For this, the season's final installment of our stadium series, I asked a wide range of writers, critics, community activists, urban planners and fans to explain all that's loathsome about Versailles-on-the-Harlem River.

Neil deMause, Field of Schemes co-author and blogger:

The 1970s-renovated Yankee Stadium Mark II bore all the hallmarks of that decade's architecture — bland poured concrete, ugly escalator ramps tacked onto the exterior — but they were at least still slathered over the original skeleton of the House That Ruth Built, its tight upper-deck overhang and sweeping grandstand making it far more intimate than any stadium seating 57,000 had a right to be. By comparison, the new building bearing the Yankee Stadium name has taken all the worst aspects of the 1970s stadium and discarded anything worthwhile. Enough sloppily painted concrete and crappy aluminum panels to fill a dozen commuter rail stations? Check. Field-level seats that require a credit check, and upper-deck seats where the game is only a rumor? Check. The eradication of any genuine baseball flavor in favor of the kind of faux-history that usually is restricted to Las Vegas tourist traps? Check. A hideous restaurant in the batter's eye that simultaneously blocks the view of the field from the bleachers while submerging the markers to Yankees greats in a dark hole dubbed "Monument Cave"? You got it. If you're going to spend $1.2 billion in public money and leave local kids with no public parks to play in for five years, you'd hope you'd at least get a nice place to watch a ballgame out of the deal. Instead, the designers of Fake Yankee Stadium effectively turned their back on any populist tradition of the Bronx Zoo days and instead institutionalized the team's most grandiose, corporate traditions: They might as well have inscribed "Where It's Like Rooting For U.S. Steel" over the entrances.

John Pastier, architecture critic:

I used to play football on the grounds of today's Yankee Stadium more than 50 years ago, and now, as an enfeebled and doddering old geezer, I just don't have the wit or energy to kvetch about the monumental and hyperactive commercialism that saturates every nook and cranny of its interior, its outrageously inflated ticket prices, its officious bag-checkers ("We're the number two terrorist target" — oh, if only it were so!), its whopping Giuliani-concocted public subsidies, both visible and concealed, the inadequate bathrooms in its Hard Rock Cafe, its dimensionally-challenged right field porch (even shorter than the old joint's), its confiscation of public parkland, the pretentious banality embodied in its mausoleum-like limestone exterior, and the inexcusable lack of any historic plaque commemorating my athletic presence on the site well before Roger Maris even thought of setting foot in the Bronx.

And to think that George Carlin, Martin Scorsese, and I went to high school just six blocks away. Had George lived long enough to witness this outrageous intrusion into his old neighborhood, he would have been able to do full justice to this travesty. Now my last hope is that Scorsese will someday be moved to make a movie revealing how this all came to be. It'd be a film noir.

Martin Pedersen, executive editor, Metropolis Magazine:

Why Does Yankee Stadium Suck? Let me count the ways:

1) IT WAS THE PRODUCT OF A THOROUGHLY UNDEMOCRATIC POLITICAL PROCESS. The Yankees had spent the better part of three decades ignoring, criticizing or exploiting the South Bronx. Now in exchange for a new stadium, they get the promise (and remember here, the Yankees made and broke a lot of promises to the neighborhood, following the botched 1970s renovation of the original stadium) of a new park, located...on top of a parking garage (thank you very much). In the meantime, a woefully underserved neighborhood goes without a park for who knows how long?

2) IT'S DESIGN IS PROFOUNDLY UN-AMERICAN. Baseball has traditionally played a unifying role. The ballpark is where people of different classes and races and religions actually mingled. The box seats, where the swells sat, weren't physically separated from the proles. The new stadium is like an architectural system of class apartheid, with far fewer cheap seats pushed way up to the heavens (closer to God, at least) and many of the bleacher seats (home to the most loyal and ardent fans) with obstructed views. There is actually a concrete and plexiglass moat separating the I-bankers paying two or three thousand dollars a pop from the mere middle-management types paying, oh, three hundred dollars seat. (It's interesting: After the first playoff game against the Twins, Michael Kay and David Cone were speculating about the subdued nature of the crowd. Was it the 6 o'clock start? The early lead by the Twins? "Excuse me, guys," I shouted at the TV, "it's the fucking architecture!")

3) IN A BUILDING THAT'S ALMOST TWICE AS BIG, THERE ARE ABOUT 5000 FEWER SEATS. This is baseball stadium-as-mall.

3) THE NEW YANKEE STADIUM IS NOT A PRIVATELY FINANCED. We paid for a large portion of this stadium. Why Bloomberg, who had no stake in seeing the Yankees get a new home, went along with it is a mystery to me. It's simply unconscionable for a city, with children attending classes in janitor's closets, to spend money on for-profit sports franchises.

4) THE ORIGINAL STADIUM, AN AUTHENTIC PIECE OF AMERICAN HISTORY, COULD HAVE BEEN RESTORED. The truth is, it badly needed it. It wasn't build for 4 million fans a year, but that's why you hire architects and designers. To examine the problem and propose solutions. Why was Fenway Park, which is far smaller than the original Yankee Stadium, renovated and not "The Cathedral of Baseball"? (By the way, this is how the Yankees referred to the old stadium during its final year.) The original stadium, even deftly re-configured, wouldn't include as many luxury boxes and theme restaurants as the new stadium. It also would have forced the Yankees to share a stadium with the Mets for two seasons, thereby forgoing the opportunity to milk the original stadium's Final Season for all its worth. It was simply far easier and more profitable to take a neighborhood park and start fresh.

5) WHY DEMOLISH A CATHEDRAL?

David Gratt, former season ticket holder (sec 37 Row C seat 1) and former director, Friends of Yankee Stadium:

Because the $400,000,000 direct public investment is the equivalent of 8,000 teachers or cops or firemen at $50,000 per year.

Because the remaining $800,000,000 of the city's bonding authority was supposed to go to build things that we actually need, like the Second Avenue Subway, improved parks, or new or improved schools, police stations, firehouses or hospitals.

Because it would have only taken about $40,000,000 to fix up Macombs Dam Park, the Park that "new Yankee Stadium" sits on top of, while it will cost $120,000,000 to demolish Yankee Stadium and build replacement parks.

Because one of the rationales for the "new Yankee Stadium" was the Macombs Dam Park was too heavily used and needed to be replaced…indicating that success equals obsolescence.

Because attendance will never be higher than in 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008, again indicating that success equals obsolescence.

Because all of the potential move locations (New Jersey, Midtown, Yonkers) were off the table so the Yankees had no place to go…except Yankee Stadium.

Because the city had the Yankees over a barrel, and instead of dictating the terms, the city just gave the Yankees everything they wanted.

Because the city and the Yankees made all of the important decisions without public input; all that was left for the public to weigh in on was the terms of surrender. The public input process in NYC is a sham.

Because the city was paying the Yankees to develop a new stadium proposal …so when city officials met with Yankee officials about the proposal, both sides of the table were being paid out of the same pot of money.

Because the economic analysis rationalizing the project was primarily predicated on enormous increases in ticket prices…which were also possible at Yankee Stadium.

Because the same economic analysis double counted some job creation figures and revenue estimates creating to misleadingly sunny figures.

Because any new stadium has the same economic impact as a department store.

Because no one who actually studies these things believes that a stadium is a good municipal investment; there are just really bad deals and much, much worse deals.

Because, despite all the evidence against stadia as municipal investments, NYC politicians pushed through, not one, but two.

Because increasing the amount of Yankee operated concession space eight-fold, while good for the Yankees, is bad for the neighborhood.

Because the new stadium cuts down on seats but increases parking spaces.

Because city traffic and transportation engineers claimed that additional parking spaces would actually improve the traffic situation, a statement which is just wrong.

Because Reggie Jackson embarrassingly prostituted himself at a City Council hearing. So much for that alleged 160 IQ.

Because, while the Yankees did a great job of demonstrating why they wanted a new stadium, they never actually got around to demonstrating why they needed one.

Because city officials claimed that the Yankees needed a new stadium because the "cramped conditions" were impacting the Yankees' business operations; as if that is a concern of the city.

Because the same city officials claimed that it was impractical to have the Yankees play at Shea during a renovation process because Coke was a Yankees sponsor and Pepsi was a Mets sponsor.

Because the city never bothered to determine a cost estimate for a full renovation of its own asset.

Because a renovation might have cost $250,000,000 and kept Yankee Stadium current for the next 85 years.

Because the outside looks like a mausoleum…a mausoleum for baseball.

Because the inside looks like the Ballpark at Arlington. Way to go, HOK. Once other ballparks were modeled on Yankee Stadium. "New Yankee Stadium" is modeled after the AL West.

Because no one will ever care whether anyone hits a home run out of the "new Yankee Stadium"

Because Thurman Munson never played there.

Because it's not Yankee Stadium.

Lukas Herbert, urban planner and former member of New York City's Community Board 4:

Yankee Stadium sucks because it epitomizes everything that sucks about corporate America today, all rolled into one stadium.

The Yankees, probably the biggest corporate bastards of all baseball teams, started out by receiving a huge amount of corporate welfare from the City and State governments. Just like Wal-Mart plays off one town against another as a way to exact taxpayer dollars to improve their bottom line, the Yankees unbelievably told the City that they would "move somewhere else" if their demands for free land, free infrastructure and direct construction subsidies were not met. While few New Yorkers actually believed such a threat, Mayor Bloomberg had no problem using it as cover to shower the Yankees with financial gifts. So instead of using the money to fix crumbling schools, repair a subway system that's practically held together with duct-tape or keep firehouses and libraries open, the money went to build one of the fanciest stadiums in human history. Take from the poor and give to the rich!

Then of course, the taxpayers who helped to fund the stadium can barely afford to buy a ticket. Just like those corporate fat-cats who took government bail out money to reward themselves with high salaries, why should the Yankees do anything differently? If the taxpayers are helping to build this stadium, why not just use the money to provide more luxury seats for the rich? Or subsidize the outsized paychecks of the players? Clearly intended for the pre-bust era, the only irony of this situation was that nobody had any money to buy these fancy seats after the stadium got constructed, leaving the lower bowl noticeably empty for so many of this season's games.

Green buildings? What's that? The Yankees were apparently asleep for the last couple of years when it suddenly became un-cool to waste natural resources like oil and electricity. The lights that light up the stadium's field are often on 24-hours a day. The lights on the roof of the VIP parking garage were apparently installed with no off-switch (as a way to save money?) and have been on morning, noon and night since the stadium opened. Having suddenly realized that they were now driving the "Hummer" of stadiums in a world that was now desiring Priuses, the Yankees made a truly lame attempt to "greenwash" their stadium through token efforts like using hand sanitizer in bathrooms, instead of soap, to save water. Or biodegradable cups for soda. (You mean, like paper cups?) Tons of new buildings are being built in NYC with true "green" building amenities, but the Yankees never even gave it a thought. Now this lame "greenwash" public relations effort will probably only dupe the stupidest of people.

But perhaps the worst offense of the new Yankee Stadium is what you no longer see: 16 acres of parkland that were taken away from one of the poorest communities in the country. Playing the subsidy game, the Yankees asked for free land –- a community park -– to build their new stadium. Since poor people, minorities and immigrants don't count for much in Michael Bloomberg's New York, why not just give the park over to the Yankees? Sure, the parks will be replaced (at City taxpayer expense), but that will only happen after the needs of the Yankees are met and the old stadium is demolished. (Which is taking way longer than anybody thought it would.) Just like a greedy oil company that goes into a poor country and screws everyone over in the name of "economic development", the Yankees have employed the same model in this community, promising economic benefits while damaging people's lives. Asthma and childhood obesity are issues that plague the inner cities. They way to solve these problems is through more active open space and more trees. The Yankees chopped down 300 mature trees and took away 16 acres of parkland for the next several years to have their stadium. Public health ills be damned! Just like life expectancy is shortened when a greedy corporation opens a pollution-spewing factory in an area with few economic resources, so has this been the situation with this greedy corporation (the Yankees) in the South Bronx chopping down our trees and taking away our open space. People now have crappier lives and worse health because of this stadium.

There are some people in this world who make consumer choices based on their moral beliefs. Maybe they don't wear fur, or eat meat, or buy food shipped in from China, or drive gas guzzlers, or buy from companies that support oppression around the world. So if you are already making these choices with your wallet, why should major league baseball be exempt from your scrutiny? The Yankees have shown themselves to be an evil corporation willing to take massive taxpayer subsidies and waste them on an energy-inefficient stadium priced only for the rich, all while screwing over a poor community and stealing what little they had in terms of trees and open space. Just because they are a baseball team, does that make them any less responsible?

Joyce Hogi, Bronx resident and 2nd vice president of the Bronx Council of Environmental Quality:

I think Yankee Stadium sucks because it was built on valuable parkland that was taken away from the community and they haven't been fully replaced. It will be at least another 2 years; possibly longer, until that happens. I think the stadium sucks because the attention paid to the construction of the bleacher areas is an insult to those fans that cannot afford the pricey seats. It sucks because the stadium's lights are on 24/7 and those residents who live a mere 100 ft across the street can get no relief from them. It sucks because the police become super aggressive toward the community during games by blocking streets, putting up barricades to direct fans from the garages and train stations right into the stadium so there is little or no pedestrian traffic to the local businesses.

Killian Jordan, Yankees fan and Bronx resident:

Yankee Stadium is hateful because it's a monolith, more than a building — huge and looming. Imposing, but far from beautiful. It has turned a neighborhood of parks into a neighborhood of parking garages. It charges more for beer than a Dubai country club. While the team has some personality, management has only an overheated ego and absolute contempt for its surroundings. Like any royal with a proud history of droit de seigneur, it just fucks everything it touches.

The view from the stands (everything sic'd):

Yankee stadium sucks because they had to spend 1.5 BILLION dollars to make it look like an older one they fucked up in the ‘70s.

Yankee stadium sucks because it's in the armpit of the Bronx – why do you think they show pictures of manhattan when they show "outside shots of the city" on tv. Where is the shot of "Ball Park Sports Bar & Grill" under the tracks?!

Yankee stadium sucks because even during a rain delay you can't move down beyond the "moat" – they have armed guards keeping you and the black knight at bay even in monsoons.

Yankee stadium sucks because beers are $9 at the cheapest, and after the 3rd inning, you actually start to believe you are getting a good deal.

Yankees stadium sucks because the morons who built the pathways to monument park didn't account for proper head height, so there is an triangular cut in the concrete as you pass underneath an angled beam – this is the what the millions and billions went towards? Getting Ortiz's jersey out of the foundations and correcting stupid mistakes.

Yankees stadium sucks because the towel dispensers in the bathroom are 2 inches above the sinks. I dare you to try to finish using a towel dispenser and try to be dryer than when you first stepped up to it.

Yankee stadium sucks because of the legends suites. Douchebag McTools from around the Tri-State area show up at these "exclusive" restaurants and bars and seats just to express their douche-iness.

Yankee stadium is awesome because when it's time to dance the camera men do a great job of showing hot and/or skanky women rocking out seemingly to themselves until it is too late. (John B.)

I was able to score 4 tickets to the first exhibition game at the new yankee stadium. with little interest in the game, we took a tour of the concourse, where we happened upon an art gallery. at a baseball stadium. I couldn't believe my eyes. However, it got worse. As I entered the gallery, I saw a guy take a painting off the wall and take it to the register. After placing the art piece on the counter, he asks if he can keep the price tag that was still hanging on the wall. The lady agrees, but before he grabs it I see the price: $3,000. (Pedraic)

I went to a Yankees-Angels game in May with my father, father-in-law, and brother. A foul ball came towards us and my klutzy brother, who was sitting on the aisle, got up, turned around to try and catch it, and tripped over the step, falling into the person sitting across from him us in section 112. This man, who was at the game with his wife and three daughters (who looked to be about ages 5-10), violently shoved my brother back and threatened that if he touched him again, he would punch my brother in the face. My brother is fifteen years old. I explained to this lout that it was an accident and his response was that he was pushed into his kids and he was going to protect them (ostensibly by punching my brother in the face). I told him my brother was a kid too and that there wasn't going to be any punching of anyone. I think it failed to dawn on this person that maybe it would do more good for his children if he were a good role model rather than threatening to punch another child in the face at a baseball game.

Anyway, it's people like this (not to mention the ones who yell awful, racist stuff when the Red Sox are in town) that make me somewhat embarrassed to classify myself along with them as Yankee fans.

Also, attached is a pic I took of Father of the Year.

(Michael S.)

I was up there for the Phils - Yanks series on Memorial Day weekend. How is that Phillies fans are there in equal numbers to Yankees fans? What a complete joke, how many people live in New York, 15 million and you can't fill a baseball stadium with your own fans. Pathetic. Riding the subway up there was hilarious, the whole subway car was chanting let's go Phillies the entire time.

