Chase Field, Phoenix (MLB #1, and home field)

Our quest starts with our home ballpark, Chase Field in Phoenix. Although we’ve already seen 18 games here this year, we’ll declare this Memorial Day game to be the start of our journey.

We are lifelong fans of the Arizona Diamondbacks. Not our lives long, but the team’s.

We attended the Diamondbacks’ first Spring Training game, Feb. 27, 1998, at the brand-new Kino Sports Complex in Tucson. Tucson had had Spring Training for 50 years, starting when Bill Veeck didn’t want to deal with Florida’s racially-segregated culture when he integrated the Cleveland Indians, but now it was for a team that was going to be a team with “Arizona” in the name. I’d spent six weeks in Antarctica that year, but I swear the coldest I got that year was the ballgame, since I didn’t have my Extreme Cold Weather gear. I still have the T-shirt.

We attended the Diamondbacks’ first regular season game,  March 31, 1998, at the brand-new Bank One Ballpark in Phoenix, 100 miles from our home in Tucson. Although it looks like a warehouse from the outside, “the BOB”  was everything a fan could want. It had the first retractable roof at a U.S. baseball stadium (a requirement for Phoenix). It had a swimming pool (only required because ballparks are supposed to have something quirky about them). The national anthem was performed by an ad hoc band composed of local celebrities like shock-rocker Alice Cooper, and was actually excellent. The ceremonial first pitch was thrown out by a young fan chosen at random (a touch I really liked). And the team lost the game, as they did most of the time that year. I still have a T-shirt and a seat cushion from that game.

The thing that I loved most about the BOB was that the franchise emphasized the history of the game. There were murals at various places in the stadium of things like Willie Mays’ catch in the 1954 World Series, of Hank Aaron, of Cal Ripken. And one of the smaller display screens, in the left-field corner, was dedicated to baseball history, one game scrolling through MVPs by year, another game scrolling through Cy Young winners, and so on.

We were at Game 7 of the 2001 World Series, when the D’backs came from behind in the 9^th inning to beat the Yankees. I have several pieces of memorabilia from that series.

During the World Series, the baseball history board showed the World Series winners, year by year. At the end of the 9^th inning of Game 7, it was scrolling through the champions year by year until it stopped at “2001 – Arizona”. Was I the only one who noticed, and found that moment to be thrilling?

Maybe I was, because the next year, that display board showed the number of pitches the pitchers had thrown. Useful information, but not nearly as fascinating to me.

The food choices have gotten sometimes better, sometimes worse, over the course of the years, but there have always been more choices than just hot dogs, burgers, and cotton candy. At the start, the biggest concession stands had an item tied to each of the MLB teams (crab cakes to represent Baltimore, Philly cheesesteaks, etc.). But that was more of a quirk than a financial success, I suspect, so it went away. There have always been some decent Mexican choices, which is only fitting, given that Mexican becomes comfort food for anyone who lives in Arizona very long, whether they came from Mexico or the Midwest (and I think they sell more churros than cotton candy). There is usually a salad option or two, although it’s usually well-hidden. There’s some irony in the lack of salads. Kerry sent an email  to the team president once to complain, and he responded (kudos to him for that, by the way) by saying that he’s sympathetic, because he’s vegan (!), but the over-the-top items like the 18-inch-long hot dogs are what sells. Most people are only at the park once or twice a year, not several times a week like we are. The prices are ballpark-high, but the variety has always been better than the vast majority of sports venues (although they’ve never had anything like the crepes I once had at a Mariners’ game).

Over the years, Bank One was sold to Chase, so “the BOB” became “Chase Field,” even though the team mascot is still a bobcat (we have to explain that one to people). And the stadium has gradually decayed. The big out-of-town scoreboards are now covered by advertising banners, because many of the lights have burned out, and replacements aren’t available. The retractable roof can still be opened and closed, but inspectors have said that the cabling mechanism is too dangerous for it to be done when there are people on the field or in the stands, so it’s either open or closed for the whole game. Repairs are promised in the off-season.

Of the 30 MLB stadiums, Chase Field is now the 13^th oldest, and with the maintenance issues, it’s clear something needs to be done. Refurbishing the existing stadium would be very expensive. Downtown Phoenix is thriving, which is good for the investment value of our summer home (more on that later), but means that there are few, if any, parcels of land big enough for a stadium available in the area. There is available land out in the suburbs, but most sports teams have been moving into downtowns, rather than away from them. The attendance is below average, and I suspect it would be worse if they moved to a place that’s not accessible by public transit, that isn’t surrounded by bars and restaurants, and that might be an hour or more of driving away from a third of the metro area.

We don’t know what will happen in the next few years, but this is our home stadium, and we may never know another stadium as well. We won’t claim it’s perfect. But after 25 years, we love it in spite of (and sometimes because of) its quirks.

The Game:

The Diamondbacks beat the Rockies, 7-5.  

Ryan McMahon of the Rockies had a home run, single, and triple in his first three at bats, leaving him only a double shy of the "cycle" (a single, a double, a triple and a home run in the same game) with no outs in the 5th inning, and the score 7-5 (i.e., lots of hits). I'd never seen a player hit for the cycle at a MLB game, though I'd seen some come close. 

Several times, I've seen players get a single, double and homer in the same game, but the closest I came to seeing a cycle was a young utility infielder named Chris Taylor. He'd never played regularly in his first two-plus seasons, but less than a month after being traded to the Dodgers, we saw him get a double, a triple, and his first major-league home run, and then he came to bat in the 8th inning needing only a single. He laid down a pretty good bunt, but was thrown out at first by a step, with the crowd roaring. Eight years and 97 more home runs later, he's still with the Dodgers, making $15M per year, and having been on a World Series winner and been in an All-Star game. But I suspect that night remains one of the highlights of his career. 

Meanwhile, McMahon got two chances at the cycle today. On his fourth at-bat of the day, he lined a clean single. In his final at-bat, leading off the 9th inning with the Rockies trailing by the same 7-5 score, he struck out looking. I've still never seen a cycle...

Phoenix AZ, May 29, 2023