This conversation about Stacey's trip to Boston got me ponderin'. I think most baseball fans enjoy going to a different team's ballpark when they're in a city that has one. Just for kicks, I though it'd be fun to see where the CC regulars (and irregulars) fall in.
Rather than making a poll, which would be 30 choices long and would exclude older parks, just comment and say where you've been in a kind of list form. When everyone's weighed in, I'll tabulate some numbers.
Feel free to leave comments about your impressions, too.
My list after the jump, in roughly chronological order:
Memorial Stadium: where I grew up watching games. Always loved the horseshoe shape, which was in homage to the Colts, but was better-suited for baseball.
OPACY: Still, objectively, the best park I've ever visited.
Yankee Stadium (the old one): Blah blah blah tradition blah blah. It was a disgusting place to watch a game. Smelly, crowded and damp tunnels under the seats. Irritating organ music throughout, which Yankee fans seem to love. Bone-jarringly loud shit being played on the speakers all the time. I hated seeing a game there. Somewhat redeemed my a decent beer selection before a lot of parks did that.
Shea: Better overall cleanliness and space than Yankee stadium, although still kind of shitty. The apple coming out of the hat for homeruns was awesome (if a bit goofy), and the 7 train juxtaposition was awesome—riding to the game, you could see the park for a few seconds, and then during the game, you could watch several 7 trains go by in right field. Garish orange and blue everywhere.
Coliseum (Oakland): Went a few times in 1991 (to see Cal play the A's) and then several times from 1998-2000. It was renovated in the interim. In '91, you could actually walk by left-centerfield on your way into the stadium and see the field through a fence (which gave the place a quaint kind of casual feel), but after the renovation, new seats blocked the view. When I went in the late 90s, it was called the "Network Associates Coliseum", and when you took BART to get there, you crossed a pedestrian bridge and were greeted by an enormous cheerful sign on the outside, "Meet me at the Net!". Like people would somehow adopt that saying. Hilarious.
Candlestick: Saw a game there in the Giants' last home series before moving to Pac Bell. Freezing. Also saw the Niners play the 'Skins there. Much warmer because, of course, the sun was out.
Pac Bell: Saw a game in its first season. Have virtually no memory of the place. I think my thoughts at the time were, "Oh, they're doing the OPACY thing".
Fenway: 2005ish? I don't really get the Fenway love. It's really awesome and quaint from the outside, planted into the middle of a neighborhood the way it is, but the inside struck me as kind of boring. They've done all this renovations work with extra seats and glass, so I was expecting this old-timey feel, but what I got was this weird-mixture-of-archtectural-materials feel. I think maybe I'd have like it more before they upgraded.
Wrigley: Went to a day game, of course. Awesome, intimate, love the Ivy. Did not love the thousands of drunk frat-boy fans. It was like going to a college kegger with a baseball game in the front yard.
Dodger Stadium: Really pissed me off. If you go to a new ballpark, you like to get there early and tour the park a little. I had upper-deck seats, and they WOULD NOT ALLOW ME access to the lower deck to walk around. Not even the concourses. And this was over an hour before first pitch. They have basically one major stairway that connects the upper and lower deck and it's zealously guarded. Arrrgh, it makes me furious now as I remember it. I hate the Dodgers and their entitled, snotty fanbase, which arrives in the 3rd and leaves in the 7th. Having Joe Torre here didn't help matters. The one nice thing is the view of the mountains during the game. The stadium is generally open and the vista stretches for miles.
Anaheim Stadium: Just went over the 4th. A great place to watch a game. The stadium is really old, with concrete that looks like it will crumble, but everything other than the concrete is new from a recent renovation. The fake mountain in centerfield (with rapids running down it!) perfectly summarizes a park that is located near Disney. Fireworks after local homeruns, which is a little startling. Food choices were disappointing for such a modern park. VERY quiet fans. And the rally monkey thing is just ridiculously stupid.
Honorable mention: I went to Veterans Stadium in the 1980s to see the Jacksons' Victory Tour, but have not seen a baseball game there. I have also been very close to Safeco field, enough to see a good portion of it from the outside, but have not been in. It's probably next on my list (or else PETCO in SD).