So we start off the afternoon by heading over to Stan's to stock up on beers that don't cost us 10 dollars (we remembered after arriving at said bar that in NYC everything costs double what it should). Highlight of Stan's was one of my buddies puking all over a middle aged lady and two of are other friend's pants. We arrive in the stadium to find out that like most other Phils fans who never been there before it takes 20 minutes to reach your seats in the upper deck. After riding on an endless parade of escalators we reach our seats. Now had I never been to the old stadium I would have thought that the view wasn't that bad. But as anyone who had been to the old stadium can tell you, the new place cannot even compare. You are twice as far from the field and the ticket is more money. Awesome. Now I'm spoiled after going from the Vet to CBP but shouldn't a brand new stadium result in a better product for the customer? Well, I'm sure the BOA suite is an upgrade on the old one. The other obvious thing about that place is the center field eyesore. Who puts something that looks like a 1980's haunted house in the center field seats of a major league ballpark? That, and the fact that Steinbrenner decided to put ads all over the place. Its like watching a game being played on a giant billboard. I understand a few ads here and there but that is out of control. I guess you have to pay for that team somehow. Anyway, the old Yankee Stadium was amazing, the new place sucks. (Bob E.)

I learned this year that the new Stadium isn't immune to the...enthusiastic nature of Bombers fans. In the middle of an otherwise unmemorable and totally meaningless September loss to Baltimore, Edwar Ramirez came in and promptly gave up 3 or 4 runs (as is his nature.) The guy sitting in front of me was not amused. I believe the exact quote he screamed was "GOD DAMNIT! I'VE HAD IT WITH THIS BUGS BUNNY MOTHERFUCK! THIS TIME I'M GOING TO KILL HIM, I SWEAR TO GOD! HE'S FINISHED!" He then proceeded to storm out of his seat, presumably to go from the second to last row of the stadium down to the dugout to kill Edwar Ramirez.

What's crazier than that? I had seen almost the exact same scene play out 2 years earlier, only Kyle Farnsworth was the one in mortal danger.

Go Yankees. (Henry D.)

Every year my family and a few close friends do a big group trip to see a game in a different MLB ballpark. This year, we decided to go see a game in the new Yankee Stadium. Now, I used to live in NY and CT so I've learned to really hate the Yankees, but I am a baseball fan so I was looking forward to seeing Monument Park. The Yankees' website advises us that it's open until 45 minutes before game time. We arrive about an hour and a half before game time and find a line longer than my...well, it's long. Whatever, we decide to wait in the retardedly long line...only to have two security guards who couldn't give a shit about their job tell us that the line was cut off at the person right in front of us. Never mind that some of us had flown cross-country, or that it's still open for 45 minutes, they assure us there is no fucking way we are getting in. Three of us say fuck that and go watch BP. The rest of our group decided to take their chances at the end of the line. 45 minutes later, the rest of my family catches up with us. They wouldn't let them in. Fucking dicks.

So while we're watching BP, Phil Coke is shagging balls in the outfield, and he throws one up into the first few rows. The first few rows are nice, individual seats, which are separated from the bleachers and the fans who just wandered down for BP by a big concrete wall. One of the fans in the bleachers, who is proudly sporting a "Bleacher Creatures" shirt, yells down to Coke, "Hey Phil! How 'bout one for the REAL fans?" The bougie fans in the first few rows did not take kindly to that remark and turned around to advise the Bleacher Creature to shut the fuck up. Nice caste system the Yankees are creating with their fans. To Phil Coke's credit, he did throw the guy a ball.

Also, Yankee Stadium, in all of its corporate branding glory, features the most pathetic beer stand ever:

(Alex)

Thanks for all your contributions, and please start racking your brains for nasty things to say about Tropicana Field, Chase Field, Minute Maid Park, Rogers Centre, Great American Ball Park, Progressive Field, Coors Field, Comerica Park, Land Shark Stadium and PNC Park. Send them to craggs@deadspin.com.

Edgy: Citizens Bank Park opened in 2004, by which point our stadium builders had clearly run out of ideas. With the lone exception of a blinking neon Liberty Bell in right, there is nothing to distinguish the place from something that might've gone up in, say, Charlotte. There is plenty of contrived personality, though. Set down in a cluster of parking lots in industrial South Philly, CBP nevertheless pretends to be an old-style ballpark squeezed into a tiny downtown lot. The outfield walls zig and zag simply because, once upon a time, outfield walls used to zig and zag — never mind that they did so because the site required it, as at Fenway. Today, the asymmetrical outfields serve no purpose other than to signal a quirkiness that the ballparks don't actually possess. They're the pre-ripped jeans of stadium design.

Now, you could plausibly defend the practice elsewhere on the grounds that it's entertaining to watch outfielders run a steeple chase any time someone sends a ball down the alleys. At Citizens Bank Park, however, this feels doubly wrong. This is Philadelphia, American midwife of the open grid, a city that prized, and even fetishized, rational design and geometric precision. Philly was the New World. Boston, with the gypsy dips and turns of its streets, was decidedly Old World; the lyric little bandbox that sprang out of its marshland naturally inherited the pompous whimsy of its city. This was nothing to get wistful over. Americans spent the 20th century working feverishly to flee such cramped conditions, only to see their baseball stadiums, at the dawn of the next century, pay homage to those unloved olden days in a spasm of mindless and profitable nostalgia.

Alley oops: I generally don't go in for the corporate naming-rights hysteria, mostly because a lot of the outrage rests on the illusion that baseball was once about something more noble than making money, which it wasn't. But the Phillies could've and should've done better with their new stadium. Richie Ashburn Stadium would've been nice. Or why not, at minimum, Richie Ashburn Field at Citizens Bank Park? Ashburn was the player our television broadcasters now desperately want David Eckstein to be. He was a singles-hitting centerfielder who walked a ton and played with such a motor that Ted Williams nicknamed him "Put Put." He was everything you'd want in a ballplayer. He was Pete Rose without the sociopathy and the Racing Form. An honest-to-god gentleman. Bill James tells a great Richie Ashburn story:

One time Ashburn hit a line drive into the stands, striking a young woman in the side of the face and knocking her unconscious. The stadium gasped. Ashburn stepped out of the box and watched in alarm as medics rushed to her side. In a few minutes the woman revived, the stretcher came, and the ballgame resumed. And Ashburn hit another line drive foul, and struck the poor woman again as she was being carried out of the stadium.

Ashburn visited the woman in the hospital after the game, invited her to come down and meet the players, befriended her and her family, and corresponded with the woman for the rest of his life.

He became a beloved broadcaster, and not long after his death, in 1997, a great many fans asked that the Phillies name their expensive new baseball stadium for Ashburn. The request was of course denied. The ballpark opened in 2004, and above all else people praised the outfield walkway, one of those newfangled stadium corrals where teams try very hard to sell you shit you don't want and where folks who go to baseball games to do anything but watch baseball games can pass an afternoon. This was everything you hate about the modern baseball experience. This, they called Ashburn Alley.

The view from the stands (everything sic'd):

When I saw that you were taking submissions for Citizens Bank Park, the first thing that popped into my head is that you would get all of these responses that said, "Hey, even though the Phillies moved from the craphole /dump/ octorad /shitbox that was the Vet to the new nice/family-oriented/retro/corporate Citizens Bank Park the fans are still total mutants." That could not be any further from the truth. People who say that never actually sat in the 700 level. And yes, you can see horrible displays of drunken meatheads at Citizens Bank Park. It doesn't compare to what used to happen in the 700 level at Vet. Citizens Bank Park has yet to have a brawl in the stands so big that the players and umpires stopped what they were doing in order to watch it. There is no part of CBP that compares to sections 745 and 746 of the Vet, and nobody pees in trashcans at Citizens Bank Park.

The issue with Citizens Bank Park is that it attracts 30,000 more people a game and holds 20,000 less than the Vet. So it seems like there are more drunks and things are more out of control. It's not that there are more drunks. The issue is that there are more sober people to document what is happening. Citizens Bank Park has become the cool place for college kids and angry white kids to go. The Vet was the place to go for people who considered a pack of hotdogs and a plastic bottle of vodka as plans for a Wednesday afternoon.

For the first 2 or 3 years of Citizens Bank Park, the Phillies used to have "College Nights." College kids got a discount on tickets, a free t-shirt/hat and some kind of food discount. I was at a college night in May of 2006 and sitting in the 2nd level of the outfield. At one point in the late innings of the game, the drunken college kids in the 2nd and 3rd levels devised a game in which somebody in the 3rd level would throw a slice of pizza like a Frisbee while somebody in the 2nd level tried to catch it. Although a high percentage of the slices ended up in the first level or on the field, there were some amazing catches made.

My favorite Vet memory was sometime in the late 90's. And the Phillies were playing the Expos on a weekday night, maybe 13,000 people in the whole stadium at most and the stadium held 65,000. My friend and I are sitting section 752, and there is nobody within 4 sections of us. And we are drinking Hi-C with vodka dumped in it. Maybe around the 3rd or 4th inning, the security guard comes over to us. And he starts talking to us about how he met Vlad Guerrero earlier in the day and he had arms like a construction worker. Yep, he was that strong. So after about 10 minutes of talking to us, he looks at us and says, "You two are sitting way up here on a weekday night watching the Phillies and Expos play, nobody sitting within 4 sections of you. I sure hope you have some booze mixed in with that Hi-C you are drinking."

My second favorite memory of the Vet was sitting in the 500 level in the outfield in 1992 and tossing the bones from my chicken wings at Andy van Slyke during a game against the Pirates. Who would have known then that would be the last winning season for the Pirates? (Mike)

A recent story from july 4th weekend this year, mets at phils.

Being a mets fan, I expected a weekend series in philly to be an unpleasant experience, but 'fear for my life' was not exactly what I was looking for. As we made our way into the stadium, a man far older than my 26 years yelled at us and invited us to drink his cum. Now, what striked me most about this and many of the obnoxious fans is that these are grown men, not boorish teens. There is something seriously wrong with these people. However this was just a warm up to our exit from the stadium where a younger fella followed us through the slow moving upper deck crowd, down the escalators, and outside the stadium, yelling at me the whole time "Get a new shirt, Pedro [Martinez]" This guy then proclaimed he would escort us to our car. At this point, we realized we had the crossed the line from typical philly fan to psychotic nut. Luckily, we were able to lose him in the crowd. Congrats Philly, you easily have the title as the white trash capital of the US. (Daniel B.)

I have basically nothing bad to say about the CBP. There isn't a bad seat in the house, the beers are not that expensive (the WSJ backs me up on this), and the product has been excellent (I went to see the WFC win 11 straight games at CBP until I went to the Red Sox series this summer). I can't imagine anyone ever having a bad time there, except for one person. That person is Jeff Francoeur. I was sitting in the right field second deck a couple years back for a Phils-Braves game and every time poor Jeff took to left field, the left field bleachers began to chant "YOU SUCK PENIS! CLAP CLAP CLAPCLAPCLAP". This made my night. I'm pretty sure he went 0-4 with subscription for Valtrex. (Jim)

I attended a Phillies game in 2007; a friend of mine hooked me up with some nice season tickets on the third base line. I didn't ask how he got them, cause I'm not an asshole.

As it turned out, he had never been there before, so it was something new for both of us. We got there a little early, just before third pitch. We looked around, and THERE IS NO SCOREBOARD. The action at the plate was to the right, but there was no scoreboard in front of us, unlike every other ballpark in the U.S. We looked around, and the scoreboard is some small piece of shit above left field, and we had to turn our heads FUCKING 120 DEGREES. Take it from me, that place is screwed, because every time you're sitting on the third base line and you want to know what the count is, you have to turn your neck that much. I was having major pains at the top of my spinal cord by the fourth inning. And as if that weren't enough, the beer tasted like donkey piss. So there you go. (J.R.)

It's important to first note that I'm a 14 game plan ticket holder and have been for the last 5 years - basically once I could finally afford it. I'm one of those people you'll hear complaints about pussifying the stadium by bringing his kid and wife - I consider it indoctrination, and neccesary, because you don't become a Phillies fan by choice. But I digress.

It's game 5, part 2, of the World Series (if you do why your commishoner sucks bud selig edition I call dibs), and I've learned the parking plan in the absurd sea of parking in south Philly has gone to shit by experiencing it in the prior games. Lots are closed before they're full, nobody knows where else to go, epic waits, etc.

As a result, my dad and I, end up in the tailgate friendly lot right on the side of the Linc. We go into the game and glory of Glories we win. We jump up and down like little girls and cheer until our voices are gone.

Still in disbelief, we giddly return to the car. As we approach, the ground behind it is shimmering. I chalked it up to the absurdity of the phils winning, at first. Then we get closer and I notice the liftgate window is 100% gone. Goodbye giddy feeling.

I look in the back and there is a Corbett champagne bottle or what remains of it. None of the cops nearby saw anything or have their report books so my insurance has to just take my word for it. Oh and the good part - did I mention it's a company car? And I work with mets/Yankees fans?

Nothing like winning a world f'ing series and having to take shit from mets fans about how my own kind smashed my window, cost me several hundred dollars, and threw hand grenades at Santa claus.

Ps- the guy who has season tickets and sits next to us typically was understandably excited after the big win and hugged his woman and jumped up and down. Seeing her tears, he assumes she is beyond happy and exclaims "I know! Isn't it great?". Once he let's go she crumple to her seat, still crying. Yeah, he broke her ribs. That pRt was awesome.

Sent from my iPhone (Peter S.)

Earlier this year, three buddies and I headed down to The Bank and grabbed 4 standing room only tickets. If you get to the park early enough you can park yourself at a standing post behind homeplate just above the lower seating section. It's a pretty good deal considering the people sitting 4 inches in front of you paid $70 for their tickets and the standing room tickets are only $18. (They were $12 previously, but when you team wins the World Series, there's profit to be had.)

About 45 minutes before game time the row directly in front of us fills up with a wide variety of college kids and one or two middle-aged women, all sporting the same lame homemade, sharpie scribbled t-shirts. As I was trying to figure out what lame company-sponsored "PHILLIES GAME 2009!!!!!" outing they were on, the entire row proceeds to stand and begin chanting "PURDY PURDY PURDY." One particularly obnoxious beer slut was holding a sign that read ‘Purdy's first pitch' so we held off judgment on the group, fearing that we could be drunkenly mocking a group there to support a 6-year-old with lupus or 23-year-old who had his nuts blown off in Iraq.

As it turned out, "Purdy" was a seemingly healthy 40 something year old man who only got to throw out the first pitch because his company makes the sticks that the corndogs at the park come on or something. Unfortunately, the purdy group decided that some random asshole throwing out one of the EIGHT "first pitches" thrown that day was worthy of chanting his name for THE ENTIRE GAME.

Around the 4th inning everyone in the section and standing around us had their fill of the group chanting PURDY after Carlos Ruiz drew an intentional walk. Around this point, above mentioned beer slut took a little too long waving her sign between innings, which prompted an usher to ask her to take her seat, which prompted equally drunk dude a few rows in front of us to be begin yelling at beer slut, which prompted beer slut to begin hitting equally drunk dude with Purdy sign.

Considering all the runs in the game were scored in the bottom of the 1st, it at least provided some sort of entertainment through the other 8 innings of the game and anytime a 40 something year old man can have one of the best days of his life ruined by his son's friends, brother's, girlfriend's, friend, it's a great day at the park. (Kyle G.)

I put my name in the drawing last year for playoff tickets for the Phillies, thinking, "The Mets can't possibly blow the division lead two years in a row, right?"

Well, you know how that turned out, and I bought two tickets to Game 2: Brett Myers vs. CC Sabathia. I went with my buddy Bill. We were both Indians fans, and we knew that with CC pitching, it would turn into batting practice for the Phils.

The PA announcer said, "We're going to go on national television, and we all needed to show the world what Philadephia fans were like." I waited for someone to throw a punch, but 45,000 fans waved their towels and yelled.

And then the starting lineups were announced, and everyone watching the game really got a taste of Philly fans. "First, for the visiting Milwaukee Brewers..." was the only part I heard. The fans started booing immediately, living up to Philadelphia's reputation.

There was a guy sitting behind us wearing a shirt that said, "I'm not mad, I'm from Philadelphia." When Sabathia was announced as the starting pitcher, the crowd started yelling "CC sucks! CC sucks! CC sucks!"

The game started, and another guy sitting behind me started yelling that the Phillies aren't getting any strikes called. I mean, he's livid, motherfucking the umpires up and down.

Our seats are in the upper level behind the right field foul pole.

The guy keeps screaming. Finally, the guy next to him says, "You're 400 fucking feet away. The umpire can see better than you. Shut the fuck up, Dad." (Vince G.)

Photo via dameetch's Flickr

Next up: Yankee Fucking Stadium. Got any horrible experiences to share? Send them to craggs@deadspin.com.

Royal bastards: Kauffman Stadium is a wonderful baseball venue located southeast of downtown Kansas City, which is of course a fairly well-known suburb of Overland Park, Kan. The Royals don't deserve the place. They are a retrograde and proudly stupid franchise — one that trashes its owns fans and American culture in general for being too impatient to appreciate the stealthy genius of, say, acquiring Yuniesky Betancourt — and yet they are headquartered in a forward-looking baseball stadium that represents the last time the team did anything worth imitating. That they let the Royals play there is akin to letting a kazoo band play the Sydney Opera House.

