Colorado Rockies

This is the park that really hooked me on baseball parks as well as my moderate interest in urban redevelopment and how a ballpark can spur redevelopment of a blighted area. 

It was the winter of (probably) 1997, and I was in Denver, Colorado.  I was visiting one of my college roommates, Andy Hungerford, who lived in Colorado Springs.  But he wanted to show me downtown Denver and it’s new stadium which opened in 1995, and I was happy to go along.  I was amazed to see a baseball park in the middle of a what looked to be a predominately industrial area.  Everything was red brick and looked old, but the area was vibrant with microbreweries, loft housing, and restaurants, and people.  It blew my mind.  It was like a Disneyland “Land” that was real. 

We walked around the park, and looked best we could.  But it was winter, and the park would not be open again for many more months.

It wasn’t until I was in Denver shooting ElimiDATE that I would actually be able to see a game there (and thus check it off my list).  I dragged fellow camera operator Kate Murphy along with me to her first baseball game (I believe). 

The park was what I expected and more.  At a mile high, balls tend to fly (9% farther, according to the Rockies web site), so the outfield is large.  And has beautiful pine trees in right-center!  Typical of the new “retro” parks, Coors has a large brick facade to fit in the neighborhood, and has plenty of steel, with green chairs.  And a nice view of the Rocky Mountains from the seats up high.  I can almost hear John Denver singing.

We got there early, and walked around the ballpark.  We watched the pitches warming up.  I was amazed at how close you could be to them.  This was a definite change from the older multi-use stadiums where the bullpen was tucked far away from the public. 

Kate & I got pretty good seats on the lower deck of the third base side.  I spent most of the game explaining how baseball works to Kate.  It was like seeing the game for the first time.

It was here that I decided that it would be fun to see a few more ballparks.  And so the journey begins… If I can just convince Kate that “low-scoring” baseball is fun to watch!