Brewers vs. Reds in Cincinnati

From our hotel, it was about a 6 block walk over to Great American Ball Park. I brought a road beer along for the walk, but it was weird trying to drink a beer while walking through a downtown setting. I felt just as weird drinking in a parking structure in St. Louis, which makes me appreciate the concrete parking lot of Miller Park so much more. All of these other stadiums know nothing about tailgaiting. Once we got inside of the stadium, I got a look at some of the unique features that separate this place from the others. The riverboat smokestack goes off and shoots plumes of smoke in the air when a homerun is hit (which is quite often here in Cincinnati) and a counter for Ken Griffey Jr.'s career home runs, which are at 593 and counting. If he wasn't injured, it would have been him breaking Hank Aaron's career record.

Home

The scoreboard is pretty big, and as you can see it spans the length of the upper outfield grandstand. It had everything on it that a baseball fan needs for information before, after, and during the game. I got a look at the starting lineup, and with the exception of Gross and Counsell, I was feeling pretty good about our chances to win today. Granted, we were going up against the staff ace in Aaron Harang, but our offense had been bashing home runs left and right and Rickie Weeks had just gotten his groove back.

Brodey went to the concession stand to sample one of Great American Ball Park's great American hotdogs. I don't recall asking for his expert opinion on the ballpark fare, but I doubt that they pale in comparison to a Miller Park hotdog slathered in Secret Stadium Sauce. Everything tastes better with Stadium Sauce.

We had gotten in to to the stadium a little bit early, which gave us time to sit in deep thought in our stadium chairs. Brodey and I sat in the first row in the right field corner and waited for the game to begin. We got to watch the players working out on the field, which is something that I have seen all too often at Miller Park, seeing as how I arrive at the ballpark for work 2 hours before the start of the game. Our seats were right next to the Brewers bullpen, which gave us the chance to see Mike Maddux give Jeff Suppan and Damian Miller a little pre-game pep talk. Casey suggested we lean against the wall and have those players standing behind us in the outfield grass.

I didn't feel like spending the money to find out the answer that I already knew - that Miller Park was better than Great American Ball Park. I know that I'm a little (ok, a lot) biased in this matter, but out of the few stadiums that I've been to, the only one that comes close to Miller Park is the new Busch Stadium in St. Louis.