Special K: Kauffman opened in 1973, the first year of the designated hitter and at the front end of what passes for the baseball's progressive era. The two — the DH and the K — share something of the same DNA. In those days, baseball wasn't so paralyzed by its drippy nostalgia for its own, unfortunate past; it was willing to experiment, to tinker, and if that meant a few hamhanded measures like the DH, it also gave us new stadiums, like the one in Kansas City, whose very design — AstroTurf, symmetrical outfield, etc. — shaped the style of play, mostly for the better. The baseball of the day was dynamic. Bill James has written:

I have nothing good to say about artificial turf. But the baseball of the 1970s, which was derived in part from the artificial turf that was then so popular, was a wonderful brand of baseball. On the field at one time you might have a player who was capable of hitting .350 or better, a baserunner who was capable of stealing 80 or more bases, a hitter who was capable of hitting 35 or 50 homers, and a 20-game winner who could strike out 250 or 300 batters.

No one misses AstroTurf. That's not the point. Baseball had struck a great balance in the 1970s, and that had everything to do with the game's brief willingness to try new things, be it a well-meaning but ill-conceived DH rule or an unapologetically modernist stadium in Kansas City. That spirit is long gone now, buried beneath a lot of old-timey red brick and steel and the cheap sentiment and various daddy issues of baby boomers who get nostalgic over all the wrong things.

The view from the stands (everything sic'd):

I live in KC, so I know how to deal with the pain that my team has caused for the last 24 seasons. I was born 4 years after the only World Championship, so I've only seen one winning season for the Royals in my entire life. It's just been one down hill story after the next, but there is one that is high above the others. I was about 12 when this happened, a nearly teenage kid who was still a little smaller but not as small as one would think. We were sitting in the third base side Plaza seats or whatever they've called them for a few years now. My mom's company had season tickets which she won quite a bit from since nobody ever wanted to see the Royals. Well on this particular night, fate would come my way. The foul popped up by Joe Randa was heading right for me, glove stretched out, excitement brewing, when out of nowhere, this 300+ fatass literally grabs me and throws me aside. It happened so quick, I didn't see that I was falling right into the pointed armrest eye first. My eye was swelling within seconds, intense pain, and then the fatty spoke, "Shouldn't have got in my way little fucker", as security came to take me to first aid and reprimanded the fatty. They gave me a Sweeney(BLEH) home run ball and a t-shirt for my troubles, which turned out to be not worth it in the long run. Turns out, when my left eye hit the chair, it helped by moving my cornea just a slight bit and helping advance my, at that time undiagnosed, keratoconus. Now I'm basically blind in my left eye and the ball was lost many years ago, yet I still go to see that shitty team every year, thinking maybe, just maybe, we might finish third in the division. (Calvin from KC)

Father's Day, this season. My brother's first Father's Day as a dad. It just so happens that his lady's family lives near KC. The Cardinals are playing that weekend, and there is no way in hell we are missing a chance to see Pujols. So her sisters round up 12 tickets so both of our families can go to the game. Father's Day also happened to be the hottest day of the year. Thankfully, we were under the second deck's shad the entire game. That way, it was only "my ball sweat has worked through my shorts & it isn't even time for the first pitch" hot instead of "I've lost the will to live because the sun has bored a hole in my skull" hot. Which detracted from the truly nice conditions of the new K.

Anyhoo, between the 3rd & 4th innings, my brother & I sneak out back for a smoke. We walk back to the chain link fence & are standing next to a smoker's pole that has smoke pouring out of the top of it. Not only that, but the combination of still lit butts & opressively direct sunlight are melting the pole at the base, and there are visible flames coming out of a growing breach in the bottom. I, being a good citizen, go to pour some of my water on the open fire. But do you know who didn't like that? The fatass, lazy security broad who was standing 90 feet away, doing nothing to barricade an unwitting public to said open flame other than yelling from 90 feet away. I told her there was a fire going on there. She said, "I know". I asked her if something should be done about. She said she'd called it in, but it wasn't her job to deal with it. Apparently, the SECURITY sash on her back was placed there like a Kick Me sign when she wasn't looking.

After the cigarette break, my brother & I make it to the standing room section on the deck just in time to see Pujols bounce a grand slam off the Royals Hall of Fame. While high fiving, we are informed a meth addicted Royals fan that he has proof Pujols is juicing & that we will be sorry when the truth comes out. I'm sure that he hid that proof in the engine block that is subbing for his coffee table, the block that he takes apart & reassembles for days at a time in his better meth binges. Good times were had by all. (Casey)

There is still nothing but meth and hookers in Independence: The new Kauffman, or as our local media has dubbed it "the cougar" (30 year old with a face lift, get it?) is truly a testimate to the citizens and culture of Kansas City; bland, white, and little brat friendly.

When the initiative to renovate the stadiums was put out to the public, much of the opposition was centered around building a new downtown stadium. KC was pumping millions into gentrifying its downtown area. There was a new arena going in and the accompanying White Power and Light (so called by locals because of its discriminatory dress codes) entertainment district. Why not add downtown baseball? No no no, such an idea would be far too progressive for a town like Kansas City. Instead, we'll dump more money into the baron shithole of an area that currently houses the Truman Sports Complex. Want some pregame entertainment? You've got three choices, Taco Bell, Denny's and the recently boarded up Shady Lady.

Leave no square inch unadvertised: Few stadiums embrace the corporate sellout mentality quite like the new K. "But they didn't sell the stadium naming rights," you may say. I would much rather watch a game at Arthur Bryant's Stadium than risk an epileptic seizure from the barrage of flashy advertisements we see at the ballpark. We have the Bud Light Part Deck, the Miller Lite Fountain Bar, the John Deer Little K, the Dri Duck Fountain seats, the Cool Crest Putting Diamond, and the Pepsi Party Poarch, and that's just in the outfield.

Eat shit, Garth Brooks: We country bumpkins love us some country western, and we especially love ole' Garth. We love him so much that he played nine straight shows to open our new Sprint Center. Still, do we really need a Garth Brooks sing along at every baseball game? One of the Royals between inning entertainment dealies is a follow the bouncing ball sing along to Friends in Low Places. I love the idea of stadium karaoke and karaoke in general (Bobby Brown's My Perogative being hands down the greatest karaoke song) but can't we mix it up a little? Most fans come to more than one game a year and Garth was lame on night one.

Buck Nights: Think of the kind of crowd that is drawn to dollar dog, dollar soda night. "Hey kids, you don't need to worry about goin to bed hungry tonight, we're going to Buck Night." On Buck Nights you will see fewer teeth, more Stars and Bars on trucks, more jorts, more single teen moms, fewer sleeves and hear more "Whooohs!" and "Git-R-Dones" than any other nights of the year.

No rolling roof: Big fuck you to Johnson County and their soulless suburban prick residents who killed any chance of us getting a rolling roof. Have no soul? Then you'll love Overland Park, KS home of the country's whitest whities.

Lack of local food: We in KC love to eat, that's why were fat. We have good local bbq and sausage. Why said bbq and sausage is nowhere to be found in the stadium is a fucking travesty. Ollie Gates would be turning over in his grave, if he was dead.

RIP urinal troughs: Why the fuck anyone would ever get rid of troughs in the men's room? No matter how many dudes are up at the trough you know you can always fit at least one more. Well no more. No no we have the pussy individual urinals with the little dividing wall between them. I know us white guys are insecure about dongs and compensate with our automatic weapons and big-as-all-outdoors pickup trucks, but seriously, do we need to worry about meat gazers while at a baseball game? "But I can't pee in public, I get nervous," then stay the fuck home and be sure as hell you don't procreate. (Brian D.)

There are only a few times when the crowd at The K pushes at least 25,000 ... when the Red Sox or Yankees come to town, when Grienke pitches or, of course, opening day.

But Opening Day, falling right around the Final Four as it does, always becomes a pissing match between fans of KC's two favorite college teams, the Chickenhawks and the Tiggers.

So, instead of actually enjoying the one day of the year that our beloved Royals are NOT solidly in last place, the KU idiots and MU morons spend the entire game proudly flaunting their school colors and drunkingly screaming at one another.

The best KU/MU opening day experience came the year that the ol' Hawks went tumbling in the first round thanks to Bucknell. Pretty funny, yeah, but MU wasn't even in the tourney that year, so a proud Tiger fan decides to show up in his brand-new, bright orange Bucknell shirt that he bought online.

He graciously accepted the mixture of applause and boos when he first grabbed his seat a few rows in front of me. The longer the game went on, however, the more drunk and more brave he became.

By the seventh inning he was standing in his seat, flipping the double-bird to the Free-Staters in the section, while unsuccessfully trying to avoid the hot dogs, beers and leftover portions of Gates BBQ that were being hurled in his direction.

Oh yeah, and the Royals lost. (Ryan A.)

Growing up in Kansas City during the 80s, my earliest memories of major league ball include vivid images of George Brett, Willie Wilson and Frank White presiding over then Royals Stadium's bright green astroturf.

Last week myself and 10,000 other fans (nearly all of us with free tickeds, I presume) watched Kansas City's most expensive baseball team to date get pounded by the Minnesota Twins, who have become the model small market franchise.

While waiting in line last week, I was handed free upper deck tickets, a coupon for a buy one ticket get one free, and then was upgraded with one box seat ticket. Kansas Citians love a good deal, which probably explains how we inherited an owner that wouldn't trade value (Joe Randa) for high-priced talent.

All summer, Kansas Citians have flocked to the "K" to see our newly renovated stadium. Taxpayers spent more than $200 million to add much needed amenities like ribbon scoreboards, a sports bar in right field that has a $100 per table minimum, and diaper changing stations in every bathroom.

Somehow the renovation -handled by local sports architecture firm HOK - managed to add bathrooms but increase wait times for urinals. They accomplished this by removing horse-trough urinals with individual urinals. Very slick.

But that's not all.

The team apparently tried to hike up the rent on Gates Barbecue, which for year has had a small version of its famous restaurants (HI MAY I HELP YOU). Gates said no thanks, and now we get Aramark's version of mediocre, bland barbecue.

Thank goodness the K never had a sampling of Kansas City's other claim to fame, jazz, or the new K probably would have replaced Charlie Parker and Count Basie with Kenny G.

A portion of the remodel included expanding upper deck openings. Not sure what that accomplished, but the upper deck now vaguely resembles a portion of the Oakland-Almeda County Colisuem. Thanks for that.

Since then, they've replaced the turf with grass (good move), replaced Bo Jackson and Danny Tartabull with David DeJesus and Mike Jacobs, and turned what once was a model franchise into an organization rated somewhere between Triple-A and the majors.

When I was 11, I got to meet Bret Saberhagen at a local Hy-Vee grocery store. Sabes let me and my little brother sit in his Jaguar, and asked us if we liked baseball.

I can only imagine what 10-year-old fans around town say when they meet Kyle Farnsworth coming out of Price Chopper and settling into his Hummer, laughing about the $4 million contract he's playing with this year.

In the end, maybe it's better to stand in line for batting cages, miniature golf or the new hall of fame exhibit.

What's more sad than seeing the stadium of your childhood become an outdoor outlet mall? Turning your attention to a team that hasn't been able to get Zack Greinke 18 wins. (Wagon from Lee's Summit, Missouri)

I was at a game at Kauffman Stadium about 4 years ago where my friend and I were actually kicked out of seats that were in the last row of the upper deck. Some power-hungry, female usher came up and asked to see our tickets. After we showed them to her, she told us that we had $7 tickets, and that we were sitting in $12 seats. Never mind the fact that there was only 1 other person sitting within 100 feet of us. I asked her what harm we were doing sitting in those seats, seeing as how the stadium was 3/4 empty. She told us that if we didn't get up, she would call security. Angrily, I stood up, and as I walked past her, I told her that maybe the stadium wouldn't be 3/4 empty if the Royals didn't treat their fans like this (okay, so maybe the quality of the team had something to do with it too, but let's overlook that for now). Later on, we watched as the same usher kicked a couple of little kids out of seats near where we had been. It's people like her that deserve to die of a vicious venereal disease. But other than that, the game was good. (Sam S.)

So whenever the Minnesota Twins play at Kaufmann Stadium, Twins fans like to make the seven hour drive down to KC and pretty much make it a home series for the Twins, as the Twins fans ALWAYS outnumber the Royals fans by at least 3 to 1 inside the stadium. Being a fan of all things Minnesota, I have to assume that this our way of getting revenge for years of Wisconsin Badgers and Iowa Hawkeyes fans outnumbering Gophers fans 3 to 1 at every home football game at the Metrodome (which in and of itself is the worst stadium in professional sports, but I digress).

So I'm at a Twins-Royals game a couple of years ago. And three drunken Royals fans (because you pretty much have to be drunk to endure Royals baseball) behind me decide to berate a girl a few rows down that happened to be wearing a Joe Mauer t-shirt. So after enduring being called adjectives describing vaginas, lesbians and promiscuous for about 30 minutes, she finally gets security. The idiots have the audacity to wonder why they are about to be thrown out of the stadium. As they are being escorted out of the section, one of them yells…."I hope your bridge collapses on the way home". Oh yeah, this was 6 days after the 35W bridge collapsed in downtown Minneapolis, killing 13 people. Stay classy Kansas City…… (Sir_Loin)

I attended a Royals game in 2006 or 2007 in which, after a brief rain shower in the early innings, my two friends and I comprised three-fifths of the attendees in section 146. And section 144. And section 142. And section 140.

By a strange coincidence, I also knew the other two attendees. Big-time Major League Baseball at its best. (Pete Gaines)

Maybe this belongs more in the FAILgate category, but it did happen @ "The K," so here goes:

I peel my unemployed, hungover ass off of a friend's couch at about 10:30 on a sunny day the summer after I graduate college to my buddy coming back thru the door with a huge box under his arm. He had just bought a new remote control airplane. I don't know where...I don't ask. While he's putting this thing together, I try ripping on him for not having a place to fly this thing. Where?? The park?? Too many shit-eating skateboarding 12 year olds. The street?? We're in the middle of the Johnson County burbs, and we're bound to fly this thing into a tree upon maiden flight. Without saying a word, my buddy proceeds to turn on the TV, and land the Time Warner Cable Guide on "MLB Baseball."

Want miles of uninhabited asphalt?? Go to a Royals Game. Kauffman Stadium and Arrowhead Stadium share a parking lot on about 3,000 acres of prime real estate next to two intersecting highways (I-70 and I-435). Unfortunately, these are the only two highways on which there has been no construction since the Eisenhower administration, which is bad if you are trying to pack 95,000 into the lot for a Chiefs taligate. Quite a lot easier when you're talking about 12,000 (announced attendance) for a Royals game.

The plan is simple: grab another buddy, a dirty 30 of Busch, and head out to the stadia. We brought the radio, and were going to listen to the pre-game and first couple of innings before heading in and buying the cheap, cheap GA tickets (fortunately, the Royals recognize how putiridly awful the team is, and have kindly kept some of the lowest ticket prices in the league).

Well, the plan goes a little two well. The remote control airplane is aweomely entertaining to three drunk guys, and before we know it, it's the third inning, and the Royals (being the Royals) are down 8-1. We look at each other, say "fuckit" and proceed to kill the 30, crash the plane into a Mercedes with JOCO license plates, and cruise out of the lot without ever having come within 200 yards of the stadium.

Royals Baseball: Catch the Fever!! (Chris L.)

Photo via photosb's Flickr account.

Next up: The Philadelphia Phillies' Citizens Bank Park. Got any horrible experiences to share? Send them to craggs@deadspin.com.

New Brave world: Baseball is a popular diversion for the transplanted New England businesspeople known as Atlantans, at least in those odd moments when they're not idling in traffic at the I-85 interchange. Turner Field is made for these people. It is of a piece with its city: bland, corporate, vaguely backward-looking, with a light dusting of half-assed crackerism — John Rocker jerseys, Tomahawk chops, a third baseman named Chipper — to make the place feel identifiably Southern. Like Atlanta itself, whatever character the ballpark may possess was derived largely from the rubble of its former self. Turner, which opened in 1997, is the model mallpark; you can spend an entire afternoon in the fan plaza at the stadium's north end and never have to suffer through the tremendous inconvenience of actually watching a baseball game. The place differs from a Banana Republic only in that a Banana Republic doesn't work so feverishly to sell you so much crap.

There's a lesson here, one that all those Chicagoans clamoring for the 2016 Olympics would do well to heed. The 1996 Summer Olympics dramatically altered the host city, which put itself forever in hock to its corporate community. Atlanta, now brought to you by Coca-Cola. The ballpark that emerged from the wreckage of Centennial Olympic Stadium was a monument to that evolution, edgeless and dull and pimpled with logos. Not even Ted Turner — whose mix of both crass and noble instincts should've made him the prophet to lead America from its stadium malaise — could do anything about that. Here's how the Braves' web site describes The Ted now: "Turner Field combines the nostalgia and the atmosphere of old-time baseball with state-of-the-art family entertainment unlike that of any other park." It's a tribute to Ted Turner's worst impulses, in other words. It's an old movie, sloppily colored in.

The view from the stands (everything sic'd):

It is ironic and a little sad that the park is named for Ted Turner, since little of the zany exuberance or irrepressible joy of its namesake is apparent. Turner Field is, in many ways, the perfect monument to the era of bland professionalism that John Schuerholz helped shape. There is absolutely nothing unique or memorable about Turner Field: no insincere tributes to long-demolished ballparks, no crazily contrived dimensions, no pointless architectural flourishes. It is perfectly serviceable and completely soulless.

