Sloan Park
Mesa, AZ
Review by Mike
Sloan Park is the Spring Training home of the Chicago Cubs. If the idea behind this ballpark was to make Cubs fans feel at home while waiting for the regular season to begin, then the designers have done a nice job. They have built a ballpark that is modern, with lots of references to Wrigley Field, but enough of its own character to stand alone as a really nice Arizona baseball stadium.
The light towers and arches under the roof are all a nod to the old ballpark up north as is the dark green color found on most of the non-brick surfaces. The scoreboard is in the same style as the new digital scoreboards at Wrigley, with a green analog clock on top, and the field dimensions, including foul territory, are an exact match. The result is a ballpark where the seats are close to the action. There’s even a Rooftop Deck in left field. A replica of the famous red Wrigley marquee sits on the concourse behind 3rd base.
They didn’t go all the way and produce a copy, which is probably a good thing. After all, this stadium serves a different purpose and that is to provide an intimate Spring Training experience for Cubs fans. There is no ivy, nor a manually operated scoreboard. What they have built is a nice, concise stadium with a pitched grass berm in the outfield, some food trucks in the outfield for variety, a wiffle ball field for the kids and lots of fun murals to never let you forget you are in Cubs territory.
The 2nd level presses up close and includes lots of open, non-suite seating under a roof that is perfectly placed to cast a nice shadow over most of the field level seats. Since the upper level doesn’t extend all the way down to the right field corner as it does along the 3rd base line, a couple of free-standing sunshades have been added to keep those folks from melting in the Arizona sunshine.
The steady stream of airplanes on approach to Sky Harbor Airport reminded us of our ancestral home back in Queens, Shea Stadium, but everything else is all Cubs. They’ve done a really nice job of creating an environment that stands on its own as a really nice ballpark while giving the fans that North Side experience they are looking for. Sloan Park is one of the best Cactus League ballparks we visited.
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