In the last article I spoke a bit about Baseball stadiums and about what makes them so inviting and fun. To continue from that article I will discuss which three stadiums I would like to go see at least one time in my life. The stadiums are the AT&T Park in San Francisco, Miller Park in Milwaukee and Wrigley field in Chicago. I would love to visit all 30 stadiums (and hockey arenas for that matter), but these three for me are particularly special. Now remember I have not been to these places, but I am writing about what makes this stadium so appealing and why I want to visit it.
Miller Park might seem to be a bizarre choice to include amongst my top list, especially considering other ball parks which I looked over – Dodger Stadium, Fenway Park and the Yankee Stadium. The latter group are “must see” places for many baseball fans (whether or not you like the team), but for me there is something about Miller park and its interesting design that draws me to picking this stadium.
Miller Park was built from 1996-2001, and finally opened its doors in 2001. The stadium is located on One Brewers Way in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and its seating capacity is 41,900 seats. Miller Park has had its years where it struggled in attendance, but within the past five years three of them had over 3 million fans and the other two drew 2.8 millions fans to see the Brewers.
One of the largest buildings that was built in the history of Wisconsin; it has a working retractable roof that is shaped like a fan to give it a unique structured style. Building a stadium with a retractable roof had always been in the plans when designing the stadium for the Brewers because of unpredictable weather patterns. In 2006 they added new LED scoreboards, including an out of town LED scoreboard instead of a manually operated version. They have also added a full color centerfield scoreboard in 2010. Miller Park has added a digital strikeout counter that used to be done by their mascot, Bernie Brewer. One of the final additions for the stadium was a picnic area in the right-field corner where up to 75 people can have a picnic in a unique way to watch the game.
Miller Park also has some fun attractions in order to make the baseball experience in Milwaukee vastly different from other places. In the middle of the 6th inning they have a hilarious race called the Klement’s Sausage Race, which is all about getting the fans ready and excited for the bottom of the 6th inning. The racing sausages are bratwurst, Italian, chorizo, polish and the hot dog. Like most baseball teams, the Brewers have a mascot – theirs is called Bernie Brewer. Bernie Brewer has his own club house where he slides down every time the Brewers win, or hit a homerun. This makes him a very popular figure with kids and adults alike. I am not sure if they are still doing it but before the game would start people could go up and have their picture taken with Bernie and then were given the privilege to go down the slide. Another funny aspect that the Brewers have is during the 7th inning stretch, after singing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame”, the fans at Miller Park will sing “Roll Out the Barrel”, which is the fans way of saluting their beer-making history.
The stadium also has statues of Robin Yount and Hank Aaron outside and one of a long time radio broadcaster, Bob Uecker. With a great looking stadium and a retractable roof, which puts much more control of conditions in the team’s hands, it would seem as though that the fans have been given a great time at Miller Park with fun and games. With reasons such as these it is no surprise why I decided to talk about Miller Park and why I would love to enjoy watching a game…or two,with a brew in Milwaukee.
Next up – San Francisco’s AT & T Park.
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photo credit: elviskennedy via photopin cc