Not surprisingly, Turner Field caters to the transplant community it serves. Even the "traditions" are borrowed, as the experience is little more than an a la carte sampling from more baseball-savvy cities: "Thank God I'm a Country Boy" (from the O's), compelled patriotism (from the Yankees; don't go to a Braves game on Sunday if you're remotely free thinking), and the "Day-O" chant from Harry Belafonte's "Banana Boat Song" that's piped into every ballpark in America are all featured.

Turner Field therefore makes a fitting symbol of the city of Atlanta itself: it's nice enough, and often a great place to be, but not really a destination. You visit, enjoy yourself for awhile, then go home and forget about it. (Jason B.)

They started a Home Depot tool race this year. It's just another rip off of Milwaukee's sausage race. But they managed to make it even more phallic than racing sausages. One of the "racers" is a drill mascot. He has a drill bit that flops around like a penis while he is running. It's pretty funny. Here's a video to give you an idea.

(Artie Fufkin, video by Lauren Turbyfield at Braves Love)

I used to live 2 miles east of the stadium and walked to games pretty often. There is exactly ZERO going on around the stadium. The park was supposed to bring life to a part of town that's absolutely ghetto but 10+ years later and still nothing so the closest thing to pregaming you get is showing up 20 minutes before first pitch and sucking down a 6-pack of tall boys by your car and then fending off the bums who are constantly hassling you for money. The only public transportation to the stadium are in the form of a few shuttle buses coming from a subway station 2 miles away so everyone drives there and parks in the massive parking lots, which causes a total traffic nightmare when leaving and epitomizes the fact that everyone in this town drives everywhere to get to anything. And to top it off, the stadium is a non-descript pile of crap. A track stadium converted to a failed retro park that has no distinct charm or qualities besides (drum rollllll).....a large HD screen. (Daz K)

The ushers are tasked with enforcing Jim Crow laws in the upper deck, if you happen to do the move over from the dollar seats OR if any of your friends are black. Somehow the Dance Cam always finds the asshole who won't let go of John Rocker and still has the #49 jersey from 2000 - and the asshole always flashes the whole stadium and shows off his Nazi tats. Thank God Jair Jurrjens now has the uni number.

I hate the kiss cam. My senior year, some friends and I took a trip to ATL. I had brought a lady friend to the park after finals, so of course her nights were pretty free plays into the Southern hatred of things different (read in Southern drawl: queer) by showing two guys of the away team, but alas, my college roommate from Colorado wore a Todd Helton Tennessee throwback (I know, I didn't know they made them either) and I didn't wear any John Rocker stuff . SO, who ends up on the Jumbotron, yep. And yep, I get told by the date girl, "Oh, I didn't know you were gay!" - yeah, FML. Poor Southern girl, didn't know it wasn't the Gay Cam. So, yeah, the whole night I had planned in the hotel took a little longer to happen because I was the gay friend thanks to Liberty Media for stealing the team from Ted Turner and the Kiss Cam. But you know, maybe, in the end, I win.

More hateful Southern-fried hate that was just out there was Chief Nokahoma. The Braves tried to act all progressive by restricting the use of Chief Nokahoma, both in physical form and the logo - to nothing. I'm part Poarch Creek Indian so first of all, we pretty much screwed the Cherokee out of Georgia with some help from Andrew Jackson and fuck, implicit racism is marketing GOLD for Indians who run casinos - and well, hey there is a Golden Moon Casino Level - of Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians fame - so maybe Chief Nokahoma never really left, he just got a job at the Casino? Also, the Florida State tomahawk chop is ruined by moms, kids, senior citizens, and any out of town fans. I have gotten more beer spilled on me by moms trying to keep their kids from having a spasm when the Tool Run happens and the hammer gets decked by the drill. The ATL Gangsta race would be better but I guess having Ludacris, Jermaine Dupri, and other ATL superstars run around the outfield would be like the President going to a town hall in my hometown. (Darren K.)

Truth to tell, I've only been to Turner Field twice and had a good time both times. I think it's a nice park with supportive fans, even if there are more Yankees fans there than Braves fans on any given day. I'm sure the Braves hate never having a home field advantage of any kind, because no one in Atlanta is from here (including me). But the park's only, what...13 years old, so it's in good shape. And I don't care about being able to see the skyline from inside the ballpark, because if I wanted to see that, I could just as easily get caught in traffic between 3 PM and 7 PM each and every weekday. If I'm inside Turner Field, I want to see baseball. I guess the Braves are a reasonable alternative.

Anyway, this is Georgia, so it's not a shock that my story is about racists.

This past Cinco de Mayo (Atlanta has a good-sized Latino population, so it's become an excuse for us to get drunk, too), I was down there with some friends and saw a group of white guys in the next section, dressed in sombreros and white t-shirts with the words "Border Patrol" crudely written across the front, egging on the crowd and trying to get on TV And everyone thought it was hilarious, including the three Puerto Rican cats I was with. They figured, "They're not talking about us. We're not Mexican," and joined in with them. You know, because they don't like Mexicans, either.

There's no punchline or tale of retribution. That's the story. Some white guys and some homemade "Border Patrol" shirts and sombreros on the Mexican Day of Independence. Or whatever Cinco de Mayo is for. For all I know, it was invented by Corona so they could have their own "St. Patrick's Day."

I'm not being judgmental here, because honestly, I was laughing, too. Hell, it was funny. But it was WRONG. And I feel like I need to point that out, so my Mexican friends stay cool. (Tony Majestic)

I'm sure you'll get into why Turner Field sucks, particularly the unreal traffic, hazardous heat, etc. But it should be emphasized the fans there apparently expect baseball to have the excitement of a class on the literature works of Geoffrey Chaucer. The first time I ever went to Turner Field (and I'm not a Braves fan), the Braves hit back-to-back home runs and when my friends and I stood up to clap the second home run coming into home, we were told to sit down. Or the time when Bobby Abreu was playing for the Phils in right field and our section got into an 'Aaaa-bree-uuu' chant (sort of like the Dar-yl chants when Strawberry played for the Mets). Somehow some old fart concocted in his head that we were chanting obscene words and notified the usher. This of course got us chanting Aaaa-bree-uuu even more more and we were escorted out of the Stadium. Meanwhile, most of the fans there are either on their cellphone or waiting in line to get something to eat or to buy some ridiculously overpriced merchandise while the game is going on. (Rich H.)

Went to a game this summer at Turner Field, Braves-Brewers, Tommy Hanson's first start. My entire reason for driving 7 hours was to boo Jeff Francoeur, this double play hitting into, high fastball swinging at waste of a roster spot has been the bane of my existence for the past 2 years. First at bat he comes up to the plate, these people are CHEERING the man with the .240 and .250 obp. He proceeds to hit into 2 double plays, go 0-4 with a strikeout and THEY ARE STILL CHEERING. Not to mention the heat, dear god the sweaty balls that day. (Ben G.)

Turner Field is a wonderful place to spend an evening, so long as it has absolutely nothing to do with baseball. From the moment you enter the stadium, you are bombarded with noises, flashes of color, and stupid shit that makes it virtually impossible to pay attention to the action on the field. Not only does it continue when the inning begins, it keeps going during at bats. Every foul ball that's hit into the stands is greeted by some inane sound effect from the Turner library or elsewhere. The Jetsons theme. Chewbacca. The gulls from "Finding Nemo." Even if it's a hard liner that whacks some unsuspecting old woman in the skull, rest assured you'll hear a giant slide whistle at the moment of contact. It's like a giant episode of Benny Hill, in slow (regular?) motion.

Then there's all the visual shit that distracts you from the game. The enormous, seizure machine known as BravesVision, which is conveniently placed on top of the batters eye to ensure that the entire Braves offense has to play every game looking into the face of a god damn hydrogen bomb. Then there's the Nazi Cow on the roof, which is the single most embarrassing thing in the city of Atlanta not currently airing Thursdays on Bravo. And then, of course, there's the fans. You will be hard pressed to find a group of 25,000 as disinterested in the event they have congregated for than at an Atlanta Braves game. The lone exception is when the Mets, Cubs, Phillies, Red Sox, or Yankees are in town, where Braves fans are always outnumbered. Plus you still see a number of people wearing Jeff Francoeur T-shirts, which as a Braves fan pissed the shit out of me even before he was traded. (Torgo's Executive Powder)

Turner Field sucks because it's not full of Braves fans. It's full of brahsome Mets/Cubs/Phillies/Insert Team Here fans that like to shit on Atlanta and yet curiously, refuse to leave. Delta's ready when you are, asshole.

Braves-Cubs this past June. The Cubs' pitcher has a no-no through about 7. Braves break it up and come roaring back. Francoeur (I KNOW!) homers in the bottom of the 9th to tie it up. Braves win in extras.

Lot of Cub fans there. Obnoxious for 7, eerily silent for the rest of the way. In the middle of the rally, I start a "1908" chant in response to the wildly creative "Let's Go Cubbies" I've heard all night. Asshole Cub fan, with his 6 year old daughter in tow, has been a dick all night. He says, and I swear I'm not kidding, "Shut up. When's the last time you won a division title?" Really dude?

Another Braves fan responds in a salty manner and Cubs guy loses it about how he won't tolerate cussin' in front of his kid (albeit the rule clearly didn't apply to him). Calling him on his hypocrisy, I ask him how many times he sat in the bleachers at Wrigley and said something off-color. He's now fully unhinged and heading for us. Long story short, he gets arrested, 6 year old following all the way.

Only in Atlanta would a story about the Ted sucking cite the behavior of a Cubs fan. Go Braves, fucker. (Aubrey N.)

"The Ted" is named after a former owner who once had newly acquired free agent Andy Messersmith wear number 17 while changing the name on the back of his jersey to "Channel." Those good old days of crass commercialization had a certain charm compared to the new sterile soulless corporate baseball castle brought to you by current Braves owners, Liberty Media.

The following conversation happens nightly. It is one of an estimated 20,000 cell phone conversations that occur whenever the ball is in play at The Ted. For verisimilitude sake, insert the voice of Barry Pepper as Dale Earnhardt:

"Dude. I'm here over in the Sun Trust Level. Where you at? Golden Moon Casino Level? Well, shit. Wanna meet up at Bud Pavilion before the Home Depot Tool Race? My money's on Screw Driver. Who you got?"

When you pass through the front gates of The Ted what do you find? Well, naturally you find what any baseball aficionado would find-a children's theme park featuring the lovable characters from The Cartoon Network. Why? Don't ask why. This is Atlanta. Capital of the New South. Our true God is the Union-Yankee dollar and we worship at the foot of a Chick-fil-a-Cow-God (Baal?) hovering majestically in left field. That's right. Let Boston have The Green Monster. Let Chicago have Ivy. Let the Yankees have Monument Park. We've got Cow-God. He rests next our other major deity-a plastic Coke bottle tower (Babel?). Behold…

What kind of fan-base does this produce? We have diabetes. We drive used Hummers. We wear Polo shirts and frayed hats of our favorite college teams and khakis and believe the earth is 4,000 years old. But mostly, as Braves fans, our greatest passion is to stay at home and watch reruns of Designing Women and Deadliest Catch. Or we go to Stone Mountain Park, former home of the Ku Klux Klan, and watch the Laser Shows and play putt-putt. When it's time to head downtown (Scary! Black! Gay!) and watch the Braves, we're likely on a church bus because First Baptist of Wherever got a good deal on group tickets.

So we'll be there. Every once in a while. And you can count on us to be wearing Red Sox hats and Jeff Franceour jerseys, drinking Coke and dreaming of Chick-fil-A. Just don't expect us to watch the action on the field. We're distracted. The lights are bright. The advertisements, pretty. And Cow God, like Doctor T.J. Eckleberg, is watching. Always watching. (Jerome from Decatur)

Next up: The Kansas City Royals' Kauffman Stadium. Got any horrible experiences to share? Send them to craggs@deadspin.com.

Friar's club: Miguel Joseph Serra was born in Mallorca in 1713, and a scant 16 years later, he fetched up with the Franciscans, whereupon he took the first name Junípero, which is how the world knows him today. He soon entered the priesthood, and it was as Father Junípero Serra that he sailed to the colonies of New Spain in 1749, where he converted a lot of Indians into Christians, founded a handful of missions and generally did enough of the Lord's work in the New World that many years later people began calling him the "Apostle of California."

He was also a prick. No one much liked Serra, it seemed, at least not until he croaked. The Spanish army resented his authority. The captain of the bark that brought him to the New World damn near knifed him. He was grim and exacting, a onetime comisario of the Inquisition. As president of nine missions in California, he oversaw what we'd now call the extraordinary rendition of thousands of Indians who were pressed into labor and tortured if they didn't die of malaria first. He didn't treat his own person much better. Serra was an enthusiastic exponent of religion-as-masochism. Thin, gimpy, asthmatic and scurvy-ridden, he nevertheless favored heavy shirts full of wires that pointed inward, used candles to burn the flesh on his chest and whipped himself until he bled. It is said that during one sermon, he lashed himself with chains so fiercely that a congregant felt moved to do likewise, killing himself in the process.

Father Junípero Serra died in 1784. He was beatified by Pope John Paul II two centuries later. In the 1950s, a professional baseball team that played its home games in the town where Serra founded California's first mission began using for a mascot something named the Swinging Friar. The team was called the Padres. The mascot was a "whimsical takeoff" on Serra, a man who wouldn't know whimsy if it walked up to him and lashed him with a chain:

So this was the Padres' mascot: The engineer of a massive American pogrom, as rendered by Hanna-Barbera. (At least he was scaring only children now, rather than large populations of indigenous people.) And the bitch of it is that it's all so appropriate. Serra is, in retrospect, the perfect symbol for a Southern California ballclub — and in particular for the Padres. The main reason he has a reputation as anything but some 18th century imperial Pol Pot is because a passel of civic boosters undertook a large-scale restoration of the Franciscans' image in the late 1800s and early 1900s, creating a myth of sweet, gentle, mission-era California that they could sell to prospective homeowners around the United States. It was nothing but real-estate promotion, as the historian Kevin Starr has argued; Serra was the mascot. In 1934, two years before the Padres were born as a PCL team, the Catholic Church agreed to look at Serra's candidacy for beatification. Some 70 years later, another group of Southern Californians would try to snow the public: The Padres, who, waving around the prospect of a downtown renaissance, persuaded taxpayers to cover fully two-thirds of the cost of building scenic Petco Park, a deal that may have played a role in Standard & Poor's decision to suspend San Diego's bond rating. Once again, Serra was the mascot.

The view from the stands (everything sic'd):

Because very few people in San Diego are actually from here and San Diego fans are apathetic at best, the stadium has very few real Padres fans in attendance. Instead it is populated with transplants rooting for their visiting team, clueless tourists looking for something do after visiting the Zoo or Sea World and irritating douchebags ready to get their sleaze on in the Gaslamp Quarter after the game (applies to both locals and visitors).

This leads to overhearing cringe-worthy exchanges like the following:

Clueless tourist #1: "how many home games versus away games do teams play?"
Clueless tourist #2: "I don't know, I think 1/3 of their games are at home and 2/3 are away"

Different clueless tourist #1: "How long has this stadium been here?"
Different clueless tourist #2: "I think they've been playing here for 7 or 8 years. They brought that in (referring to Western Metal building) to make it look older."

This was 2 years after the park opened. Apparently they were unaware that the declaration of the 100-year old building as a historical landmark complicated ballpark construction and the building's exterior was incorporated into the ballpark design.

You also get mind-numbingly idiotic encounters like this with a popped-collar douchebag wearing a brand new Yankees hat:

Douchebag, to his date, as Mike Cameron comes within inches of catching a deep drive at the wall in the right-center gap (a hit very few centerfielders would have even come anywhere near): "Yeah, that guy's not really very good"

Me, incredulous: "Are you kidding me?! He's one of the top 5 centerfielders in baseball! He's won gold gloves!" Douchebag, again to his date, with an air of condescension: "You gotta love how these hometown fans support their players" (Jeff H.)

Petco Park sucks because it's the least-friendly hitter's park in baseball. Basically, it's the anti-Coors Field, pre-humidor from the mid-ninety's when jackoffs like Dante Bichette turned into Babe Ruth. They built the park downtown near the ocean and apparently didn't account for the very thick marine air that keeps the ball from traveling. They then designed the dimensions to be reasonably fair down both lines and to straight-center, but decided to make both alleys over 400 feet. As far as I know, it's the only stadium where both left-center and right-center are deeper than the center field wall. For five years now, both Padre players and opponents have routinely crushed balls to either of these alleys, only to be standing on second base, pissed-off and dumb-founded as to why on earth they didn't just hit a home run. It makes for boring fucking baseball. (Mark M.)

Your average game experience goes something like this: Park 20 blocks away, walk past all the homeless people in the East Village area, get to the game, hang out with the other 10,000 people that bothered to show up. Drink the 4.4% Budweiser in a plastic bottle- for that touch of class, put up with all the Charger jerseys, Meth addicts from El Cajon, Gaslamp douchebags, the hat races on the jumbo tron, the dancing groundskeeper guy, the kid announcing the first batter in the 3rd inning, the gigantic mascot Friar walking around- that's right they don't even have the San Diego Chicken here anymore. Word is that Tony Gwynn thought the Chicken was taking away from him, so he had him run out of town. Oh, and never every get a seat in Right field, every seat is obstructed. And so are the seats on top of the Western Metal building. (Robert P.)

