First off, thank god for being back home and not having to rely on sketchy internet connections anymore...lol
Secondly, I just wanna say again, thank you to everyone who helped me on the journey....couldn't have done it without Chris, Greg and Tony Dowhan...plus it was great to share experiences with them throughout the time we were together...
Thanks to Jim Bursey and the friends at Abbotsford Moving for coming on board....I hope I didn't sully the company too much with talk of transvestites, homeless women makeout sessions and womanizing....and Bill Bowden for getting me the hookups in Detroit and Cleveland
And of course, thank you to all the listeners and e-mailers for the kind words about the blog and the updates...I received so much good feedback about it...I was more than happy to share the experiences with everyone!
Alright, my final thoughts on the list....starting at the top, I wish I could do a 1a/1b scenario because depending on the day, I could tell you that either San Fran or Chicago was the best....San Fran did such a great job with using the coastal area and the rest of the ballpark is so unique, but Wrigley combined so much history with a great game watching experience...so for those Cub fans who are steamed about it being at 2, just know that at the very worst, it's actually a 1b... :-)
I never realized that San Diego and Arizona would be that high....as East Coast people, you would never watch those teams on TV....heck, I even the baseball package and I never watched them....so, I was very surprised to see how impressive those places were...
The best place for tailgaiting is in Kansas City and the New K....a part of me just wanted to drink on the back of the pickup with the rest of them instead of going to watch a riveting Royals/Orioles game.... :-)
For the amount of money that the two New York teams put into their stadiums, I was surprised that they were only mid-pack....but it's almost like they have no soul behind them and they're more of a product of corporate thinking...sure, they're definitely nice, but the unique experience isn't really there...
I hate having Fenway down as low as I have it too, but as I said before, the biggest difference between Wrigley and Fenway is that Wrigley has managed to roll with the times while Fenway has not and for someone going in 2009, it's frustrating to have to deal with problems that were otherwise ignored in 1912...
Poor Dodger Stadium as well.....it's got history on its side, but nothing else really....it's just so tacky looking...
I had heard nothing but great things about Safeco Field, so it's really surprising that it went down to 22 on the list....maybe I'm just seeing it differently, but to me, it looked like a jumbled mess of metal around the outside and the stadium itself is in maybe the shadiest part of town...
Then we get to the domes and convertibles stadiums at the bottom....sure, they're multi-purpose, but baseball isn't built for multi-purpose stadiums....every place is supposed to be unique...there's a reason why I wanted to do a tour of baseball stadiums and not a tour of hockey arenas....arenas are basically all the same...
The only stadium not domed or convertible that was at the bottom was Washington...just a perfect example of corporate thinking combined with a lack of time created a big pile of concrete garbage.... :-)
Look for blogs throughout the weekend as we make the transistion from stadium talk to overall sports talk....