From Ballpark Roadtrip
lumpy's notes: tour de franks challenge, rainout poker, prohibited parlay, scooter claus, vegas under the cloak of darkness.
Coors Field
Denver, CO
San Francisco Giants @ Colorado Rockies
July 16, 2004
The Road Trip
Carson City on fire during Lumpy & Ed's trip to Denver
Denver was the starting point of the trip this year and we were fortunate that one of our college fraternity brothers, Scooter, lived outside of Denver. Mike was able to catch a flight out the night before and catch a bonus Rockies game before the rest of the group made it to Denver. Ed lived in the Bay Area at the time. Lumpy was actually out in the Bay Area with his wife Kim to do an area overview. At the time they were in the middle of planning to relocate to the area since Lumpy got a new job, which was scheduled to start in September. Lumpy decided to parlay the house hunting trip with Ballpark Roadtrip and meet up with Ed. At 6:00 AM Ed and Lumpy dropped Kim off at the Oakland Airport and drove across the mountains to Denver while Joker and Cooter flew out from the east coast. In retrospect it's a good thing nothing happened to Kim's flight. Ed and Lumpy would have been half way across Nevada before they would have found out. They'd roll into the Denver area around 1:00 AM the next day.
There are a few parks that present unique problems when it comes to planning ballpark roadtrips, Safeco and Coors are the two worst offenders. They are isolated from any other MLB team and we are often traveling in the middle of summer when baseball is the only sport going. The good thing about both, is they are great parks and are in areas around which you can plan other vacation activities, so if you make a special trip to Denver just to cross Coors Field off your list, you can spend a few days and have plenty of things to do. Also, it seems that everyone "knows someone" in the Denver/Boulder area so you probably have a buddy that will let you crash on that old futon in his basement, or just dig a cardboard box out of a dumpster and crash with some hobo hippies in Boulder.
The Park
Hobos on the inside, too!
Coors has several things going for it:
- Beautiful park
- You can see parts of the interior of the park from the outside, like the Jake
- Integrates well into the downtown neighborhood by having hobos both outside and inside the park
- Unlike the banking and telecom sponsored parks, a local company like Coors having naming rights to the field is an easier pill to swallow
Even ballpark sushi is better than no sushi
Another way to gauge the quality of a ballpark experience these days is whether or not they sell sushi. If they can sell sushi without getting people sick then they're probably doing other things right, too. Remember when the Rockies won 21 of 22 to close 2007 and make the playoffs? The secret:sushi.
Beside sushi, Coors is littered with gourmet (for a ballpark) fare and an extensive microbrew selection. Most notable for us was the hot dog selection, probably even better than the travelling Cooperstown exhibit we encountered in 2002.
Hot dog choices include:
- Rockie Dog: 10 inch Hebrew National, grilled peppers and onions
- Denver Dog: green chili, shredded cheese, jalapeno peppers
- Tucson Dog: red chili, shredded cheese, sour cream
- New York Dog: sauerkraut, peppers and onions, spicy mustard
- Chicag Dog: tomatoes, cucumbers, sport peppers, celery salt, relish
Also available but we didn't have the balls to try them (LOL!) are Rocky Mountain Oysters.
The Game
Arrived to a tarp covered field
This game will go down in infamy as the disaster that almost happened. We are always paranoid of a rainout and even moreso at a place as isolated as Coors Field. Denver is usually not a threat for rain but the forecast was looking pretty grim. We all went to school in Florida and I don't know if we ever saw it rain harder than it did on Coors Field tonight. Having amazing seats right on the dugout for this game made it even more disappointing as we watched the tarp pool up with water.
We sought refuge in the concourse and started thinking about contingencey plans. If we wanted to make a pit stop in Vegas, there was no way to see the Rockies game tomorrow. It would be one or the other. It seemed that there was a possibility that the storm would pass through quickly but who knows if the damage can be remedied to actually get the game in.
We has a travelling poker set and decided to pull up a piece of concrete and deal some cards under the cover of the overhang. One of the ushers came by and said something about we better not be playing for money because they don't allow parlays at the ballpark. Because of the tone of his delivery we couldn't figure out if he was
- joking
- serious
- seriously misinformed as to what a "parlay" is
The tarp comes off the field!
Shortly after our sit-n-go was down to heads-up, the rain stopped and soon after the tarp came off the field. We still thought there was no way this game was to be played as the grounds crew was doing their thing. Apparently there is some amazing drainage in the outfield only 20 feet past the infield lip because that is where they emptied the lake on top of the tarp and all of the water seemed to vanish. In another half hour the field was ready to play!
It's likely that we will never attend a game with a view like we had tonight. Scooter has some sort of season ticket action and was able to secure 6 seats right on the visitors' dugout about 8 feet from the on deck circle. Mike made it to Denver a day early and hit a game with Scooter and Mojo and it happened to be a giveaway night; all fans received a Santa Claus hat with the DirecTV logo on it. What does this item have to do with baseball? Nothing. But if you have six guys sitting on the dugout within camera view of all righthanded batters, they become much more noticeable when wearing Santa hats. We spent a good chunk of the game on TV. What was even better was the Santa hats were part of a giveaway the night before amking us the only ones in the park with these hats on. People watching from home must have thought, "What kind of idiot wears a Santa hat at a ballgame in July!" Well, there were 30,000 such idiots at Coors Field the night before.
