Ballpark: Turner Field

As I mentioned in a previous post, I went down to Atlanta to watch Michigan play in the Final Four. With the goal of going to all 30 MLB ballparks in mind, I was relieved to find that the Braves were playing at home during Final Four weekend. Since Michigan won on Saturday night, my friends and I made quick plans to go see the Braves vs. Cubs on Sunday afternoon (April 7). We planned on walking from our downtown hotel to Turner Field but lucked out and got a free ride courtesy of a Buick adverstising campaign. The car dropped us off about a quarter of a mile away from the stadium. As we walked to Turner Field, I noticed the old wall from Atlanta Fulton County Stadium still standing and serving as an edge of a parking lot. It was a nice homage to the baseball history in Atlanta and could not help to think about Hank Aaron hitting homerun #715.  

We bought the cheapest seats in the ballpark: upper-deck general admission tickets. We got there early so we had plenty of choices to where we could sit. We sat in foul territory near the right field foul pole about 10 rows up. The view of the field was surprisingly very good even though we were a long ways away. At the start of the game, we were in the shade but as the game progressed the sun elevated over the metal facade. Since we did not have sunscreen and already somewhat sunburt from the day before we moved to about 30 rows up in the upperdeck to get back in the shade. 

From our seats we could see the Downtown Atlanta skyline beyond left center field. This is a nice touch many new "retro" ballparks have to make you feel like you are part of the city. Along with the city skyline in the distance, the brick stairway to the upperdeck and the iron entry gates gave a subtle "retro" vibe. The large tomahawk logo above the left field seats was a visual reminder that this was "Brave's Country". It was fun to participate in the chop, the favorite cheer of the fans with men on base, and I could see how it could be intimidating come the playoffs. The Braves didn't need the chop to will them to victory in this game as they beat the Cubs 5-1 although Jeff Samardjcz was racking up the strikeouts. Tim Hudson pitched well for the Braves.

As far as food, I had a footlong hotdog with chilli and cheese. The hotdog was good but it wasn't really special. I was somewhat dissappointed in the food selection and the lines at Turner Field. Even though I only went to a few concession stands in the upperdeck, the lines were long and the only real substantial food item were footlong hotdog were varying toppings. However, a friend of mine did look for food on the lower concourse found the lines to be to long to justify waiting. He didn't see any specialty food items either although they were promoting a new customizable frozen yogurt bar on the jumbotron during the game.

My take-away thought on Turner Field is that it is my expectation for a major league ballpark. Turner Field had all the features that I expect from a modern MLB stadium but didn't have that one thing to set it apart from any other ballpark in the league.