By John Erardi and John Byczkowski
The Cincinnati Enquirer

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Jim Borgman cartoon

Never mind the losing season on the field. Hundreds of thousands of people came to Great American Ball Park in its opening year anyway. They stomped the concourses and ate the sausages, and in the end, proclaimed Great American a fine place to enjoy Cincinnati Reds baseball.

Perfect? No. But based on comparisons with other new ballparks, interviews with dozens of fans and 4,000 responses to an Enquirer/WCPO poll and a questionnaire on the newspaper's Web site, fans are plenty happy with Great American.

For one big thing, it's so un-Cinergy. Seats are closer to the field and the players. The concourses are wide and open, and the views are sweeping. The food is better, and the Reds added touches that bring a sense of history that Cinergy Field never had. The ushers are even friendly.

But fans still pan the hokey smokestacks that spew lame fireworks in center field. The main scoreboard in left field is the only one carrying complete game information. And can somebody, please, do something about all those vendor carts?

Still, it was a good first year - and the ballpark isn't even finished yet.

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Next year brings the opening of a huge plaza on the west side of the park, with a Reds museum, a children's play area and a bandstand.

Beyond that, Reds chief operating officer John Allen says the team will tweak the ballpark in 2004, building on lessons learned this year.

The question is: Will the Reds tweak enough to turn a pretty good ballpark into a great one?

Truth is, the Reds are in quite a bind. Attendance this year was disappointing, and - barring the kind of dramatic off-season roster moves that Allen hints won't happen - it'll probably get worse next year. That's been the experience with other new ballparks around the country.

As Great American's first season ends today, though, fans are counting more hits than misses.

Here's how the Reds delivered on 10 ballpark promises made at season's start:

More off-field entertainment

Delivered, somewhat.

There are more games and cartoons on the scoreboard than there were at Cinergy. There's Gapper the mascot and fireworks from the home-run smokestacks.

More, however, doesn't always mean better. Fans who can't see the main scoreboard get almost no game information from other small scoreboards around the park. "We do need to address that. I'm not sure how we do that," Allen says.

He says putting up more scoreboards isn't an option anytime soon, and giving up space on the $1.5 million ribbon boards - now used exclusively for advertising - will be tough. That advertising sold out this year. "In hindsight, we might have underpriced it," Allen says.

Fans also miss the big kabooming fireworks from Cinergy.

"I get this from the top to bottom, from the No. 1 fan to the average fan, to my wife," Allen says. For safety reasons, aerial bombs can't be shot from the smokestacks. Allen says the Reds are looking for a solution, but he didn't promise one.

Better "guest relations"

Delivered.

Whatever the Reds did to turn the ushers from Great-Uncle Crabface into Regis Philbin, it worked. We don't know how they did it, but we're glad they did.

Improved intimacy, sight lines

Mostly delivered.

In the Enquirer's online questionnaire, an overwhelming majority of visitors said their seats were either "excellent" or "very good," the highest positive ratings for anything about the park.

But it's not perfect. The home-run smokestacks stand between left field and 82 seats in the Sun Deck/Moon Deck section in right field. The Reds won't sell those seats at all in 2004 because of the obstructed views. In addition, tickets for 30 seats in section 112, on the third base side, will be sold at discounted rates because a railing blocks the view of home plate.

Sharon Reichert of Springdale has two complaints heard from many fans. First, the angle of the lower deck is so shallow that her view is blocked if some fathead sits in front of her. Also, "a lot of people are up and down the whole game," blocking her view in the aisles.

In ballparks in Seattle and Phoenix, fans aren't allowed down the aisles during play, but Allen says he's not ready to do that in Great American.

Better ease of movement

Mostly delivered.

The third-base concourse is wonderful, every bit as open and airy as promised. The concourses around the outfield are also a treat, giving views of the field in left or overlooking the river in right.

But the first-base concourse is cut off by concession lines and crowded with vendor carts and steel girders. That should end in 2004. The concessions will be moved back about 8 feet, and two big breezeways will be cut through to connect the concourse to the new fan plaza in the southwest corner of the park.

More character, tradition

Mostly delivered.

All the different "neighborhoods" of seating and standing areas at Great American are a masterstroke. Fans can sample the game from every angle in the ballpark, and there's something interesting and cool everywhere.

"It's a nice ballpark. I like it a lot," says season-ticket holder Bill Brooks of Independence, Ky. "But that black wall ..."