Without getting into a long-winded rant at the tragic futility of being a Padres fan, Petco Park sucks for two overwhelming reasons (besides being named after a pet shop, being sold to the public on a series of lies, and of course housing a joke of a team).

1. The stadium is so representative of San Diego's attempt to try and be something more than a military town with great weather. "Look at us, we've got a brick building just like in Baltimore!" "How crazy is it that we have a beach in right-center?! It's because we have beaches in San Diego, get it?" "It's located in the historic [read oldest building from the '40s and was inhabited by sailors and prostitutes until the pathetic SD club crowd tried taking over in the late 90s] Gaslamp District. The most embarrassing symptom of this disease is that the Padres have retired no fewer than 4 numbers (five if you include Jackie Robinson's), all displayed over center field. Included among these are Steve Garvey (I assume for one hit in the 1984 NLCS) despite having played the majority of his career with the rival Dodgers, and Randy Jones (for a whopping total of one Cy Young, two All Star appearances, one Comeback Player of the Year Award, and a line of barbecue sauce). Pathetic.

2. The stands aren't just filled with a majority of fans from any opposing team in the National League, but about one in ten of these community college dropouts are sporting their DBacks or Mets jersey despite the fact that their team isn't playing. These cockroach transplants will pretend to learn how to surf, call everyone "bro", and generally destroy everything that native San Diegans love about their city, but none of them can be bothered to embrace the home team. If you're reading this with and own an Ed Hardy shirt, a trucker cap that's never been worn straight on your head, and have a surfboard that's gathering dust in the corner of your piss-soaked Pacific Beach hovel, do the entire region a favor and apply for welfare back in New Jersey. (Chris R.)

We drove to San Diego a few Labor Days ago to watch the Dodgers play. We payed around $30-40 per ticket to sit in this outfield section called "The Beach". We were sorta intrigued until we actually got to this section. It was literally a playpen. There was a large sandbox in the front where children made sandcastles. Overlooking the sand is the most uncomfortable bleachers in the world, covered in sand nonetheless. At one point, a home run was hit right our way, and we were practically praying that it would hit one of the children in the head and knock them out cold. We were so bitter that we had to drive 3 hours to sit in a sandbox. Who would they even put this area where children can play in potential home run territory?? We wanted to get outta there two innings later but thought we should make it fun, so we walked up on the sand to the outfield fence, lit cigarettes, and hollered obscenities at Mike Cameron until security came over. And what'd they tell us? That we can't smoke? We can't yell obscenities? No. They told us we cannot be in the sand because it was exclusively for the children. Go fuck yourself San Diego. (Daniel S.)

My work has season tickets in a great section - just off the third base line. There is a guy who works this section who may be the biggest asshole in San Diego, which is saying something. He carefully looks at every ticket when you leave and go back to your seat. If you are young or not white he spends at least a minute "checking your ticket." To say he is power-mad is an understatement. At one game recently between the Mets and Padres, he threatened to throw out a kid for walking down to "his" section to have a photo taken. This was after the kid asked another usher whether it was ok. There were less than 10000 people in the stands and this guy spends most of his time yelling at kids.

The guy has a stupid mustache and wears a gay hat, too. (Xan B.)

This park caused one of the greatest disappointments of my life.

While attending a bachelor party weekend Cubbies - Padres game several years ago, my group was in the left-field pavillion ALLLLL the way up, in the sports bar area. Waiting in an interminable line to get out on the deck so I could actually, I don't know, WATCH THE GAME, I needed to use the restroom.

So, I headed to the head, only to find an equally ridiculous line. I really had to go, so I dropped down a level to the top level of suites, pulled the casual walk-by while not showing my ticket move, and slipped into the totally un-busy suite-level john to take care of business.

Having crashed security, I figured I'd see the view from the suites. When I found a big suite full of people who didn't seem to know each other, I ate some of their wings, grabbed a beer, and perched up on a stool behind the 2/3 full rows of seats.

Within minutes, Sammy Sosa crushes a towering homerun that curves inside the foul pole, and lands 6 inches from my foot, spinning like a dervish. I clamor off of the stool, wrap my hands around the crazily spinning ball (seeing the blue writing on the ball, and feeling the raised seams), and try to grab it. But it is spinning too much, I'm a few drinks in, and some asshole who was actually invited to the suite and had any right to be there reaches back from the 2nd to last row and nabs the homer. I jump up and down cursing my own incompetence and then get back to my beer.

Sucks, right? But wait, it gets worse. Some guy from the Cubs shows up asking who caught the ball, and can he trade a basket of signed Cubs/Sosa gear, including jersey, bat, other signed balls and whatnot, because Mr. Sosa would really like to have that ball - AS IT IS THE ONE WITH WHICH HE PASSED ERNIE FUCKING BANKS ON THE ALL TIME HOME RUNS LIST!!!!!!!! Easily a 5-figure baseball, right?

Sucks, right? But wait, it gets worse/better.

Later that night, as we are lingering around the hotel waiting for the bachelor party "in-room entertainment" to arrive, we're watching Sportscenter. I had told my buddies about my near miss with the home run ball. They kind of didn't believe me. But then Sportscenter counts down plays of the day, highlights Sosa's record donger, and shows the clip, which CLEARLY features me, in the same red tshirt I'm still wearing, jumping up and down and cursing myself.

So, lost homerun ball. Won good story. Got my buddy's bachelor party on ESPN.

That is why PETCO Park sucks. (Todd B.)

Photo via Matt Pasant's Flickr account.

Next up: The Atlanta Braves' Turner Field. Got any horrible experiences to share? Send them to craggs@deadspin.com.

Just kidding. It's a Norman Chad article

I like Norman Chad, kind of. He really doesn't interfere in my life that much, and the only time he does he's calling the WSOP and making 30 jokes per minute about his ex-wives, and there's something kind of reassuringly corny about his gormless self-depreciation. But then he had to go and write this:

I was watching a regular-season baseball game on TV the other night — granted, it was a stupid thing to do and I'm already paying the price –

...? Why? Why is that bad?

— when the following piece of data streamed across my screen:

"Todd Helton is only the seventh player in MLB history to possess a .325 career batting average, .400 on-base percentage and .575 slugging percentage."

"Wow," I said to myself. "Todd Helton is a good baseball player." Then I finished watching the game and went to sleep, because nothing interesting or noteworthy had happened. The End. Love, Norman Chad.

You could've knocked my socks off with that one, except I was already barefoot and drinking PBR out of a can.

See? Gormless self-depreciation. It's cute.

The Helton factoid is what I would call statistical debris.

In the old days, a garbage truck would come by twice a week to haul that stuff away, but nowadays this sporting trash is piled up so high so often, it's too costly to dispose of on a regular basis.

I'm lost. This is a metaphor, right? Or is Normie's PBR-addled brain mis-remembering how garbage removal works?

And so it is heaped into our living rooms and we must learn to live with it, like an evil mother-in-law who's moved in indefinitely.

A recent study of the Ju'hoansi San – also known as the !Kung – who live on the Namibia-Botswana border, determined that their distinctive clicking sounds have links to the most primitive language in humanoid history, which traces back over 40,000 years. A thorough examination of these sounds, cross-referenced with the fossil record and an extensive examination of similar languages and proto-languages, has determined that it is literally impossible to tell a joke older than "my mother-in-law drives me nuts!"

For years, ESPN has led the statistical avalanche. But it has plenty of company now. The Wall Street Journal covers the world of business and the world at large pretty adeptly; however, when it comes to the world of sports, the Journal has turned into USA Today, with bigger words. The Journal reduces all of sport to numbers, graphs and pie charts — it's a statistical junkyard, with spare parts nobody needs.

Which is why nobody watches ESPN or reads the Wall Street Journal. When will they learn to be more in line with Norman Chad's worldview? It will totally help them be better at business.

Also, USA Today is his idea of a publication with too much complicated information? Nobody let Norman Chad see FanGraphs or Baseball Prospectus. His fucking head will explode.

The Journal even offers daily predictions. For instance, "Los Angeles Lakers 103.2, Houston Rockets 90.9" or "Philadelphia Phillies 5.2, New York Mets 4.8." "Scores are based on the average of 10,000 game simulations," we are told, "and rounded to 1 decimal point."

You know what I'd like to "simulate?" Strangling my mother-in-law!

I am somewhat thankful, for both my own emotional well-being as well as the emotional well-being of my unborn children, that the scores are not rounded to the hundredths or thousandths.

You know what I'm thankful for? My mother-in-law is leaving tomorrow! (Okay, I'll stop.) (But not until I make you read the following paragraph in full, because it gets really good at the end.)

(I have another problem with the Wall Street Journal. Recently, it started a Monday feature in which someone watches TV all weekend; it's called "The Couch." Really? The Couch? Last I checked, I am The Couch Slouch. Have been for quite a while. Is there not some intellectual infringement here — well, assuming there was any intellect attached to becoming The Couch Slouch? Couldn't they've been a bit subtler about stealing my shtick — maybe call the column "The Sofa" or "The Ottoman"? Why doesn't the guy just sit in my lap, eat my Fritos and take my third wife? Please!)

Take my third wife – please.

My God.

How stunning, that a guy who quotes a Henny Youngman joke from the 1930's isn't super psyched about advances in statistical analysis.

Also, you didn't invent the word "couch." Nor were you the first man to put a couch in front of the television. But you should still sue.

The Journal ran a story earlier this year detailing how a couple of University of Pennsylvania professors studied 6,500 NCAA basketball games from 2005 to 2008 and concluded that teams have a 51.3 percent chance of winning when they are behind by a single point at halftime. In other words, when you're ahead, chances are you will lose; apparently, you are more motivated when you are behind.

Geez, using that theory, the Washington Nationals should be undefeated, no?

Ha ha ha ha ha! No! Because those are not real games!

I find that stat very interesting and counter-intuitive. It has added to my enjoyment of sport. Unlike those bags of peanuts on airplanes, which are so hard to open.

Baseball remains the biggest sports-by-numbers perpetrator. ESPN litters the baseball screen with updated, situational numbers on every pitch — with a magnifying glass, you can figure out how a hitter does better when the count is 2-0 rather than 0-2.

Suggestion: put down your magnifying glass, disregard information being presented to you free of charge, continue to drink PBR, enjoy game as per normal.

Speaking of which, I read the other day that the Dodgers have increased their "pitches per plate appearance" from 3.63 in 2007 to 3.81 in 2008 to 3.96 in 2009, which puts them second in the majors.

Hilariously, this fact is presented as meaningless statistical chuffah. In 2007 they won 82 games. They've won 84 already this year and should easily pass their 2007 runs total. In 2007 and 2008 they were 6th in the NL in OBP, and this year they're #1. In 2007 they were 12th in the league in walks, then 10th, now 4th. The team has gotten more patient. They are walking more. They are winning more. (Walking isn't by any means the only reason. But it sure ain't hurting.)

Here's an actual sentence from a recent USA Today story: "Earned runs are constructed from a confluence of events."

Da-whaaaaa?! What kind of insane word jumble is that? "Earned runs?!?!?!" "Constructed?" Is that even a word?!?! "Confluence?" Are you kidding me? Why not just say "gorbledee borbledee flerm! I mean, does anyone in the world this side of William Safire even know what these words mean?! "Events?!" "Are?!" "Of?!" Raise your hand if you've ever heard the word "of" before.

Fucking liars.

Frankly, I thought I had stumbled onto a crime story and was about to digest a police toxicology report. But it was an article on ERA and what affects it.

So, just to be clear: you are familiar enough with the phrase "police toxicology report" to use it as a lame joke, but the phrase "confluence of events" sent your brain spinning around in your brainpan.

It included the following words on Atlanta Braves pitcher Jair Jurrjens:

"...a low 5.2 strikeout rate and 1.6 K/BB ratio are worrisome. His .260 BA-BIP and 84 percent strand rate are both primed for regression. Jurrjens' 5.03 xERA is nearly three runs higher than his actual ERA, an ominous indicator."

Heck, I'm scared.

Well, sure. Cavemen are always scared when they see things they don't understand. Like wheels, and such.

Okay, folks, here's a stat for you:

Nobody gets out alive. Nobody. So enjoy it while you can, and I'll see ya 6.0 feet under.

What an incredibly depressing way to end a piece of light sports prose.

"So I guess you could say that this year's Hot Dog Eating Contest truly was a lot of bun for everyone! And one final note: there is no God, man's search for meaning is a cosmic red herring, and we're all going to die. See you next year!"

Elision fields: Dodger Stadium is the bright, happy face of just about every regrettable development in mid-20th century American life, and none of them had anything to do with poor Doris Kearns Goodwin not being able to go to Ebbets with her daddy anymore.

The Brooklyn Dodgers blew town for Los Angeles in 1957, a sort of white flight on a grand scale and a move so widely and extravagantly mourned that even now New York developers can still sell a large public boondoggle on all that old Dodger necrophilia. The team's new stadium in Los Angeles would be located on a tract of some 350 acres in Chavez Ravine. The land had been earmarked for a public housing project, Elysian Park Heights, but had become newly available because a red-baiting empty suit named Norris Poulson had successfully demagogued the project — and the issue of "socialist housing" in general — straight into the mayoralty. A neighborhood was razed. In 1958, one of the last remaining residents, Aurora Vargas, was carried from her house by sheriff's deputies. The bulldozers arrived just minutes later.

The stadium itself was also a product of its time: a monument to car culture (parking for 16,000 cars against 700 in Flatbush); an ode to consumerism and distraction (Walter O'Malley's original plans included an auto service center, car washes, restaurants, and novelty and souvenir shops); and in general a rebuke to squalid urban living (Disneyland was a model for O'Malley, and in 1982 Forbes wrote: "Dodger Stadium is squeaky clean, beautifully landscaped and rests in a striking setting. As at Disneyland, Dodger Stadium attendants — even in the parking lot — are civil. The bathrooms are clean and safe.") And as with Disneyland, it was thoroughly phony. At the first batting practice in Dodger Stadium, players were said to marvel at the ballpark's deep green grass, but soon they noticed that the baseballs, too, were turning green. It was dye. Groundskeepers had coated the turf the night prior, at the suggestion of Mervyn LeRoy, the movie director.

The place was built on the fever dreams of an era — red-baiting, xenophobia, rapid suburbanization, frisky consumerism — like one big Douglas Sirk movie of a ballpark. Today, you can drive to Dodger Stadium, onetime bulwark against the pinkos, and park your car on the site of Aurora Vargas' former home.

The view from the stands (everything sic'd):

Word of caution: These may strike readers as casually racist. I've included them because, well, just about all the Dodger Stadium submissions were casually racist.

The incomparable Frank Drebin once said being in prison was like being in the stands at a Raiders game. Well the outfield bleachers at Dodger Stadium were where Traitors fans used to spend their summers. Rowdy fans sporting area code tattoos on their shaved heads, six dollars seats and lots of beer always made for an adventure on a hot summer day or night. While it was a thing of beauty to see the entire Left Field Pavilion flip off Barry Bonds in unison, things could turn ugly very quickly. Fights were the norm and wearing a Giants jersey could get you shanked Oz style outside the stadium. You always had to keep your head on a swivel in the pavilion. My particular moment came exactly one inning before the greatest World Series homerun ever. As an eight year old kid I was ecstatic to be at the World Series until two drunks picked a fight with an A's fan. The A's fan ended up losing when the two drunks picked him up and threw him three rows down. He landed square on my back and I face planted into the seat in front of me. Fortunately I was a big and sturdy eight year old (read: model for the Husky Juniors catalog) and having a 200 pound man thrown on top of me only busted my upper lip open. So as Kirk Gibson pumped his fists and rounded the bases I held an icepack on my swollen lip and tried not to cry. (Pieper)

Four years ago I'm sitting with three buddies in the bad section. The games a real snoozer. A dude that looks like Frog from "Colors" and his friend who looks like he ate Frog from "Colors" are relentlessly screaming at us for nine innings of 1-1 baseball. Finally, Derrek Lee hits a go-ahead RBI in the 10th to win, 2-1. As we're leaving, Frog yells at me "What's up Cubs faggot! It took you 10 innings to score two runs!" After I pointed out that the Dodgers only scored 1 run in ten innings he responded with "At least we didn't draft a running back from Texas!" Knowing he was referring to the newly acquired Cedric Benson, I informed this gentleman that his beloved Los Angeles did not have a football team. He responded by pretending to shoot me with a finger gun. (Ike B.)

If you are a fan of the opposing team your chances of making it out alive from the cheap(er) seats are dramatically reduced equal to the amount of gear you happen to be wearing of the visiting team. I don't mean this in a friendly rivalry type of way. The vast amounts of gangsta type individuals are more concerned with berating the shit out of you and keeping their beloved beach balls from drifting over the section than caring even for a second with the going ons of the game on the field. For too many people, Dodger stadium is only ostensibly about the baseball game. In reality the dumb beach balls and chances to find fights are the real draw. Easily the most dangerous ballpark in the country. I went to the clinching game for the Mets in the 2006 NLDS and I survived only after leaving the upper section and huddling with other Mets fans and a few burly security guards. (Sebastian H.)

