Baseball Stadiums I Have Visited, Part 5

From here on in with this series, there are no more multi-stadium trips. When the opportunity presented itself, I make sure to check out another field, but they happen more or less at random, and often with long stretches in between.

10. Riverfront Stadium (Cincinnati Reds)

For several years, my sister Sally lived down in Kentucky, and I went down to visit several times. On one of those trips, my friend Curtis and I backtracked a bit to take in a game at Riverfront Stadium. I'm thinking this was in June of 1986 to see the Reds play the Braves (I probably have scorecards from all these places and games in a box somewhere-- you'd think my memory would be better about some of the details). Mostly I remember a very non-descript facility, one of the cookie-cutter, all-purpose stadiums that were being built in the late 60s-early 70s before anyone had the notion to make them more fan friendly (as opposed to mostly maintenance free- they all had artificial turf). Actually my clearest memory of this stadium had nothing to do with baseball. One time a year or two later, I went to Covington, KY with my dad to deliver a machine he had built to a company there. Covington is right across the Ohio River from Cincinnati. Having arrived on a Sunday afternoon and unable to make our delivery until the next day, we watched a little of the Bengals-49ers game on TV, then, with the Bengals holding a seemingly solid lead late in the game, decided to take a walk. We crossed one of the bridges into Cincinnati, and walked by the stadium just as the crowd was streaming out. We couldn't figure out why they were so sedate after such a big win (later that night we discovered Joe Montana had orchestrated an incredible comeback for the 49ers, winning on a last second score). Anyway, as we walked into the adjacent down-town area, we came across a big Oktoberfest street festival. We had some good food and heard some music before heading back to the hotel. It was a nice afternoon, and much more memorable than the ballgame I'd seen there previously.

11. The Kingdome (Seattle Mariners)

On a visit to Seattle in the late 80s, I made my first trip to the Kingdome (I think I ended up seeing games there 2 or 3 more times, before the team moved to the much nicer SafeCo Field). The first trip was with my cousin Shawn and his boys Matt and Chris. The Mariners were not a good team, and I have to say, the Kingdome may have been the worst place I ever watched a major league game. Baseball is meant to be played outdoors, in the sunshine, not in a concrete bunker. But we had a good time, nonetheless. Shawn is as big a baseball fan as I am (a Red Sox fan since he grew up in Boston), so we had a lot to talk about regardless of how the local team did on the field. Considering that I generally get back to Seattle at least once every summer, I'm glad the team has moved to newer, superior digs, as this has become my most regular opportunity to catch major league baseball in recent years.

Next time, I'll talk about my visits to Baltimore and Boston.