Ultimate Baseball Road Trip (103 page)

The next year, Denver and Miami were chosen to become the first NL expansion teams since the Expos and Padres joined the Senior Circuit in 1969. The Rockies commissioned architectural firm HOK, fresh off its success in Baltimore, to design a ballpark befitting Denver’s downtown warehouse setting. In the interim, the team played at Mile High Stadium, the former home of the NFL’s Denver Broncos and Triple-A Denver Zephyrs, who were a Milwaukee affiliate for years. Denver was awarded a team largely due to its history of supporting the Zephyrs (1985–1992) and the Denver Bears before them (1955–1962, 1969–1984). After Denver broke ground on Coors Field in October 1992, the Zephyrs moved to New Orleans where they remain.

In 1993, the Rockies set a new record for most wins by a first-year team, going 67 and 95. But the big news wasn’t the team’s sixth-place finish in the seven-team National League West (the Padres were 61-101 that year). Instead, the Rockies made headlines for finishing atop the game’s attendance ledger. Playing at Mile High Stadium, they drew more than eighty thousand fans to the season opener—an 11-4 victory over the Expos—and the crowds kept coming. By season’s end, nearly four and a half million people had visited the converted football field to watch Major League Baseball in the Rocky Mountain air. In two seasons at Mile High, the Rockies averaged an astounding fifty-seven thousand fans
per game. For its efforts, Mile High was tapped for a date with the wrecking ball shortly after the Rockies moved next door and the Broncos moved to brand new Invesco Field.

But due to the remarkable fan support at Mile High, the construction of Coors Field was modified to increase capacity from the originally planned forty-three thousand seats to more than fifty thousand, bringing the total cost of building the yard to $215 million. Despite the work stoppage of 1994, which adversely affected attendance in many cities after baseball resumed, the extra seats in Colorado were filled night in and night out in 1995. The Colorado team went on to attract more than three million fans in each of its first nine seasons. The club had never played before a home crowd of less than thirty thousand, in fact, before doing so in 2002. Nowadays, the Rockies typically finish among the top ten teams in baseball in terms of average nightly attendance, attracting about thirty-five thousand per game, which puts them pretty close to the three-million mark by each season’s end.

More than just being a beautiful park that introduces spectators to a version of the game that is a little bit different than the breed of ball we enjoy practically everywhere else, Coors Field also sits amidst a lower downtown Denver neighborhood that adds quite a bit of excitement and flavor to the game-day experience. Just as LoDo’s impact on a baseball excursion to Coors cannot be overstated, Coors’s impact on LoDo must be acknowledged. What was a rundown part of the city before big league ball’s arrival, has become a trendy hangout for visitors and locals who appreciate the fine restaurants and brew pubs that operate in the renovated warehouse buildings. The centerpiece of the whole neighborhood, of course, is a ballpark that looks almost like an old warehouse itself from the exterior. The park offers the total game-day experience: a hip urban entertainment district, a festive pregame plaza, seats with great sight lines, and a ballpark rife with unique local flavor. So enjoy your visit.

What was once a difficult ticket to find has become readily more available. Although the typical summer crowds of thirty-five thousand to forty thousand may be the equivalents of sellouts at the smaller parks in Boston or Pittsburgh, at spacious Coors such respectable gatherings still leave abundant open seats. So picking out a seat that suits your tastes and fits your budget should be easy, right? Think again. Not only do the Rockies divide the Coors stands into seventeen different pricing tiers, but they price these categories differently depending upon which opposing team is in town and what time of year the game is taking place. There are four different pricing tiers, as listed here in ascending (cheapest to priciest) order: Value, Premium, Classic, and Opening Day. We’d need Ph.D.s in statistics to explain exactly what this means to you, the average American ticket-buyer. And between us, all we have are two Masters of Fine Arts degrees in Creative Writing and Kevin’s welding certificate. However, you should be able to use your smarts to assess whether the game you’ve chosen is going to rate on the higher or lower end of the pricing scale. You can assume that if it’s summer and a quality opponent is in town, you’ll be paying top dollar. If you’re heading to Denver for an April matchup between the Rockies and the Pirates, on the other hand, you’ll likely be paying the discount price. In a sense, we suppose this is equitable. But it can get confusing. At least the outfield Rockpile seats are always $4.00—the same as when Coors opened. The hottest tickets are for games against the Cardinals and Cubs, owing to the larger number
of transplanted Illinoisans and Missourians in Denver. Interleague games also draw well, especially those infrequent matchups the Rockies have with the Red Sox, Yankees and White Sox.

As a rule, the sight lines at Coors are superb. The Club Level is set far enough behind the lower bowl so as to avoid the type of overhang complications that often afflict the back rows of first-level seats at other parks. Likewise, the Upper Level is set far enough from the field to prevent the underhang from being a factor in most upstairs sections, with the exception being those composing the Upper Right Field Reserved.

