Chase Field
Phoenix, AZ
Review by Mike
Chase Field is the home of the Arizona Diamondbacks of the National League. From the outside this does not look like a baseball stadium. It’s more like an airplane hanger. This was the 2nd baseball game I ever saw indoors, the other being Olympic Stadium in Montreal many years ago. I was not particularly impressed by either experience, but since it was 105 degrees outside (in May), I can not argue with the necessity.
Perhaps it is the requirements involved in building a retractable roof stadium, but this did not feel like a ballpark. The concourses were wide and allowed a view of the field, but it felt like the playing surface was “way over there”. The upper deck felt very high and the architecture drew my eye up and away from the field, so I found it hard to remain engaged.
There were lots of cool quirks around the stadium, like the bullpens in the corners that create odd angles at the extremes of the field. There is the swimming pool in right-center field, of course, but the feature I liked best were the old-school out of town scoreboards high above the left and right field foul poles. These were classic, bulb-light scoreboards showing score, inning and pitchers. I swear that they were unhooked from the old Shea Stadium scoreboard and shipped to Arizona, like the London Bridge of baseball.
The concourse wraps around 360 degrees and there are plenty of bars and restaurants, but it all lacks flow and a cohesive design. It’s like someone built a giant shopping mall and couldn’t figure out what to put in the middle, so they decided to lay out a baseball field.
I wish I could have seen a game with the roof open, because maybe it would have felt different, but I found the place to be kind of dark and gloomy. There were plenty of nice things and the crowd was lively and energetic, but something for me just didn’t click here. Of course, the Yankees lost a World Series here, so that’s worth adding half a hot dog, at least…
2024
240
2018
140
This is not one of my better home run photos. You are just going to have to take my word for it that this is David Peralta hitting a 2nd inning home run against Houston’s Charlie Morton. This would make the score 2-0 on what would become a 4-3 walk-off win for the D-Backs.
