  You know where you’re not going to find stuff like that?  Fenway Park, Dodger Stadium, Wrigley Field, Kaufmann Stadium.  You go to those stadiums to watch baseball.  And they’re awesome.  You can have great stadiums without all that stuff.  The other issue I had was Monument Garden.  It’s a garden, it’s out in the open, right?  Nope, it’s hidden down by the home plate area on the lower level.  That’s where the Hank Aaron statue is.  Outside the stadium they have statues of Bobby Cox, Warren Spahn, and Phil Neikro.  Hank Aaron should either be outside the stadium or out in the open in the outfield.  And the other problem I had was something that reminded me of Citi Field that I don’t like.  On every level of the stadium, you walk around the concourse and you can see the field, except from behind home plate.  Hank Aaron’s statue has a closed off bar/club area between it and home plate.  If you didn’t have all those bars and clubs and stuff (or just put them somewhere else), you could get some good looks at the field from right behind home plate.  On the upper level, it’s the press box that’s in the way.  That’s understandable, but they still could have used the space better.  As you walk around on the concourse behind the press box, there’s not much there.  They definitely could have used that space for concessions (I’ll give credit to Citi Field for how they use the top of the rotunda).  Anyway, the tour ended up going down to the field.  It was around 3:00 and some of the players had started working out on the field.  Daniel Murphy (he's on the DL, but he's one of my least favorite players) was down there running around.  Our tour guide said at first that we wouldn’t be able to go on the field because players were there, but then he asked somebody and they said it was cool.  So we got into the Braves’ dugout and on the warning track by the dugout.

Let us never forget that Hank Aaron is the true home run king.

The game was at night.  It was Nationals-Braves.  There was a 12-minute delay.  I noticed that the game wasn't starting on time, but there was no announcement about it.  They didn't say anything over the PA and there was nothing on the Braves' Twitter account about it.  According to the MLB At Bat app, there was a power issue, but I don't know what the problem was because it seemed like all the lights were on and nothing changed by the time they started the game.  Anyway, I was rooting against the Nationals, but they got off to a good start with a 3-0 lead in the top of the first.  But the Braves answered with four in the bottom of the first.  And the Braves kept scoring.  They were up 10-5 after four.  They ended up winning 13-6.  The starters combined for a total of six innings and there were five home runs.  I was going to talk about how this game was illustrative of some troublesome trends in baseball and how I would fix them, but I'll save that for my post about the game I went to in San Francisco.

My view for most of the game

I moved down for the end of the game.

The next morning, I went to Waffle House.  I think the only other time I’ve been to Waffle House was on the trip to the Georgia Tech game in 2006.  I remember being underwhelmed.  The tour guide on the stadium tour pointed out the Waffle House in the stadium and said, “You don’t have to like it, but you have to have it.”  That brings me to my last note about the stadium.  It seemed like there were some good food and beer options (I just had some chips and queso after waiting on a line that didn’t move fast enough), but Waffle House seems weird for a baseball game.  There was Chick-Fil-A, but the one on my level wasn’t open.  It wasn’t a huge crowd, but it was big enough that the Chick-Fil-A should have been open (26,782).  Anyway, when I went to Waffle House the next morning I got a waffle and hash browns with tomatoes and onions.  It was fine, but I don’t feel like I’m missing out on it by living in the North.  Bill Simmons and House went to Waffle House the night before on their trip to Augusta.  I saw some video of it.  House had a lot more to eat than I did.

Waffle House

I went to a game in San Francisco, I'm getting to a game in Los Angeles this June.  I'll get to at least one game at Citi Field.  I might get to Yankee Stadium.  I won't rule out another game in a stadium not too far away, but I don't think any stadiums I get to are going to move in my rankings, so let's rank them now that I've added my 31st stadium.  Some of this is copied and pasted from the last time I ranked the stadiums, some has been updated:

So bad that I don't really care if I get there or not
33.  Tropicana Field- It's one of two stadiums with artificial turf and it's the only one with a roof that doesn't open.
32- O.co Coliseum- From what I hear, it was nice before the Raiders moved back.  They really need to move to San Jose, but the Giants won't let them.  If Tom was staying out in San Francisco, I might get there on a trip to visit him, but he's moving back across the country.

Pretty Bad
31.  SkyDome- It will always be the SkyDome to me.  I think they want to renovate it.  If they did a good job, I could easily see this one moving up the rankings.
30. US Cellular Field- I remembered it as a boring stadium.  I went back two years ago and it was still a boring stadium.
29.  Marlins Park- It's better than playing in a football stadium like they used to, but it's too weird.
28.  Minute Maid Park- They should have kept the hill in center field.  That was an interesting oddity.  Now it's more boring.
27.  Turner Field- I don't miss this one.  I didn't love SunTrust Park, but it's clearly an upgrade.