Upon visiting Coors Field we are always struck by how wide the seats are and how much room there is in the aisles leading to the seats. This is true in the lower bowl and throughout the park. You really can’t go wrong with a seat in these primo sections around the infield. Shoot for Section 131 or 132 if you want to sit right behind the catcher, or for 120 to call the bang-bang plays at first, or 140 or 141 to see if you can crack the third base coach’s code.

Thanks to a low retaining wall between the first row and the field, there are hardly any blighted views on the first level.

If you’re haggling with a scalper on a rainy night, shoot for a seat under the overhang of the Club Level in Rows 29–38. As far as overhangs go, this is not an obtrusive one, but if you’re the type of fan who likes to see the whole flight of the ball on those Major League pop-ups around the plate, we recommend avoiding Rows 34–38.

What is this, a soccer pitch? In one of the few gaffes committed in building and labeling their beautiful baseball park, the Rocky Mountain baseball neophytes chose to categorize the seating sections along the foul lines in medium-depth right and left field as Midfield Boxes. But don’t fret. As long as you don’t have your hopes set on seeing a header or bicycle kick, you’ll enjoy a first-rate view of the action from these field-level seats. A minor drawback is that the seats along the left-field line point fans toward right field, and the seats along the right-field line point fans toward left. The seats are angled to a degree, in an effort to provide fans a better view of the infield, but Kevin still had a stiff neck after sitting in Section 116.

As is the case in the Infield Boxes, the rows range from 1–38, with the first row in each section costing the same as the 38th. So shoot for seats down near the field.

Out past the Midfield Boxes, the Outfield Boxes are still quality first level seats. But in our opinion they’re priced a bit too high, given their proximity to the Pavilion seats in left-field home run territory and the Right Field Boxes in long-ball land in right. Both of these straight-on seating locales provide equally solid views for less money than the Outfield Boxes. As a rule, the left-field seats (144–150) offer a better view of the left-field corner and entire field than the right-field seats (110–117) do of the right-field corner and field, because of the higher retaining wall between the field and seats in right.

Located above the out-of-town scoreboard in home run territory, these seats provide an excellent view of the game. Seats in Rows 10 and back are beneath the overhang of the Club deck. This is worth remembering on a rainy night. The obstruction from the overhang is negligible. We suggest avoiding Section 109 where the right-field foul pole interferes with some views. Seats 1–5 in all rows of the section provide a particularly poor view of home plate, while the pole blocks other portions of the field for those sitting elsewhere in the higher-numbered seats. Section 105, beside the bullpens in straight-away right, is ideal for ball hawks. So bring your glove. The ball carries well here, you know.

If you don’t mind sitting on a bleacher bench (with a back), then the Pavilion is a legit option. It is not only lower to the field than the Right Field Boxes but offers a view of the out-of-town scores. Wisely, the ballpark designers did not place seats behind the left-field foul pole, where instead there is a runway used for field equipment. As a result, the pole doesn’t interfere with the views for fans in left. We especially liked the Pavilion seats near the left-field line in Sections 151–153, which are much closer to the infield than Sections 156–160 in deep left-center.

The Club Level shares the same deck that the press box is on. The deck is set a bit farther from the field than the Club decks at most three-level stadiums, but on the plus side is relatively low, which keeps fans in the flow of the game. Sections 221–227 on the first-base line and 234–241 on the third-base line are the pick of the litter and sell as Club Infield tickets. The Club sections that run from the corner sacks into deep foul territory sell as Club Outfield tickets.

Beginning in right field where the Club seats end, the Right Field Mezzanine offers solid views for the cost. We recommend aiming for the first or second row, perched above the right fielder. Even in the back row—Row 12—the overhang of the upper deck is not a factor. In Rows 6 and higher a minimal underhang blocks the view of the right-field warning track, but it’s not too bothersome. Sections 201–204 are above the bullpens in straight-away right, while 205–209 are above the Outfield Boxes and Right Field Boxes.

These $4.00 center-field bleachers aren’t a bad deal when you consider that a comparable bleacher ticket at Fenway Park costs about $30. Then again, at Fenway the bleachers are composed of individual chair back seats. But the view really isn’t bad from this distance perch at Coors. Because the sections are well elevated and set back from the centerfield fence, the field is not at all obstructed by an underhang or by the outfield fence itself. Though these seats bear the 400 Level stigma, they are actually located a full level below the 300 Level seats in right field. The downside is that unlike the first-level Pavilion sections in left, the Rockpile seats are plain old metal benches without backrests. But Rockpile ticket holders are free to roam the rest of the park and to settle where they may.