A few years ago, when Dodger Stadium wasn't as "family friendly" as today, the ball comes out and is played with until a fat bald dude with a fu manchu snatches the damn thing and pops it, laughing at those around him. I was secretly and silently applauding him, but I knew shit was gonna hit the fan when stupid Dodger fans come into play. First people start teasing the guy and throwing peanuts and ice cubes. Two guys a few rows up from Bull Hurley continue to taunt him and the argument escalates. On this given night, the organization provided fans with wooden mini bat replicas. Bad idea.....one of the two Ben Davis wearing clowns releases a beast of a loogie onto Bull who retaliates by swinging his bat at them. The other guys exchange bat swings with him and get the upper hand, though no serious blows were registered by either side.

Amazingly, only one of the Mexican Mafia guys was taken away by security. The other dude remained slumped on his seat the rest of the game while Bull had to tend to some bruises. It was a fun site, especially seeing all the people in the surrounding seats part like the Red Sea towards my direction when the bats started flying. (Nato)

I was 16 years old at Dodger Stadium with a buddy of mine from High School. We were sitting in the right field pavilion. Early on in the game a guy gets up to go the bathroom and asks if I'll watch his stuff (a bag, jacket, Dodger gear, etc). I say sure and proceed to kind of forget about it until a middle aged cholo walks over, grabs the stuff and begins to walk away. I stop him and tell him that that the stuff he's taking aint his and to put it back. He looks at me for a moment and asks me what the fuck do I care, I tell him that Im watching it for someone else and to put it back. He does so, and walks away.

About 5 minutes later he yells to me from a few rows up "Hey!....look out for your own...remember that...look out for your own". I absent mindedly nod and try to watch the Dodgers play the Cubs. Then, for the next two innings he yells anti-semetic slurs at me while his other forty something year old Vato Loco homies laugh. Evidently he saw that I had a Star of David Around my neck (nevermind that I grew up in North East L.A with mostly "his own"). In that same game, and in most games I attend at Dodger Stadium there were fist-fights inside and outside the stadium between various tatted up pelons, and lots of shouts of "faggot!' and "Bitch!" directed at anyone, man, woman or child dressed in the opposing teams gear. Most Dodger fans are cool, and way more knowledgeable than annoying East Coast douche-bags in tight jeans would ever want to admit, but there is a shittily pervasive criminal element that gives us Dodger fans a thugged out reputation. (Lex)

This is too easy, Dodger Stadium. When I was in high school, my family took a trip out west. We're a NY-area family, so there's always been interest in the Dodgers in the bloodlines. I'm a big baseball fan, and was very excited to take in a game with my pops. However, as soon as we got there, which was about 20 minutes early, we did the walk around. You couldn't tell there would be a game going on that day. The place was empty til about the 3rd inning. People started filling in the seats around me and my dad. Then, the first thing this L.A. blogger/douche that shows up late/sits next to me does, is blow up a beach ball and start smacking it around, and then takes his shirt off and rests in on our shared armrest. Now, I wanted to be into the game, but between Douchey A with his shirt off smacking a beachball and douchey B who is as amused as Simple Jack by the concept of the ball going around plus a 4-tier wave, it was miserable. Then, I was pissed because we had to leave early, the 7th inning, to go to a party of a family/friend that lived in Santa Monica. As soon as my father and I stood up to leave, it seemed as if everyone in the stadium would follow us out. I kept jokingly reminding people that the game wasn't over, we just had to go to a party, there were still a few more innings.

Anyway, I know this might sound stereotypical of an LA trip, but come on, doesn't that say something on its own? (TheOnlyNetsFan)

Actually, I don't have that much bad to say about Dodger Stadium, but ever since the O'Malley's sold the franchise, the owners (both FOX and McCourts) have endorsed a limited or now no tailgating policy. WTF? I remember going to my first Dodger game after they were sold to Fox and was unaware of the no tailgaiting policy. We set up shop in the (near) empty parking lot about 90 minutes before game time. We were in the middle of setting up our bbq when the police come driving up telling us that it was against the rules now. I asked them if that was permanent or temporary. They claimed it was probably only going to be temporary (a limited bbq area was later established and then banished) but for now we had to put our bbq away. They saw our drinks (non booze in appearance, but filled with delicious alcoholic goodness in reality) and they mentioned it was a good thing that we weren't drinking alcohol as that was against the rules too. The cops then relayed a story from the last group of people they were harrassing, wait, I mean, informing of the new tailgaiting rules. Basically, that group was drinking their alcohol in the open and the cops wrote them up tickets, made them dump all of their booze and one of the group got pissed off at the cops so they arrested him - and slammed his head into the cop car on purpose - as they put him in the back of the car. They thought it was hiliarious. We laughed along with them and went back to boozing as soon as they left. Well, we were pretty pissed off at the new policy and when the game was over we raced back to our car and fired up that grill and ate our non Dodger Dogs just out of principle. (ADR)

Dodger fans get a well deserved rap for arriving late, leaving early, and checking tmz.com for the remaining 4 innings they're in the stadium. My story however reflects the 3rd world soccer enviornment that sitting in the "cheap" (read $15 to park, $25 per shitty seat, and $5 for the ground possum anus Dodger Dog) seats entails. I'm sitting in the far right-field upper deck with my girlfriend and another female friend watching the Padres get demolished by the Dodgers. I'm the only white-guy in the section (including my friends, both hispanic) and I'm taking a pretty fair amount of abuse for being a "faggot", I assume since I have a Padres hat on. Anyhow, dealing with homophobic abuse in two languages is about par for the course in a town that hasn't won a baseball championship since I was 8, but the only thing that really bothered me was the little boy behind me kicking my seat for 5 innings asking his papa how many points the Doyers had. They decide to leave in the middle of the 6th (to beat traffic I assume) and as the kid gives my seat one last kick for good measure I finally turn around and politely tell the father that he should at least educate his son enough to know that points are for soccer or jai alai, they're called "runs" in baseball. In short, he questioned my sexual orientation in Spanish (in front of his son no less) and then called me the Spanish version of a motherfucker (failing to see the inherent contradiction in his insult). This was merely the most interesting story in a day that ended with the local chapter of MECHa pouring beer on the two women I was with, while I was in the bathroom. No public transportation to a stadium built over the razed homes of thousands of families, a worthless fan-base, and a history GM's running the team like a bad fantasy roster (signings of Kevin Brown/Eric Davis/Daryl Strawberry/Darren Dreifort/Carlos Perez/Juan Pierre/Jason Schmidt/Andruw Jones) are why this soulless team peaked in the Reagan administration. (Chris)

The biggest issue is the damn parking lot, which works to undermine the whole experience of being a Dodger fan and certainly the image we have. Everybody thinks Dodgers fans show up late, and leave early. And you know what? It's true. Due to the shitty parking lot that takes for-fucking-ever to exit after a game, coupled with the insanity of SoCal traffic, and considering that a ton of Dodgers fans are admittedly idiotic assholes (there is a lot of crossover between Dodgers and Raiders fans), every Dodgers game features the annoyingly late attendance of about half the crowd, and the early exit by about the same amount. To make matters worse, the same half who show up late and leave early spend the entire time playing with goddamn beach balls and talking about whether they should leave before or after the Dodgers bat in the eighth. If a committed fan feels the urge to yell, jeer, or to stand up for any moment other than immediately after a homerun, they are pretty much alone in doing so and are sometimes outright mocked by other fans who are seemingly so road-weary that they can't be bothered to actually pay attention to something they just spent all their drug money on. So, sometimes, even when they're winning, or in an exciting season like this one, it's just not that fun to be at a Dodgers game and the parking lot that the O'Malleys designed when they brought the team to Chavez Ravine is 90% responsible for that. (Daniel B.)

It is a universal truth that anyone visiting Doger Stadium for the first time is, as we say in Texas, shit out of luck (SOL, when kids are around). We arrived 5 minutes before first pitch, took a decent looking parking space, and got to our seats in the second inning, after climbing up 143 stairs, walking 2/3 of the way around the stadium, and trying 4 different gates before we could enter, only to have 4 ever-so-helpful ticket takers tell us that OUR gate was the next one down. Three of them were lying dicks. The fourth was also a dick, but at least he was honest.

After the game, another super-helpful usher told us to go the other way around and take the escalator to get to our parking spot. The single escalator was running the wrong way - set to help lazy Angelenos, surely worn out from hours of hot yoga, take a treacherous journey down a stairway. Somehow we ended up climbing up another 50 stairs.

193 steps up, none down. Chavez Ravine is clearly some hell pit vortex, which defies all sense of logic. This somewhat helps to explain Dodger fans' love affiar with Tommy Lasorda. (Jacob L.)

Photo via hburrussiii's Flickr account.

Next up: The San Diego Padres' Petco Park. Got any horrible experiences to share? Send them to craggs@deadspin.com.

Shea rebellion: I direct your attention to Chapter 2 of Who Is This Tory Muppet and Why Is He Yammering About Baseball? George Will's subject is the birth in the 1960s of the multi-purpose stadium. He writes: "Almost everything about the 1960s, from politics to popular music to neckties, was marked by wretched excess." Now, one should remember that George Will is a pundit who seems to have a built a political philosophy out of a profound and unshakable fear that he was the only guy not to get laid in the '60s. (He is also maybe the only person on earth who'd place Shea Stadium on the same continuum as, say, Procol Harum.) George Will, to state it plainly, doesn't know dick. Not about the '60s. Not about baseball. He is wrong. Wretchedly, excessively wrong.

And yet, remarkably, the public seems to share Will's view that the old doughnut stadiums were some misguided fashion of a thankfully bygone era, a sort of architectural Flock of Seagulls. No ballpark's closing was as little lamented as Shea's, even though what replaced it, the enormous Geico advertisement known as Citi Field, is far more soulless, aloof and, yes, excessive than Shea ever was. (I'll grant Citi this: It is fully cognizant of the team's rich history; unfortunately, that team is now located in Los Angeles.)

It's too bad. For all their faults, Shea and its multi-purpose cousins represented an idea of a sports facility — versatile and utilitarian and forward-looking — that we might eagerly embrace today if owners hadn't spent the past 30 years convincing us they were all uninhabitable blights. I asked stadium guru Neil deMause for an estimate as to how much a Shea replica might cost today. He e-mailed: "I remember a calculation from the '90s that to rebuild Wrigley from scratch would cost something like $100 million — add in inflation and that Shea is bigger, and maybe $250-300 million? Certainly far less than Citi's $600m, anyway."

"There were no excesses in those stadiums," architecture critic John Pastier says of the multi-use stadiums. They were "economically very sensible," he says. "The Kingdome cost $70 million and could house every possible activity you could think of, and then they spent well over a billion dollars to replace it with three different structures and they actually lost functionality. You could no longer do Final Four basketball the way they had before. You could no longer do political conventions."

The doughnuts were egalitarian (despite the usual claims that Citi is more "intimate," the seats at Shea were actually closer to the field). They were built for mass entertainment of all kinds, which is why Sid Bernstein and the Beatles chose Shea for their first U.S. concert venue. They were cheap and ugly and did their job at relatively little cost to the common weal, and they were quickly supplanted by big, bright shrines to the kind of wretched excess George Will can get behind: making money.

The view from the stands (everything sic'd):

I'm from Philly but live in New York. A couple friends and I went to the game in early June when the right field corner would ultimately be christened "Utley's Corner."

First of all, it's ridiculous that Mets fans continue to talk shit to us at all after 2007 and 2008, but there we were, being told over and over again that the Phillies "suck." It was like walking through 1946 Berlin and having people talk shit about the Luftwaffe to you.

Anyway, during the game, the Mets took an early 4-1 lead, but my friends and I didn't bat an eyelash as we were, y'know, playing the New York bastard Mets. Of course the Phillies came back to force extras. Before I go on, the stadium itself is a piece of shit and looks like it was designed with Legos by a kid with ADD. Just these weird random shapes jutting out everywhere with no sense of symmetry whatsoever. Also, the food blows.

Anyway, the whole place started to empty out around the 7th, despite it being a tie game. No idea what it would take to sell that place out and fill it up because, as seen on TV, not only do the seats behind the plate stay empty for the entire game, but so did most of the rest of our row, and section. And if they can't fill it up for the WFCs, one of their most hated rivals, in the middle of what was, at the time, a pennant race (hahaha), what does that tell you? When asked, most of the fans around us identified themselves as Yankees fans. All except one.

Around the 3rd inning, a dude in a Mets cap and his friend in a Phils cap came in two rows ahead of us. I recognized the guy in the Mets cap immediately as Finch from American Pie.

For the rest of the game, whenever something good happened, my friends and I were whooping it up and cheering with his Phillies friend because he was literally the only other non-Mets/Yankees fan in the section. And while a few people were getting their picture taken with him, we completely ignored Finch. But my friends and I agreed, "When we take the lead (as if there were ever any doubt), lay into Finch." Long story short, after Chase hit that bomb, Finch from American Pie gave us the finger.

It was one of the most gratifying moments of my life as a Philadelphia sports fan. Thanks Citi Field! (Brendan Burke)

Some of the largest signs in the outfield are: Buy and sell golduscoins.com, Arpielle equipment (read tractor) rentals, and freecreditreport.com. What, exactly, does this say about the people of New York? (Matt D.)

Let's go with the obvious one: it's the home of the Mets, yet it took them until August to actually have more reminders of the Mets than the Brooklyn Dodgers. I walked in the main entrance, and could've sworn I heard the ticket taker say "Welcome to Ebbets Field." Yes, we all know Fred Wilpon would rather have bought the Dodgers and moved them back to Brooklyn so that his daddy would say that he loves him. But leave the Dodger love to, oh, I don't know... the Dodgers, perhaps? (Ron Baker)

I went to an auction of Shea Stadium memorabilia last month. Mets fans were there, times were had. Among the lots was the vinyl banner of the artist's rendering of Citi Field from 2006, when the Wilpons were still selling the public on the idea and construction was just starting. The thing went for ~$60, which was ridiculous considering I got two other banners and three pieces of the box seats for the same price, and it was an auction of Shea Stadium stuff (a lot of good stuff went that day, Tom Seaver's locker chief among them), but that's not the issue here. The issue, as pointed out to me by another fan, was that the artist's rendering had more to do with the Mets then the real Citi Field does. Supposedly, they've recently renovated the stadium so that it's more Mets-y, but shouldn't a stadium designed for the Mets (unlike Shea, which was multi-purpose) be designed with the Mets in mind? (Zach)

When you first walk into the Jackie Robinson Rotunda you notice how much it looks like the pictures of Ebbets field you've seen. As you walk in, you see the six foot tall "42" statue in bright, Dodger blue. Then you look up and see a picture of Robinson and couple of other Dodgers in mid-celebration of their '55 World Series Title. Look right from there and you see a picture of Robinson with Walter O'Malley, then a picture of Robinson is his UCLA track uniform at a long-jump event a the Coliseum.

What do all of these things have in common? The Dodgers (even the Coliseum). Now, as an L.A. native and big time Dodger fan (yeah we exist) living in New York, I should be honored... and I am. For the Mets to honor Robinson in the city that he broke the color barrier is amazing and I have nothing bad to say about it. But I found it a bit insulting (to Dodger fans AND Mets fans) to see the tribute as such a big tribute to the Brooklyn Dodgers. You already stole your logo from the Giants, now you're stealing history from the Dodgers? (Scott B.)

We have a tribute to Jackie Robinson who never played for us (the son-of-a-bitch retired rather than play for the Giants for God's sake). We have a "Pepsi Porch" although taste tests prove we vastly prefer Coke. We have a big Modell's sign but I'm not sure why. We have GIGANTIC OUTFIELD WALLS so we'll never see a homer-stealing catch (only one of the most exciting plays in baseball along with the triple, the steal of home, and anytime that stripper with the big boobies runs out on the field to kiss the third-base coach).

What we don't have is any sense of our own history. Apparently our history is a gigantic apple, the neon frieze that used to be over the scoreboard, and Ralph Kiner (another SOB who never played for us).

I know, it takes a lot of lovin' to make a house a home but I'm not so sure I have enough love in my heart for this place. (Mmole)

Citi Field looks like it was the aborted love child of countless different stadiums. "Oh let's put an overhang in the outfield like Tiger Stadium!" "Busch Stadium's brick entrance is nice, lets use that!" Only the Mets could manage to take the best parts from some of the most beautiful and classic stadiums and have the end result look like absolute shit.

Some other things to note: There are over fifty advertisements from foul pole to foul pole in Citi Field, likely a side effect of Mr. Wilpon's lack of understanding Ponzi schemes. The team's championship banners were on a brick wall facing away from the stadium, invisible to anybody watching the game, until they were finally moved about a week ago. The bullpen is under a fucking canopy for some reason. The entire outfield wall lacks any semblance of symmetry, and throughout the whole field there must be about a hundred different heights for the outfield fence. The tops of the dugouts are red and black. Why? Not a fucking clue. And when faced with criticism about the field, the Wilpons sloppily added a third video monitor in the right field corner, apparently hoping that they could distract the fans form the shittiness of the stadium by just adding more shiny TVs.

It would take me too long to describe how almost every non-field level seat has an obstructed view of some sort either from unnecessary plexiglass or an abundance of poorly constructed railings, but by now you probably get the idea. Lets just say that the aesthetics of Citi Field make it perfectly deserving of that hideous and embarrassing Domino's Pizza logo it was adorned with. I miss Shea. (David V.)

