August 25 - Baseball at the Mile High City

The concluding highlight for today is the baseball game at the Coors Field. I got the ticket from the Rockies Official shop on the 16th Street mall and walked from the Mall to the Coors Field. In my opinion, the stadium situates at a nice location, just next to the train station and the downtown. The spot makes it very convenient for tourists and commuters to enjoy a game here.

Colorado Rockies is a relative young team in the long major league baseball history, established in 1993. I don't know much about the team, but I have heard a lot about its home stadium. Coors Field is an interesting outlier among the baseball stadiums in MLB baseball. At the mile high city, the air is thin so balls travel further. Even if the stadium is not at all small, lots of homeruns are hit at this park, and one can always look forward to high-scoring games here. It certainly makes the game exciting, and I hoped to see my share of runs in this game.

The notorious hitter's heaven/pitcher's hell - Coors Field.

There is an interesting shop for sports-related goods just across the street from the Coors Field. It has them all - jerseys for almost every team and lots of famous players. It is a bit puzzling to me why one would sell stuff from other teams just across the street from the local stadium. Perhaps it is an evidence that Rockies still have a long way to go to boost loyalty from local fans.

You can get things from teams all over the MLB here just across the street from Coors Field.

In front of the main gate, I saw a bunch of people selling snacks and drinks. This is not the case in LA, but I liked it. It makes every sense to avoid paying three times the price for just the same snack inside the stadium. Since I got my own food, I didn't need their service at the moment. But I would certainly like to have them around every baseball park I go to in the future.

Food vendors in front of the stadium.

Coming across the gate, there is a wide walkway leading to the stand. I liked the single-entrance design of the ballpark. It makes the access simple and fast. Unfortunately, it also reveals one weakness of the team - lack of attendance. The walkway and the area behind the stands appeared so spacious to me. Later, I figured out they are not actually wider than what we have in LA, but it is certainly less crowded. I walked down the walkway and started to circle around the field, checking out the facilities of the ballpark. I concluded very soon that this is a park with nice facility, but I also felt sad that not many people come to enjoy it. Consider that this was a Friday night, the attendance was not at all satisfactory. They have everything here: A nice park, nice facility, a team with a handful of rising stars, and the tickets are available at very affordable prices. It shouldn't be the case that I was able to walk about the stadium with ease 1.5 hours before the game. I understand that building popularity of a team takes time, but I figured they still have a long way to go here.

The broadway into the stadium - I think it has greater capacity than what is needed now, but I like the set up.

Spacious, almost empty walkway behind the stands - 1.5 hours before the game.

View from the home plate.

They have everything here but customers.

A shot in the team store at the stadium. I certainly like the color patterns on the Rockies stuff.

Note that only 1 row of seats in the stand is painted purple. According to the Rockies official webpage, it marks 1 mile above the sea level. Hence this is truly a mile high ball park.

An interesting event took place before the the real game. A small-scaled baseball game took place among kids on the left-field grass. It was fun to watch kids trying to hit the balls served (I wouldn't call it "pitched") by the team mascot, Dinger. Although it was obviously unfair that they put kids of all ages in one game, it was not an issue at all because the kids seemed to enjoy it a lot.

Kids play baseball with the team mascot, Dinger, under the supervision of the team cheer-leaders.

A nice view towards downtown Denver from the stadium.

The real game of the day was between the San Diego Padres and the Colorado Rockies. Jeff Francis, the upcoming Canadian ace of the Rockies, and Mike Thompson, a rookie of the Padres, started the game. But the stage belonged to the hitters on this day. As expected, it was a wild batting competition among the teams. The Padres was able to score 5 runs from Francis early in the game. But the potent Rockie lineup came from behind and hit the pitchers of Padres around. That included 18 hits and 12 runs scored, and I was happy that I saw a game matching with the "fading tradition" of the Coors Field (as they started to use humidifier on the balls, the hitting was not that dominant as before at the park).

Today's match-up: Padres v.s. Rockies.

The starting pitcher for the Rockies: Jeff Francis.

As the night fell it soon became very cold at my seat atop the right field pavilion. I tried to bear with it, as I didn't like walking away from a baseball game before it is finished - it is against the spirit of the game. I was really surprised that it got so cold on an August night, probably because I was spoiled by the nice Southern Californian weather. Luckily I was able to hang in there until the end of the game, and took several more interesting pictures of the park during the night.

The fountain comes to live whenever a home team player hits a homerun.

Shops behind the outfield pavilion.

Overall I liked the game here. The Rockies are certainly playing good baseball, and they have superb facilities. I certainly wish more fans come to appreciate it, and make the games here more alive.