Decent
26.  Progressive Field- It's very similar to Oriole Park and Globe Life Park since all three of those were built around the same time.  This is the worst of the three.
25.  Angel Stadium of Anaheim- This was not built around the same time as Oriole Park, Globe Life Park, and Progressive Field, but it's kind of similar.  It's in southern California, so that's nice, but there isn't really much else that's special about it.
24.  Chase Field- The pool is cool, but it's air conditioned which greatly reduces the desire to be in a pool.
23.  Miller Park- This was one place where I was able to get a really good seat (second level, right in front of the press box) for a really cheap price.  I might have ranked this higher if I went to a game during the summer and the roof was open.
22.  Coors Field- A lot of people love Coors Field, but the biggest problem can't be fixed (the altitude).

Admittedly Very Overrated
21.  Shea Stadium- It was a dump and objectively, it's worse than any other stadium I've been to with the possible exception of SkyDome, but it was my home stadium for the first 20 years I went to baseball games.

Solid
20.  Comerica Park- If anything, this is a generous ranking considering it's in Detroit.
19.  Globe Life Park- There was good selection of Texas beer.  I like how the design incorporated some history stadiums, but unfortunately they've gone away from that a little bit.  They probably don't need to get a new stadium, but they are anyway.
18.  SunTrust Park- It's like Citi Field, but not quite as good.

The New York Stadiums
17.  Citi Field- Citi Field is good, but it could be better.  It's second to Shea Stadium in terms of number of games that I've been to.  I could have a much worse stadium to go to.
16.  New Yankee Stadium- I didn't get to a game last year, but the last time I was there I noticed that they've improved the beer selection.  I really wish they had just renovated the old stadium.  But of course, Big Stein would never stand for the Mets getting a new stadium without the Yankees getting one.

Everybody else likes this one more than I do
15.  Oriole Park at Camden Yards- I moved this one ahead of the New York stadiums, but I still maintain that it's overrated by most people.

Strong to Quite Strong
14.  Citizens Bank Park- They have all these little beer stands that have like two beers on tap (different beers at each one).  I wish every stadium was like that.
13.  Nationals Park- I think Nationals Park is very underrated by most people.  However I found one problem that could easily be fixed.  The whole stadium has this Nation's Capital/Red, White, and Blue theme going on.  That makes sense.  But then the outfield wall is green.  Why isn't it blue?
12.  Busch Stadium- I hate the Cardinals more than any team other than the Giants, but I respect their success.  The atmosphere and the area around the stadium are great, but I was expecting more on the inside.
11.  Safeco Field- It's easily the best stadium with a roof.
10.  Target Field- I've been to two games and done the stadium tour there.  It's a very good stadium.  I can't think of anything I would change that could make it better.  Most of the stadiums ahead of it have advantages that couldn't be replicated in Minneapolis.
9.  Great American Ballpark- I originally had it ahead of AT&T Park.  I liked this one a lot, but that was probably my anti-Giants bias showing.

Really Good
8.  AT&T Park- I'll have an update on this one soon.  After doing a tour last summer and getting to a game this year, I moved it up one spot.
7.  Wrigley Field- It's hard to compare it to the modern stadiums, but I think Fenway is clearly better.  The weak beer selection and the difficulty of moving around hurts Wrigley.
6.  Kauffman Stadium- I loved everything about the inside of this stadium.  Being surrounded by parking lots is what is keeping this one from being ranked higher.
5.  Petco Park- It's a really good stadium and it's in San Diego, where the Padres are the only show in town now that the Chargers are gone.  Why aren't the Padres good enough to be worthy of that great stadium?

The Great Stadiums
4.  PNC Park- I wish the Pirates had been able to cash in on their run.  They were good for a while, but couldn't win anything in October.  That's a stadium that deserves a great team.
3.  Old Yankee Stadium- I have it ranked very high, but I really wish I could go back in time to pre-renovation Yankee Stadium.  It might take the number one spot if I could.  Of course, I'd also go to Ebbets Field and I guess I'd even go to a game at the Polo Grounds.
2.  Dodger Stadium- A great setting, a beautiful ballpark, twelve no-hitters, two perfect games, eight World Series, the invention of the high five, Koufax and Kershaw, Pope John Paul II, and The Naked Gun.  There's still room for improvement, but I love Dodger Stadium.  The fact that my favorite team plays there makes be biased, but still, it's great.

1.  Fenway Park- It's such a wonderfully weird ballpark (unintentionally weird, unlike Marlins Park) that couldn't be duplicated anywhere else.  I've been to three different sports there (hockey and football being the other two).  I don't have any plans to go there this year, but if anybody wants to, let me know.  I always love getting to Fenway Park.