Went to see the Reds on a Sunday afternoon. Brian Schneider hits a HR,...everyone goes ape shit....the Apple makes an appearance for the first time in the previous eight home games. Fernando Tatis then goes yard for back to back HR's. But no Apple! Where's the F'n Apple? People get restless,...then the chants start..."we want apple....(clap clap...clap clap clap), we want apple...(clap, clap....clap clap clap). No Apple. Then people get mad...and they start booing....THE APPLE!!! Make no mistake, they were booing the Apple!!! Newsday did a story about it the next day. Apparently it takes the apple 105 seconds to recharge after it is "deployed", at least that was the official explanation given as to why the apple could not rise again after the second HR,....but that doesn't explain why a good ten minutes went by before the Apple came out again..., between innings if I remember correctly.. (Jim H.)

I went to Citi Field a few weeks ago to catch the day game of a double header against the Rockies. I am not a Mets fan but I was excited to see the new ballpark. Aside from the painfully awkward shrine to Jackie Robinson, a great player who never played for the Mets and played for a team that STILL EXISTS, the stadium is what you'd expect. Corporate, boring, and no sign that the Mets actually play there. However, my favorite part of the game was during the national anthem when the videoboard scrolling the words crapped out and flashed a giant question mark during the entire song. (Catherine R.)

yeah, i have a citi field experience. i watched the new york mets play during the 2009 season. (dylon)

Photo via beau-dog's Flickr account.

Next up: Dodger Stadium. Got any horrible experiences to share? Send them to craggs@deadspin.com.

Nothing — with the possible exception of flowers, springtime and the 3rd Earl of Pembroke — has inspired as much gooey bad poetry and aphoristic nonsense as Fenway Park. If Fenway didn't exist, we'd have to toss a bunch of Harvard professors in a room to invent it, which, not incidentally, is how we also wound up with a war in Vietnam. "Fenway Park, in Boston," John Updike famously wrote, "is a lyric little bandbox of a ballpark. Everything is painted green and seems in curiously sharp focus, like the inside of an old-fashioned peeping-type Easter egg."

I have never been on the inside of an Easter egg, peeping-type or no, but I will bet good money that it is nothing like Fenway, a steaming pile of steel and concrete resting on top of marshland that Boston didn't get around to filling in until the late 19th century. Somewhere along the line, however, the crooked old dump became a shrine for the local fancy classes. "I think walking up to Fenway is thrilling," the late David Halberstam once said. "The approach to it. The smells. You go to Fenway, and you revert to your childhood. You go to Fenway, and you think: 'Something wonderful is going to happen today.'" Quoth Stephen King: "There's no place like it, and it's ours." (We haven't even mentioned Donald Hall, whose poetry, without Fenway, would be just a couple of conjunctions and the word "snow.")

This is just a new, sporty strain of that old New England exceptionalism that John Winthrop was preaching back in the 17th century. The thinking runs thusly: Fenway, like its tenants, is somehow different, purer, a perpetual innocent in a fallen, godforsaken world. "The Yankees belong to George Steinbrenner," Sports Illustrated's Steve Wulf wrote in 1981, "and the Dodgers belong to Manifest Destiny, but the Red Sox, more than any other team, belong to the fans."

Let's just say it here, then: Fenway is not different. It does not belong to its fans any more than Tropicana Field belongs it its fans. "It was a land deal, nothing more," Dan Shaughnessy and Stan Grossfeld write in a book that otherwise treats Fenway like some sort of massive green Kennedy. The name itself was free marketing for its owners, the Taylors' Fenway Realty Company, prefiguring all the corporate naming-rights deals that would come at the back end of the century. The front of Fenway, done up in a red brick Colonial style, was ripped off from Philadelphia's Shibe Park. The first outfield fences at Fenway were erected not to enclose the field of play but to block fans — the fans to whom the Red Sox allegedly belonged — from crashing the gate or sneaking free looks from the street, according to Shaughnessy and Grossfeld. Fenway isn't different. Fenway is merely old and has long enjoyed the happy luck of being located among the most literary-minded regional chauvinists in the Union, all of them drunk on a baseball stadium's smells, all of them turning into children.

The view from the stands (everything sic'd):

I visited Fenway a couple years ago and I forgot how shitty it was until one morning I woke up and let a huge hangover fart and thought to myself, "this reminds me of Fenway." (Nick J.)

Me and a friend of mine were at a Red Sox game in Boston in the spring (I think) of 2005, about 10 rows back in the center field bleachers. Two drunk Tawmmys from Quinzee were sitting directly behind us, and spend the entire game yelling at Johnny Damon for having a little girl arm (while true, he's on your team, no?). One says to the other "I BET I COULD THROW A BALL FACKIN FAHHTHER THAN JANNY DAMON." Tawmmy Numbah 2 isn't convinced, neither am I, nor is my friend. Tawmmy 1 then bets my friend ten whole dollars that he can reach the infield on a throw. My friend laughs and takes the bet, as there's no way in hell this moron is actually going to try this during a game, right?

Wrong. Tawmmy #1 disappears for a while, and returns with a fresh beer and a souvenir baseball. My friend and I exchange a quick "No fucking way" look, and Tawmmy lets fly the ball. Sure enough, it hits the infield. Missing the back of Edgar Rentaria's head by about 6 inches . A man of his word, my friend pays up while Tawmmy gets dragged off by the cops, screaming "FACKIN' TOLDYA!" (Matthew L.)

It's a toilet. Whenever you wonder why Boston fans are so cranky and harsh, just go try to sit in those seats for a game. It was built in the early 20th century, when, evidently, people were typically 5'1" and their asses were half as wide as today. I'm under 6 feet tall and my knees were against the seat in front of me. This also makes it nearly impossible to exit your row unless you're on the end. So you climb out any way you can, to walk on narrow, shitty concourses that barely qualify as concourses. Most single-A ballparks have a better layout and walking area than Fenway. Oh, and if you're not a Sawx fan, be prepared to not just be heckled by Sully and Mikey, but to actually be physically threatened just for having the temerity to be from anywhere besides the cesspool that is Boston. The magic of that place is so overblown. We all act nostalgic about old places, but there's nothing wrong with modernizing things every 100 years or so. (Justin L.)

The worst experience I had in Fenway was in the right field box seats. They face center field, so I was forced to watch the entire game in the same posture that I use to back out of my driveway. I could only see home plate through the foul pole grating, which completely obstructed the view of all hitters standing in the righthanded batter's box. Worst of all, I'm not NBA tall or anything, but there was NO POSSIBLE POSITION for me to sit in without the row of seats in front of me digging into my patella tendons. You know, because the park was designed when the average American male was 5'3". This cut off circulation to my lower legs for the duration of the game, and for the next 36 hours I could not walk properly. That park almost took my legs. All for the low price of $50! (Jeremy K.)

Going back to Fenway after growing up with the park is sort of like meeting my dead grandfather if Wal-Mart exhumed his corpse and turned it into a cyborg greeter.

It's amazing how what was once the best park in the majors is now an absolute cesspool of forced promos and moronic "fans." Went to a game last June and got to see some CEO throw out the ceremonial first pitch (at least I wasn't there for the NASCAR force feeding the following night) then another highest bidder threw out the ceremonial...um, second pitch. Followed by those two words nobody wants to hear and the abysmal song that follows.

Saw a decent pitchers duel between Beckett and Haren, ruined by the pink hat buzzing in my ear about putting her house on the market from the time she showed up in the middle of the 2nd to the time she left with her posse of suburban moms who think they're the Carrie of their group in the middle of the 7th.

Ads now dwarf the Green Monster scoreboard (which was always my favorite part of the park as a kid) because WB Mason bought your first born. Any asshole not wearing a pink hat has a cell phone pressed to their ear, flailing their arms so their shithead friends wacthing NESN can see them at the hottest nightclub in Boston. Unless WEEI's harping on some trade that will never get done the Fenway faithful's knowledge of the game goes no further than 50 miles outside of 128, and even then only if it's "OMG Lars Anderson!!!!!111!!!!!!!11" Just like Steinbrenner ruined Yankee Stadium with the mid-70s overhaul Lucchino, Henry and Werner piss all over Fenway with each shoehorned seat. Camden Yards is a better place to see a game, Wrigley Field is a better ballpark, Busch Stadium is a better ballpark, hell even Tropicana Field is a better ballpark now. (Janssen M.)

My Father and I decided it would be a good idea to go to Fenway Pahk (as it is pronounced in Boston) for a summer baseball trip. We're from Houston, and have no AL rooting interests, so I wore a Craig Biggio t-shirt, and my dad a Houston Rockets polo, so of course we were asked about 50 times if we were from Houston, about 60 times "What's it like seeing baseball indoors?", and about 150 times "Where's your cowboy hat, boots, and jeans?" As if that wasn't annoying enough, we had an "obstructed seat" that was not advertised as such on the internet. I found the Sox dans almost as annoying as the fans from Dallas, and that's really sayin' something for a lifetime Houstonian. (Scott S.)

One night a few years back my brother and two cousins were at a game sitting in right field. Around the third inning, because who shows up for a whole baseball game?, a group of 30 somethings with their 8 dollar Sam Adams and still in work shirts comes in and sits behind us. After regaling each other for a few innings with tales of the mediocre chicks they have their dilbert-esque office one of them comes back with a tray of beer and proceeds to stumble, and spill beer all over my cousin and I. Fantastic. So we turn around, unsure at first where the rogue beverage came from (we were sitting under the new RF roof deck bar) and look for an answer. The Dilberts sit idly by acting as though nothing happened. For the next three innings, before they leave in the 7, they whisper and talk all about how they spilled the beer. Did I mention I was 17, and my cousin 12? So we got soaked in beer without so much as an apology, and had to listen to what amounted to three weeks worth of Cathy comics while we tried to watch the damn game. (Brendan from Medford)

When I was 10, I went to a Yankees-Red Sox game at fenway. I rooted for neither team, went in completely neutral clothing with my Dad who is a Sox fan. In the 7th inning, an incredibly fat guy for no reason whatsoever told me to go fuck my mother because he "thought" I was cheering for the Yankees because I stood up when Jeter came to bat. (I stood up to go to the bathroom). When I came back he threw a pizza box at me. Again, I'm not a Yankee fan. (Aaron G.)

The summer before my first year at college my Dad scored tickets for the Red Sox / Yankees at Fenway, something we had always wanted to go to. Believe me when I say that the real action wasn't on the field, but was spread throughout the bleachers. This was the summer of 2002, so we, as Red Sox fans, had yet to break the curse and become the most obnoxious fanbase in all of sports. Fenway was still a place of unabashed debauchery, racist Southies, and DRUNK B.U. students; Not a pink hat to be seen. A quick overview of the stands during the game revealed numerous amounts of fights and no small amount of hot dogs, beers, and plastic ice cream helmets flying back and forth between Red Sox and Yankee fans. Behind my Dad and I sat the biggest stereotypical South Boston resident I had ever encountered; He spent the whole game yelling at the middle aged women in front of us who had unwisely decided to wear their Bernie Williams' jerseys to the game. "Ber-knee! Beeeer-knee! Why are't you in da ghame Berrrr-knee?"

At one point a Yankee fan in front of us was escorted out by security and decided to flip off the crowd as a parting gift; As he was being showered with garbage, boos, and cries of "FAGGOT", I took the remains of my half-eaten hot dog and hit him square in the head with it. My Dad, a lawyer, and usually a model of restraint, turned to me and said, "Nice shot." Never have I felt so close to my Dad. (Sam)

Photo via B Tal's Flickr account.

Next up: The New York Mets' Citi Field. Got any horrible experiences to share? Send them to craggs@deadspin.com.

A barbaric yawp over the retractable rooftop: You'll hear time and again that Safeco Field, which is less a stadium than something Boeing forgot to pack up when it skipped town, is "the best of the retractable-roof ballparks." Leave aside that this is like calling melanoma the best of the skin cancers. Why does Seattle even need a $70 million retractable roof for its $517 million stadium? "The Mariners needed a roof for their ballpark due to Seattle's notorious rain," according to Baseball Pilgrimages, a common refrain. But do they?

Here, for the sake of comparison, is a chart of New York's average precipitation:



Cleveland:



Chicago:



And now, Seattle:



The baseball months in Seattle are significantly drier than those in Cleveland, Chicago or New York, three cities with newish, roofless ballparks. Safeco's roof is a costly and utterly pointless gimcrack. A "25-million-pound action toy," the architecture critic John Pastier has called it, not to mention a "waste of money" and a "waste of space." The rest of the stadium is more or less plagiarized from all the other ye olde ballparks of the 1990s, which, as we've noted before, are retro only in the sense that Medieval Times is retro. For lack of anything else, then, the roof has become Safeco's sole defining characteristic. Think Wrigley, you see ivy. Think Fenway, you see the Green Monster. Think Safeco, $517 million Safeco, and what do you see? An exercise in large-scale, rigorously engineered public masturbation. My oh my.

In the tank: Glance over some of these giddy headlines in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer from 1999, the year Safeco opened:

"Safeco's field of dreams is 105 days away from becoming reality"

"Success with flush at the new ballpark" (an actual news story in which we're actually informed that the toilets actually do flush)

"It's my stadium: Safeco workers talk about their experiences"

"Safeco: The tingle tells you it's working"

"Not a bad seat in the house"

"My stadium's better than your stadium ..."

"Modern marvel"

These stories came after the stadium had been built and, I suppose, could be chalked up to a relatively harmless spirit of civic boosterism. But consider what came before, when the Mariners first began shaking their sorry little tin cup in the public square. From Field of Schemes, by Joanna Cagan and Neil deMause:

In Seattle, for example, after voters had narrowly defeated a proposal to build a new stadium for the Mariners baseball team in 1995, The Seattle Times — which had provided free ad space for the pro-stadium campaign — first editorialized that this represented "a striking affirmation of the region's commitment to baseball ... half of King County voters would tax themselves to keep the team there." (That slightly over half had voted not to tax themselves wasn't deemed worthy of notice.) The next day, the paper ran a front-page story headlined "Stadium Not Yet Dead," in which it suggested ways that the state government could go ahead with the stadium despite the popular vote. One month later, the state legislature would do just that.

The same press corps that never tires of unearthing minor-league boondoggles in massive federal spending bills is the same one that, with rare exception, happily rolls over whenever some local baron floats the notion of a gleaming new ballpark built on the public dime. A horrible new stadium goes up; the taxpayers are on the hook for years; but it's all OK, because some sportswriter up in the press box looks out at the emerald expanse and starts to feel a little tingle.

The view from the stands (everything sic'd):

We were once sitting out in the left field bleachers and my out-of-town aunt was hit on the leg by a home run hit by Miguel Olivo. She didn't bother to get out of the way or try to defend herself in any way whatsoever. She then demanded that the boy who had wound up with the ball give it back to her (which he did) and then, while the ushers and paramedics were attending to her (you should have seen the bruise the ball left), she ordered the ushers to go get the kid who she'd taken the ball back from a free t-shirt from the souvenir stand (which they promptly did). Morale of the story— it's easy to boss people in Seattle around. (Andrew R.)

I took my dad to an M's game at Safeco a few years ago. He's getting up there in age, in his 70s with a bad hip. But he likes baseball and I thought he'd still have a good time. So we sit down in our seats about 100 yards away from home plate. And every time the M's aging Edgar Martinez comes to bat, the guy next to my dad yells in the loudest voice of all time right into my dad's ear, "EDDDDDDDDD-GARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR! EDDDDDDDDD-GARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!" Maybe that chant was moderately worthwhile back when Edgar was still good and when everyone else in the stadium was yelling it (like "YOUUUUUK" in Boston). But when Martinez sucks and you're the only fucker left yelling his name and there's a 70-year-old man right next to you who is visibly flinching, then SIT DOWN AND SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!!!! (J. Davis)

True story — The Washington Nationals were in town to play the Mariners and Elijah Dukes was the starting Left Fielder. I watched the game with a die-hard Mariners fan and was able to tag along and get his "partner seat" for season tickets, which was right behind Elijah Dukes. Unfortunately, there was a fan who brought her kid to the game. Fortunately, my friend and I noticed this and decided to give Dukes the business about his underage love and "You dead, dawg" without swearing. Apparently that wasn't good enough for the mother, who, after the bottom of the third inning TURNS AROUND and tells us she doesn't want her daughter to hear any of that stuff. Now, we have not said a swear word the entire night and the kid is obviously too young to pick up on any language, but the mother wanted to protect her child's delicate sensibilities. My friend then said "Well, I'm a season ticket holder, where have you been all season?" to which this person said "Oh, well I've been a season ticket holder for years and I've never heard anyone say things that are as horrible as you've said." Right.

By the way, eventually Elijah Dukes told my friend and I to "shut up, bitch." Great times. Except the Mariners lost and got swept. (Keith)

I actually just got back from Seattle so all the wonderfulness of the park is still fresh in my mind. There are many things that stick out: the annoying train right by the stadium, the overly lengthy hat trick and boat race, the alcohol reinforcement, but what really made me think "this stadium sucks" has to be the fans. I dedicate this to the fan behind me who pointed to the White Sox dugout and stated "look over there, there are a bunch of White Sox fans at the game today, they're all sitting in the front." (Kristina)

Okay, the mere mention of Safeco sends chills down my spine. I worked briefly for an internet company that was HQ'd in Seattle. This was in 2000 and within hours of being hired by said firm I realized it was merely a racketeering scheme run by senior management to go public and sell a lot of worthless stock before all of the venture capital circled the drain. You know, the business model of just about every internet startup of the time.

