I started working on this post more than a month ago, but a trip to Europe and other stuff got in the way. My last stop out west this year was Ontario for some minor league baseball. I’ve been to a lot of baseball games in California, but this was the first time I was going to a minor league game. The Ontario Tower Buzzers are a new minor league team this season. They’re the low-A affiliate of the Dodgers. It was part of a shuffling of single-A teams. The Rancho Cucamonga Quakes moved to Ontario and became the Tower Buzzers. The Inland Empire 66ers moved to Rancho Cucamonga and took over as the Quakes. The Modesto Nuts moved to San Bernardino and took over as the Inland Empire 66ers. So Modesto lost a team and Ontario gained a team. The affiliations moved with the teams. So Rancho Cucamonga had been the Dodgers’ affiliate but now they’re affiliated with the Angels and Inland Empire went from being affiliated with the Angels to being affiliated with the Mariners.
The stadium was over 60 miles from Sean’s house and we drove. It took over two and a half hours to get there. On the way back to his house, it was just over an hour. So it took a long time, but we made it and the stadium was brand new. The team is named the Tower Buzzers because it’s close to the Ontario airport (I think it was four miles away), which is the third busiest airport in the Los Angeles area. Sean commented that it looked like it was designed by Jon Taffer. It had an aviation theme and they stuck with it. The signs in the stadium look like signs you would see at an airport, the ushers were dressed as pilots, etc. I remember hearing the new Yankee Stadium described as a shopping mall with a baseball game going on inside. This was intended to look like an airport with a baseball game going on inside.
I have been to a lot of minor league games, but I haven’t seen many featuring an affiliate of the Dodgers. So that was cool, but I didn’t know any of these prospects since it’s low-A. I did look up the Dodgers top 30 prospects and there were a handful of players on the Tower Buzzers. The highest rated one was Ching-Hsien Ko (the 14th ranked prospect for the Dodgers at the time of the game) from Taiwan. He was starting in right field. He went 2 for 5 with a triple, a home run, and 5 RBIs. It was a crazy game. It was the 66ers against the Tower Buzzers. The Tower Buzzers scored 11 in the bottom of the first. They lead 16-0 after three. After six innings, it was 16-3. Sean and I decided to leave after the top of the seventh. We had a long drive back and even though it was a Dodgers’ affiliate, I didn’t need to see the whole game. Then the 66ers scored 11 in the top of the seventh. So now the score was 16-14. So it had suddenly gotten interesting, but we still didn’t need to see the whole thing so we left. The Tower Buzzers scored six in the bottom of the eighth to make it 22-14. So if we had stayed, it would have seemed like it got uninteresting again. But then the 66ers scored seven in the top of the ninth to make it 22-21. The game ended on a strikeout with the tying run on second. The 66ers had 21 runs, 13 hits, and two errors. The Tower Buzzers had 22 runs, 20 hits, and four errors. Both teams used seven pitchers. The longest any pitcher went was three innings. It was 90° and the game lasted three hours and 57 minutes. Attendance was 4,232 (which was a decent crowd for a Wednesday night in a stadium with a capacity of 6,500). I think it’s likely that 22 runs is the most runs a team ever scored in a game that I attended and I’m pretty much certain that 43 combined runs is the most runs scored in a game that I attended (but of course, we weren’t there for all of the runs).
I took this picture from the concourse because I wanted to get a good picture with the mountains in the background. I think those mountains were a little over 20 miles away. If you zoom in on the picture, you can see an advertisement for Orel Hershiser’s car dealership in the wall.
I had high hopes for the stadium since it was brand new this year and it was generally good. They had a variety of food options. I got carne asada tacos from Fernando’s Tacomania. They were good, but definitely not as good as the tacos I had at Petco Park. One thing they needed to work on was the beer selection. There wasn’t a big selection and it was almost all in cans. I think I saw one place where you could get a beer on tap, but I don’t think any of the draft beer was craft beer. Between the not great selection and the fact that prices were almost as high as you would get in a Major League Stadium, I didn’t get a beer. I would have gotten one if they had more interesting options. That’s what’s keeping this stadium from ranking several spots higher in my non-Major League stadium rankings. But it was a cool stadium with the mountains in the background and there was a lot of Dodgers stuff there. We sat in the first row right by first base. Normally I would sit closer to home plate, but there was some promotion where that section had really cheap seats. I think I paid like $7 per ticket, but if I had bought tickets one section closer to home plate the tickets were something like $32 each.
These seats definitely got better once the sun went down. It’s not normally where I would sit, but the price was right. We sat out in left field and ate our food while we waited for the sun to go down. There was lots of Dodgers stuff, but Fernando Valenzuela was definitely emphasized. I’m sure they are trying to draw as many Hispanic fans as possible. I think they did “It’s time for Buzzer baseball” at the beginning of the game.
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| This is my favorite sports moment of all time. |
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| The aviation theme was strong at ONT Field and I will aways associate this moment with an airport because I watched it at the Burbank airport. |
I was planning on going to at least one more minor league game this summer at a stadium I hadn’t been to yet, but I had to cancel my plans. So it’s likely that I’m done going to minor league baseball for the year. There’s a small chance that I might go to a Ducks game in September, but I’ve been to that stadium a few times already. So I’ll update my non-Major League Baseball stadium rankings. I added three new stadiums this year. I started with Virginia Credit Union Stadium in Fredericksburg in April. And this summer I got to Mike Lansing Field in Casper and ONT Field in Ontario. So here are my updated rankings:
43. Ripken Stadium in Aberdeen
42. Arm & Hammer Park in Trenton
41. Walker Stadium in Portland, Oregon
40. Mike Lansing Field in Casper
38. Arvest Ballpark in Springdale
37. Mulcahy Stadium in Anchorage
35. TD Bank Ballpark in Bridgewater, New Jersey
34. Heritage Financial Park in Wappingers Falls
31. Newman Outdoor Field in Fargo
30. Isotopes Park in Albuquerque
29. TD Ameritrade Park in Omaha
28. Daniel S. Frawley Stadium in Wilmington
27. Clipper Magazine Stadium in Lancaster
26. Centennial Field in Burlington
25. Frank Eck Stadium at Notre Dame
23. Greater Nevada Field in Reno
22. NBT Bank Stadium in Syracuse
21. Richmond County Bank Ballpark on Staten Island
20. Hadlock Field in Portland, Maine
19. ONT Field in Ontario
18. Virginia Credit Union Stadium in Fredericksburg
17. Dickey-Stephens Park in Little Rock
16. Joseph L. Bruno Stadium in Troy
15. Bethpage Ballpark in Central Islip
14. Four Winds Field in South Bend
13. Prince George’s Stadium in Bowie
12. Riverfront Stadium in Wichita
10. George Steinbrenner Field in Tampa
9. Delta Dental Stadium in Manchester
8. Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark in Oklahoma City
5. Frontier Field in Rochester
4. Joseph P. Riley Jr. Park in Charleston
3. Dunkin Donuts Park in Hartford
2. Regions Field in Birmingham
I hope I’m not done attending baseball games this year, but I might be. There’s a small chance of going to a Ducks game and I might go to a Met game before the end of the season. If not, I won’t be at a baseball game until next year. We’ll see what happens with Major League Baseball. I hope there’s no lockout, but Rob Manfred is involved so I fear the worst. But whether or not there is Major League Baseball, there will be minor league baseball. They have another year on their collective bargaining agreement so they will have a 2027 season. It starts during my Easter vacation so I might try to see some minor league baseball in a warm weather location in late March and/or early April.
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