Bill's Journal Entry #8

Coors Field

Date: July 2, 2002

Location: Denver, Colorado

Opponent: San Francisco Giants

Travel companion: My dad, Marvin Verkuilen

Link to my photos: http://cards.webshots.com/cp-30848358-wRRD-album/42570365dEOtAa 

Game Result: The final total of this game was 7-3, Giants. No, that’s not the number of runs each team scored.  That would be 18-5, Giants. Instead, that’s the number of home runs hit by each team. Apparently the air in Coors was even thinner than usual. Three different Giants -- Damon Minor, Tsuyoshi Shingo, and Reggie Sanders -- had two homers each. The score after one inning was 8-1. Need I say more?

Stadium Summary: This is one of a handful of examples (Baltimore and Cleveland being notable others) of a city doing a great job of revitalizing a whole neighborhood, using a new stadium as the centerpiece. Coors Field is a beautiful stadium that does a great job of incorporating the best of everything around it. It mixes equal parts of downtown Denver, the “LoDo” neighborhood in which it’s located, and the Rocky Mountains ... plus it adds in the majesty and history of baseball.  The result is a lot of fun! The views from this stadium are beautiful, regardless of whether you’re looking at the field itself, the variety of seating areas, the very attractive scoreboard, or any of the surrounding areas. The only real complaint I have about this stadium is the size. It simply has too many seats. When it was first being designed, it was going to be smaller, but based on the huge crowds the expansion Rockies drew in Mile High Stadium prior to the completion of Coors Field, they expanded the seating capacity. This was a mistake, as now it’s almost never filled, and huge sections of empty seats surround most games. But despite this one issue, the incredible vistas make this a fantastic park.

Best souvenir: As long as I’ve been going to games, I’ve had much the same dream as many other fans -- catching a game ball. Ideally a homer, but even a foul would be great. And I really wanted to pull it off during my summer tour. In the top of the sixth inning, I got that chance. Benito Santiago hit a foul ball toward my third-deck seat. A slight reach behind me and to my left, and I had my ultimate souvenir. Luckily, my seat level was near the apogee of the ball’s flight, so I didn’t even have to worry about the speed of the ball causing me injury. Moments after the catch, I remembered the lesson I had learned in Miami:  give the game ball to a kid in the area. I did a quick look around, and there wasn’t a single kid in my entire section. This one was MINE! I don’t know if He had anything to do with the ball coming my way, but I’m convinced that the lack of kids in the section was God’s way of paying me back for giving away that ball I got in Arlington.

Worst loss of a great souvenir: In the bottom of the fifth inning, Larry Walker hit a home run. Actually, that’s not entirely correct ... he crushed a home run, up into the third deck of the stadium! There, it went right through a teenaged fan’s hands, hit him square in the chest --- and bounced all the way down to the first deck.

Best patriotic view from a stadium: In his book Joe Mock’s Ballpark Guide, Joe (who is also the guru of this website) indicates that the place to sit if you want a view of downtown Denver is the Rock Pile, in center field. I beg to differ. The best view of downtown that I got was from the very last row of the upper deck, straight behind home plate. From there, you stand on the seat, turn around, and peer through the wire mesh safety fence. This gives you one of the best views I’ve seen from a stadium.  In the foreground below you, is the back side of the clock tower in the corner of the stadium, with the “COORS FIELD” letters visible in reverse. Beyond that is downtown Denver in all its glory. And right in the center of it all, just begging to be photographed, is the American flag, on a pole extending out of the clock tower. To see the view for yourself, here’s a link to the photo: http://community.webshots.com/photo/42570365/42580892EoZjEV.  A view not to be missed!

Best view from a stadium that I wasn’t able to see: The Rocky Mountains. I had heard so much about the view of the Rockies from the stadium, and I was anxious to get a look. When I finally got to see for myself, I thought they were nice, but not as impressive as I was expecting. When I was later talking to an usher, he mentioned that he hadn’t seen the Rockies in a couple weeks, and might not see them the rest of the baseball season. “What do you mean?” I asked. “They’re right there!” Not so, he informed me. Those were just the foothills, going up to about 7500 feet. The Rockies were behind them, going up to around 13,000 feet (or, using Denver’s mile-high elevation as a reference, about three to four times as high), and they were completely obscured by the smoke from all the Western forest fires this year. And all this time, I thought the Great Smokey Mountains were in Tennessee. Oh well -- even the foothills are still far more than I ever see in Minnesota.

Most disappointing fountain: I know I’ve seen the fountains in center field shooting jets upward before, in photos and on TV. But for some reason this day, they weren’t firing, not even on home runs.

Food most likely to only ever be served in a stadium in Colorado: Rocky Mountain Oysters. I had to try them, if only to be able to say that I did so. A bit disappointing, mostly because they were so completely covered with batter that it was difficult to detect anything else in them. I was surprised at the shape-I was expecting something more, well, round. Instead, these were more like two- to three-inch wide strips of bacon. I’m not exactly sure I want to know how they get them to be that shape. It’s already bad enough knowing how and from where they were obtained.

Most surprising location for a purple stripe: Halfway up the upper deck in Coors is a purple row of seats, that supposedly is at an elevation of exactly one mile high. Why is it way up there? I thought that Denver itself -- at ground level -- was a mile high. At least that’s what all the signs around the city say. So what are the facts?

A trend continues: Despite getting clobbered, the Rockies did hit three home runs -- and I’m now eight-for-eight for the home team homering…

Stadium grade: B+  Everyone I know who has been to this stadium in previous years tells me that the view of the Rockies (the mountains, not the team) is the best thing about this stadium. And without experiencing its best feature in all its grandeur, it’s hard for me to give this park an A. But it’s very close.

Overall grade of my experience at the game: A+  I got to watch baseball with my dad, eat Rocky Mountain Oysters, see the foothills of the Rockies, watch ten home runs, and to top it off, catch a foul ball! Even a blow-out game and smoke covering the Rockies couldn’t diminish this day!

-- Bill Verkuilen    biggbill@hotmail.com

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