Sunday, August 29, 1999
Coors Field remembers to put the game first
Wraparound concourse, good sight lines win over doubters
BY JOHN ERARDI
The Cincinnati Enquirer
The first thing that hits you inside Coors Field — just like a bucket of that famous Rocky Mountain spring water — is the wide-open concourse, above and behind the grandstand and outfield bleachers.
It is an awesome design feature.
It allows you to take a 360-degree tour of the park without losing sight of the game.
The concession stands are on the back wall of the concourse.
It is a refreshing concept of baseball first, and it sets the tone that the ballpark is a gathering spot for everybody in the community. It takes you totally by surprise, because you come here expecting to dislike Coors and its arena-ball effect on baseball with the mile-high air and balls shooting out of the park.
But by the time Dave Moore, the Rockies' director of Coors Field administration and development, tells you the club wishes it had an interactive area like Scout's Alley in Atlanta (a diversionary fun zone that adds to attendance and generates more money for the Braves), you're convinced your initial reaction is correct.
You love this place.
That said, don't expect a wide-open concourse in Cincinnati.
The Reds like the concourses at Jacobs Field in Cleveland, because in places, they are walled off from a view of the field. That makes fans in that area focus on what's in that area — food, drink and other ways to spend their money — not on the game.
It's a balancing act for every franchise: Create a good place to watch a ballgame and make a lot of money.
“There's not a lot of major-league baseball history in Denver, but there's a lot of baseball history,” said Mark Garcia, 35, a Colorado native. “People want the game to be center stage. The Rockies gave it to us.”
As he said it, he was ordering a micro beer in the Clocktower bar in the upper deck behind home plate.
“This place used to be a souvenir shop, but they converted it to a bar,” Mr. Garcia said. “That, too, is giving the people what they want. And, by the way, that roast pork loin they're carving for sandwiches over there? It's kickin'.”
The club-level seats here must be the best of the breed in baseball. They are what is known in ballpark vernacular as “200-level” seats, i.e. second-floor or second-level seats.
The sight lines to the field are excellent — very low to the field.
“Really, there's not a bad seat in the house,” said Jeff Schaidt, 32, of San Antonio. “They were very conscious of that here. Can you imagine if they didn't have to add 7,000 seats to the ballpark overall because of those huge crowds the first two years over at Mile High (Stadium)? This'd be a pretty intimate little ballpark. As it is, I think they did a great job with sight lines.”
Nobody has the caste system of a major-league park figured out better than the Rockies. Nothing they do is obtrusive. There's no overt blue-blood flaunting to honk off the hoi polloi.
Blueblood-flaunting could be be described, by way of example, as the look that exists at Jacobs Field in Cleveland: There are three tiers of luxury suites layered atop one another from foul pole to foul pole above the grandstand such that, taken in as a whole, the view resembles the side of a cruise ship.
“We were very conscious of that here,” Mr. Moore said. “From a distance, the (outside) seats on the luxury-suite level and club level look just like the seats everywhere else. Yeah, they're a little wider, and have wooden armrests and padding in the seat-pan, but you don't know that unless you're standing right next to them. This was a ballpark built with some equity. People know the common man comes first.”
Operationally, the Rockies do it right, too. Unlike the Ballpark at Arlington, where you can order a meal from a waitress who comes around to your club seat, at Denver you go to one of the carvers' tables and they dish out your food. You can eat it inside or take it to your seat. The food is good and reasonably priced.
Maybe it keeps the ticket prices down ($28 in Denver; $30-$35 in Arlington).
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