Warner Park
Madison, WI
Review by Mike
Warner Park in Madison, Wisconsin is the home of the Madison Mallards of the collegiate summer Northwoods League. This ballpark was built for short season Class-A ball in 1982 and was home to Northwest League teams until 2000. The Mallards took over in 2001 and have been there ever since. The duck theme is everywhere, down to the large duck footprints that guide fans from the parking lot to the gate.
The stadium has a “Frankenstein” feel to it, appearing to have been assembled from spare parts leftover from other ballparks. The main grandstand is a brick structure with aluminum seating and flooring. The section behind home plate has a few rows of seats, then a private bar above that in the shade of the press box, which rises up on stilts. Above all of this is a large, trapezoidal, free-standing roof that seems very much like an afterthought, but is visually striking, nevertheless.
A short grandstand extends to 3rd base and a much larger seating area goes well down the rightfield line, with just a corner of this covered by the roof. The seats nearest home plate on this large, straight structure face the 3rd base stands, not home plate, which is interesting. A food court of carnival-like snack kiosks is to be found behind the 3rd base stands.
There are so many different party areas that I’ll just go around the park and list them. Starting behind the left field fence is a small grass berm; in the left field corner is a 2-story bar and party deck; four rows of seating are squeezed in along the left field line between 3rd base and the foul pole.
Working our way to right field we find a large, open-air party deck, then from the right field foul pole towards right-center field is a massive four-story structure with a bar, food, event space and seating on the roof and at field level where the fans look through the fence. In deep right center is a covered party pavilion and finally, the fence in dead-center field has been lowered to about three feet high to facilitate seating right on field level, looking over this short fence.
None of these various areas are architecturally consistent, so the effect is disorienting and makes the whole thing rather confusing to look at. A minor quibble is that every area is ticketed separately, so fans can’t wander from space to space, but I can’t fault the team for asking people to sit in the seats they paid for. I liked the real, live organ and the bat dog. It all works amazingly well as the Mallards are hugely popular and draw better than any collegiate summer league team has a right to expect.
With that in mind, I can only say that my major complaint must be mine alone. I am taking a full hot dog off this review for the noise, the endless cacophony of sound that blasts from the loudspeakers every moment of the game. I get playing music between batters, but they play ear-splitting music between every pitch! As the pitcher starts his delivery, the music fades down and when the ball hits the catcher’s glove, they raise it back up to 11, as they say. It is impossible to carry on a conversation or even think. The endless music and screaming of the “game host” were so overwhelming that I had trouble following the game. I may be an old man telling the kids to get off my lawn, but I will not be going to back to Warner Park any time soon, at least not without noise-cancelling headphones.
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2023
226
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