What makes Brooks shake his head is the "batter's eye" pavilion in center field - an area faced in black for batters' benefit, and used as a restaurant for groups attending the game. It's just too big, too black, too flat. Those inside get a great view of the game, but it may be the ugliest piece of design work in any ballpark in the country.

"It (the batter's eye) really arose out of a concern about not having enough group party areas," Allen says. So far, it's been occupied about two-thirds of the time.

The statues in Crosley Terrace, just outside the main gate, and the mosaics just inside that gate are winners (even if the Reds have parked a cheesecake cart between the two mosaics). Allen says identification plaques are coming for the statues of past Reds stars Joe Nuxhall, Ted Kluszewski, Frank Robinson and Ernie Lombardi, who goes in next year.

Allen likes a subtle approach, where fans have to figure out some things for themselves. But there's a point at which it's too subtle. Should fans have to ask who belongs to those retired numbers posted under the press box? (One answer: The "1" is for late former manager Fred Hutchinson.) Is this a ballpark or a $280 million version of Trivial Pursuit?

Best food in baseball

Didn't deliver.

"We want to have the best food in baseball," said Joe Sims, general manager at Great American Ball Park for Sportservice, before the season began.

Well, we don't. "The concessions have got a long way to go," says Doug Wilcox of Crestview Hills. The lines are long, the workers are slow, and it's a chore to find a Big Red Smokey, he says.

The food is better than Cinergy's, but we need only refer Sportservice to the boardwalk fries and Boog's barbecue in Baltimore, the Primanti Bros. sandwiches in Pittsburgh and the build-your-own burritos in Houston.

The Reds need to get wiser - not Budweiser - and serve more local fare. Laura Tenney of Mount Lookout has been to 30 ballparks and sees nothing special about Great American's food.

"Except for Skyline chili and Montgomery Inn ribs, there's nothing here that lets you know you're in Cincinnati," she says.

We agree: Get more Barrelhouse beer. Kill the kielbasa and get an honest-to-goodness mettwurst on the grill.

Allen says Great American sales receipts prove (once again) that "this is a beer-and-hot-dog town." He also acknowledges that concession lines can be slow.

More social interactivity

Delivered.

This is a great park for walking around and watching the game. Fans say they love the upper-deck bridge overlooking the river and the city, the centerfield patio below the smokestacks, the smokers' deck in right field.

"It's awesome. It's open, it's brighter," says Laura Hymer of Colerain Township, leaning on a rail in the concourse off third base. Fans like Hymer love the open sky, the view of the river and the big concourses with views of the field.

One of the most dramatic views of the field is from the concourse right behind home plate. For fans coming in the main entrance, it's their first jaw-dropping view of the emerald field.

Except the Reds have parked a food cart in the middle of it. Allen said it's a security move: Fans in the high-priced club seats behind home complained of rowdy fans, so the cart keeps the fans away. Lose the cart, get an usher and let the fans have the concourse back.

Better postgame parties

So far, didn't deliver.

Entertainment takes a giant leap forward in 2004 when the "fan zone" plaza opens. This year, however, has been weak.

The Reds promised that the Machine Room bar and grille would be as good or better than those in other ballparks, like the Chop House in Atlanta.

It isn't. The Machine Room jumps before games, but it's practically empty afterward. Some beer or food specials would help, as would live music.

And, there wasn't a single fireworks night this year. Pittsburgh had seven. Allen says no sponsor stepped forward.

Better high-end experience

Delivered.

The Reds conceded going into the season that they weren't sure what the demand would be for the $175-per-game Diamond Seats. That's one reason those seats carried three-year contracts.

Two hundred of the 300 seats are sold, and the ones that aren't go individually for $225 per game, which has worked well for big series, especially. But is having so many of these seats empty - we swear they are two-thirds empty for weeknight games against dog teams - really what the Reds want to say about Cincinnati baseball?

Better cheap-seat experience

Delivered.

This might be the biggest improvement over Cinergy. The $11 seats in the upper deck put fans on top of the game, and on top of the world, with a great view over the field and a terrific vista of the Ohio River and Kentucky.

The $5 seats at the end of the upper deck are a little far from home plate, but on the first-base side, they face the scoreboard, they're in the shade and they hang toward the river, giving a marvelous view.

"The cheaper the seats, the better the view," says Declan Mullin, ballpark operations manager.

In this case, cheap is good. "It's a good place to bring the family, because you can buy a $5 seat and move down to the seat in the bleachers," says Dave Crase of Springboro. "There's a good, lively atmosphere for a ballgame."

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E-mail jerardi@enquirer.com and johnb@enquirer.com.