Braves ditching The Ted for suburbs

Pittsburgh is awesome. The bridge as the backdrop is tremendous.

 

Houston has its quirks as well, with the short porch in left to incorporate the wall of the old train station into the park (see also, the Western Metal building in San Diego). And they finally got rid of Tal's Hill. Alas, it's still Houston ...

 

I like Coors Field. But I always thought that given how well the ball travels in Denver that would have been a great place for an old style, 500+ foot center field. The Rockies could then train an Olympic sprinter to be their center fielder.

 

I thought they should have kept playing at Mile High.

 

Houston always seemed, to me, to be trying too hard. Maybe I just don't know the history of where the park is located, but it just seemed contrived.

 

I still don't know what qualifies as a home run to left-center there and the ballpark has been in existence for 18 years.

 

Like I said, it's Houston.

 

The only places where baseball is played in the suburbs is Atlanta and DFW. (I suppose Anaheim also qualifies if you consider it a suburb of L.A. like Arte Moreno does.) Everyone else has either a downtown stadium or one that's out a ways but still in city limits, like Kansas City.

One thing Arlington got right was traffic. Never had a major backup going either to or from a Rangers game, and I go to several a year. But there is zero postgame atmosphere there. You watch the game and go home.

 

I suspect that was tongue in cheek. But one thing I liked about Mile High as originally constructed was that it was a massive park. 370 to right field and 440 to center. The dimensions were reduced over time because of football expansions.

 

Heard from a friend who went to SunTrust Park last night and he raved about the place. Said the parking is easy to get to (each parking lot has an actual address you can plug into your navigation device) and the pedestrian bridge over I-75 is very convenient. Said the sight lines inside the park are great and there's lightning fast wifi.

He added that although traffic after the game was bad, it was "a thousand times better getting in and out than going to Turner Field."

I've got tickets for a late June game (I live 5 hours from Atlanta and that was the first home game weekend I didn't have a conflict) and really looking forward to it now.

(I'm not a Cobb County taxpayer, so I don't care about the political implications. I just want a good ballpark experience).

 

Surprising on the traffic, but I wonder if it being a weekend helped. The next couple weeks of weeknight games will be interesting.