Our CEO was big on sales force teambuilding to the point that every waking hour you spent on a trip to the home office had to be filled with some group effort. He decided early on that Mariners games would be the perfect outing so he hinted strongly to our national sales manager that all of us should attend. Of course he and senior management had no interest in attending but we were essentially coerced into spending every free night of more than a few business trips at a Mariners game. On our dime, too and since we were being paid reasonably well the group always sprung for the most expensive seats. I not only had to act enthusiastic, I had to get all fired up because "man, we're gonna get to see A-Rod" He hadn't yet signed his laughably absurd deal with the Rangers so he was still wallowing in collective mediocrity with the M's.

If this was Fenway or Wrigley, I wouldn't have minded killing time watching a bunch of infantile steroid freaks putting on some of the most insufferably dull tedium ever presented as entertainment. But it wasn't, it was a sterile, soulless, corporate hunk of plastic coated with a veneer from Pottery Barn. By the third inning, I would start wandering the stadium to try and find something of merit. Because the stadium was deliberately several blocks from any place that served food or beer, you had to wait on long lines to spend a fortune on "sausages" and "microbrews". The yuppification of even getting shithoused as an option to get through this torture was ruined to the point of rendering it inoperable. I once stumbled into one of numerous Mariners apparel outlets only to find dozens of middle age women diligently combing through the racks in search of some bargain sale item. You might as well have been in a department store on a Saturday afternoon.

These journeys really impressed upon me that professional sports in the US really is no longer about anything going on on the field. It's really just a corporate beer garden designed as an alternative to some big budget action film, or theme park or shopping mall or some sort of mindless "family" entertainment in which the goal is to placate your offspring with as much food as they can ingest and to acquire some more cheap, shiny stuff from China that no one really needs.

How soon before they blow up Safeco? (Ghost of Zelmo Beatty)

It's hard to rip on Safeco for fans who remember the travesty that was the Kingdome, but whoever decided to put a god damned train track through the stadium, with the idea that a train horn blaring into a canyon of people would be a good idea, should be shot. (Erik H.)

Safeco's twin failings are the lack of diehard fans and domineering fun police. Fans of the Red Sox, Yankees and Blue Jays (making the trip from Canada) regularly overwhelm polite Seattleites. The sellouts help the Mariners' bottom line; this team won't sell out many non-bobblehead games the rest of this season. And all those pink Sox hats radicalize Mariners fans to actually make some noise and occasionally get out of their seat when something exciting happens.

We have our outliers, though. One in particular was a guy in the front row of the left field bleachers at a Red Sox game last year. With just a glance him, you'd have trouble figuring out his loyalties. He wore a brown-on-brown argyle Yankees hat. He had tattoos on each elbow–the right for the Yankees, the left for the Mets. But he wore an orange Ichiro jersey from the All-Star game in San Francisco. While he lacked fashion sense and integrity (three teams?), he did cause a ruckus on behalf of the Mariners. The third base line seats had a virulent strain of Red Sox Nation–they cheered Jason Varitek as he trotted out for Bartolo Colon's pre-game warm ups. All we $14 seat fans had in our arsenal was the guy in the front row. He argued with the Sox fans in our section and single-handedly tried to turn every "Let's Go Red Sox" fan into a "Let's Go Mar-i-ners" one.

Actually, he did that double-handedly, because he pounded on the corporate signage right in front of our seats. That proved to be his downfall. As the M's mounted a comeback in the bottom of the ninth, the Safeco Field ushers told Yankee-hat that he had to leave. A county sheriff was brought in, yet rows of fans around him chanted "Let. Him. Stay." When he asked the sheriff why he had to leave, he heard back "Because I said so." Way to go, police! As he was escorted out onto the narrow concourse, he shouted out his last words: "tell all your friends."

Now, my friends, you all know. (Brad Iverson-Long)

Photo via ArtBrom's Flickr account.

Next up: The Boston Red Sox's Fenway Park. Got any horrible experiences to share? Send them to craggs@deadspin.com.

A shot to the Dome: The Metrodome opened in 1982 and now lies hideously on the Minneapolis skyline like some discarded and infested curbside mattress. The stadium has nevertheless served its purpose well, offering Minnesotans an exquisite venue for the enjoyment of monster-truck rallies. As a ballpark, its deformities have always been plain to see. The trash-bag outfield. The trampoline turf. Kirby Puckett. Whenever someone draws up a list of baseball's worst stadiums, the Metrodome always makes the cut. Billy Martin is said to have once wondered aloud how anyone "could name someone like Hubert Humphrey after such a dump." And the absolute worst thing about the Metrodome? It won't be around much longer.

For all its faults, the Metrodome has one distinct advantage over every other ballpark in America: It's actually a good deal. "An old-fashioned lease in a newish stadium," is how Judith Grant Long, an urban planner, put it. That's not to say there weren't plenty of unsavory aspects to the stadium deal, which was struck more or less by a cabal of civic-minded old rich guys who styled themselves an urban growth coalition and treated the Twin Cities like their own personal Monopoly board. (Among them was the publisher of the Minneapolis Star Tribune, who in the 1970s was so deeply in the tank for the Metrodome deal that a handful of the newspaper's staffers took out a full-page ad distancing themselves from their own paper's coverage.) It was a baseball urban-renewal project before baseball urban-renewal projects meant dropping a cutesy brick ballpark next to a dowtown Banana Republic; if it fell short of actually renewing anything, it at least did so at relatively little cost to the public purse. For one thing, the stadium was strictly a utilitarian undetaking, built on time and (shockingly) under budget. "Get fans in, let 'em see a game, and let 'em go home," a team official once said, long before the advent of the stadium-as-department-store. "That's all we want from a stadium." Today, according to Long's research, it's the cheapest ballpark around, with the government more than recouping the initial outlay for construction through the most favorable lease in sports. The public gets a large chunk of concessions revenues, a quarter of stadium ad revenue and 100 percent of parking fees. (All this comes from a Baseball Prospectus story, which subscribers can read here.) As of 2005, the Metrodome had actually turned a $100 million profit for Minnesotans.

Next year, the Twins move into Populous-designed Target Field. It is everything the Metrodome is not. Open-air. Clean sight lines. Unimposing. Pretty. The word that gets thrown around by the Twins and their architects is "intimate," which, as we've noted before, is really just a new-age con whereby owners pump up ticket prices by slashing seating capacity and then pretend they just did fans a favor. One early review describes Target Field as a "family-oriented entertainment destination," which suggests that the Twins will now be playing in a Chuck E. Cheese. Get wealthy fans in, let 'em do everything but watch a game, and let 'em go home only after buying a bunch of officially licensed merchandise.

The view from the stands (everything sic'd):

A couple of years ago I was watching the beloved local nine at the Dome with my brother, and apparently this was the day the home plate umpire decided not to sesh before the game and alleviate his advanced-stage glaucoma. After calling the third consecutive six-strike walk to load the bases, my brother and I screamed in (profanity-free, mind you-we know our audience) unison, "OH COME ON!!!"

And at that G-rated outburst, every single person-every man, woman and child alike sitting below us in our section-turned their heads in synchronous, counterclockwise, Hitchcockian slow motion to stare at us in their silent, furious, six-hundred eyed judgment. All because we had apparently ruined the tranquil atmosphere of the ballpark by being, well, fairly well behaved baseball fans.

It's emblematic of Beyond Metrodome: two parts of the psychic apparatus enter, one part leaves. Here, you are entering the id-versus-superego crucible, and in the Land of 10,000 Manifestations of Passive Aggressive Behavior, the don't act out/don't rock the boat/don't have fun superego has a scandalous Dome-field advantage. For every Twins fan who exhibits certain actions that fall under the rubric of demonstrative, totally acceptable public displays of emotion-you know: arguing obviously shitty calls, cheering for the home team, laughter and, uh, joy, etc.-they will inevitably encounter the legion of moralizing goons bent on transforming an afternoon at the game into the largest Lutheran Bible camp in Western Civilization. And for the Legion, any outburst that rises above the decibel level of the mild susurrations typically reserved for one's local library is regarded as a rank crime of passion and met with shame-inducing scorn. There's a code of conduct here, people. You better observe it.

And you wonder why you hear such an echo in there. Good times, indeed.

The fact is that, for all the Homer Hankie-waving, bloody eardrum-screaming fervent fan myths of yore, a typical Twins game at the Dome will yield more reprimands of "Down in front!" if you dare to stand during the 2-out, full count, possibly final at bat of a tense, hella exciting Joe Nathan save situation than should ever, ever actually happen. That's not the acrid odor of stale hotdogs and cheap beer you're inhaling in the Dome. That's "Minnesota Nice." And if you're not careful, you just might suffocate from it. To wit, too many Minnesotans keep it all inside a double-walled, Teflon-coated monstrosity that is completely unnatural and ugly as hell. And their baseball is no exception. (Brad Failor)

The second job I ever had was as an usher at the Metrodome. This was during the latter half of high school between 1988-1990.

One day, I was one of the guys working in the lower level center field section. Somebody gets a beach ball going in the section.

As the work rule goes, if you see a beach ball being batted around, confiscate it.

As MY rule goes, don't even bother. I can't tell you how many times I would be working, say, along the first baseline seats and see a hapless usher get caught up in a big game of keep away. It's you vs. a few thousand drunks and, if it's a slow game, you can bet the whole stadium is going to watch and laugh.

Since I'm the fat kid, I should also be able to be lazy and have no one question it. Look at Tubby not chasing the ball. But of course, the dickhead supervisor with a moustache tells me to get the ball, and soon enough it's keep away time. I'm up the steps, down the steps, jogging down rows of seats, being taunted by assholes loaded on 3.2 beer. And sure enough, the Twins are either winning or losing big so I'm the fun of the 7th inning.

Eventually, the ball ends up in some empty seats. Two six year olds chase it down to launch it back into play. I, panting and sweaty, point and bellow with all of my authority "DON'T TOUCH THAT BALL!"

The kids are the only folks in the entire stadium scared of a minimum-wage earning fat boy in a lousy red blazer, leaving me to grab the ball and take it away.

And then, the inevitable happens.

The sound starts in the outfield, but eventually consumes most of the stadium save for the outfield upper deck which was blind to the whole keep away. It's a low, but loud register of disgust.

Either that or I have now changed my name to BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

I've had enough, so I ham it up. "Thank you!" I yell, thrusting my hands above my head. I've got the ball. It's my trophy. I think I pop it right there but I don't remember. I do wave and blow kisses, that much is sure.

I hate people. (Jason Josephes)

It's basically like watching a baseball game in a broken refrigerator. Covered in urine. (Derek G.)

Why does my neck hurt? It's because I just attended a game at the Metrodome. Since it is a football stadium, all of the seats face forward. That's great if you are seated behind home plate. Not great if you are seated along the 3rd baseline. In order to see home plate, you have to crank your neck to some ungodly 110% angle. (Tracy T.)

This one involves the return of Chuck Knoblauch. Upon his return to the great state of Minnesota and the "Dome" Knoblauch entered the game as the left fielder and had no clue what was about to happen. There were no cheers given out to this poor man who has since forgotten how to throw from second to first base. He was received with an abundance of boos and showered with garbage. I was in college at the time, so for that reason I was in the cheap seats ($5 a pop) and with a couple buddies. Even though we paid more for the beer than the ticket we decided to indulge in a few brews and enjoy ourselves a little too much. After the debris had been cleared from the field and Tom Kelly made his appearance on the field to calm the fans down Mr. Gordon (PA announcer) made a statement with regards to the game being called if this behavior continued. Not more than 10 seconds after that a hot dog left the hand of my buddy and landed just short of Mr. Knoblauch's feet. Being inebriated, we thought this was the funniest thing ever and high fives were passed around from fans all around until we were kindly escorted out of the building. After some time with the cops no charges were filed and we were free to go. (Brad)

If you can find video of the game played in the spring of 2001 between the Yankees and the Twins you don't even need to write a column, it was the greatest baseball game ever played. It was student night, $1 dog night, $3 beer night, and Chuck Knoblachs first game playing left field after almost impaling Keith Olbermans mom on a routine throw from second to first. It was a conflagration waiting to happen. I was in high school and I remember every person I talked to was going to this game. Two innings in people started tossing hot dogs at Knobby, and soon after the flood gates opened and the teflon sky was filled with flying dogs. The game had to stop, Torre and Gardenhire came out to plead with the fans to stop...the tossing continued. The late great Bob Casey came over the PA and channeled the anger of a 75 year old man who didn't get his warm milk before bed "This is a championship game, if fans do not refrain from throwing garbage on the field the Minnesota Twins will have to forfeit the game." The game was halted for about 45 minutes total. To this day every person I know from Minneapolis when asked what was the greatest game played at the dome will reference this this game in the same breath as Game 7 of the '91 World Series...I'm proud to say I attended both. (Andy S.)

There's a swastika in the middle of the dome. This cannot be stressed enough. (Steve M.)

Next up: The Seattle Mariners' Safeco Field. Got any horrible experiences to share? Send them to craggs@deadspin.com.

Hard Cell: U.S. Cellular Field is the hideous ransom paid to the White Sox after they spent the late 1980s threatening to hie themselves to St. Petersburg. This was deemed a fate too awful to imagine — the franchise had been in Chicago since 1901, after all — even though it's in the natural order of things for cranky 80-year-old nuisances to slink off to some godforsaken spot in South Florida where they can be safely ignored. In any event, the taxpayers gave the White Sox their lame Royals Stadium ripoff, the last ballpark built before the retro craze and certainly the last time anyone thought the Royals a franchise worth imitating. In fairness, the stadium did feature several design innovations, chief among them the decision to place the farthest reaches of the upper decks somewhere near Aurora. No one much liked the place, which is why it has been in a constant state of self-mutilation from the moment the Sox snipped the ribbon. A vast five-stage overhaul began in 2001, when the stadium was 10 — 10 — years old. The White Sox: baseball's cutters.

Shining Armour: In 1989, as the White Sox mulled various stadium proposals, a Chicago architect named Philip Bess drew up plans for a ballpark in the spirit of what he called, in his book City Baseball Magic, "pragmatic idealism." The design of Armour Field was "governed by a concern that it be a genuinely urban building, constrained by its block, with an architectural presence, scale, and monumentality befitting its status as a public building," a true neighborhood ballpark. It was a wonderful proposal and looks even better today, after two decades of downtown baseball nostalgia palaces. "Camden Yards, Jacobs Field, and Pac-Bell are not 'neighborhood ballparks,' but rather 'downtown ballparks,'" he told one interviewer. "Many people in our culture have stopped thinking of cities as good and desirable places where people live as well as work, shop, and play. Instead, they think of cities as 'entertainment zones,' and of stadiums as 'anchors' for downtown entertainment zones. The goal has been to replace the tax revenues lost by the flight of middle class families from cities, to use public dollars to finance new ballparks in an effort to keep municipal services and governments afloat. But this seems to me a short-sighted solution. Better to make cities themselves livable again; and well designed smaller-scaled neighborhood ballparks can be a legitimate part of that strategy, and make money for team owners at the same time."

What happened next was everything Bess had sought to avoid. New Comiskey was thrown up in 1991, a suburban stadium dropped into an urban setting, uprooting 250 households, disrupting the street system, turning the old Comiskey Park into a parking lot and more or less gutting the old neighborhood of Armour Square. It's not clear if the White Sox ever seriously considered Bess' proposal. My guess is Jerry Reinsdorf took one look at a rendering and laughed himself out onto 35th Street. Bess never really had a chance, anyway. As Charles C. Euchner has written, the architect's proposal would've removed the buffer zone — a park — between black Armour Square and white Bridgeport, a politically influential neighborhood that has been home to five Chicago mayors, including the current one, Richard M. Daley. The Bridgeporters never would have allowed it, and so the ballpark that sprang up across from old Comiskey was, in many ways, a tribute to the characteristics of its surroundings: small-minded, hostile and all about clout. That, in Chicago, is a true neighborhood park.

The view from the stands (everything sic'd): "'The Joan' (labeled by a few after the horrendous Joan Cusack ad campaign put together by US Cellular in 2004) features a lower section, box seating and a top tier which has rarely ever been filled. About two months ago I watched as a young man fingered his girlfriend in the left field seats. Both were wearing jean shorts. Classy. Worst physical issue with the park: The top tier was designed by the same deity who created Mt. Everest. As you climb the staircase into the stratosphere just keep your eyes on the prize ahead of you, otherwise you might start to feel nauseous. Which reminds me of this story about the steepness of the park ... Rangers V White Sox 2005: Garland is pitching for his life while a girl who just turned 21 is getting puh-lastered four rows behind me. Her screeching is almost unbearable but when the game is finished one man was brave enough to give her a high five only to deke her out at the last second, causing her to fall over thee rows of chairs and come crashing into our backs. The end result was a boobie prize. Her tit popped out and she left the stadium in tears. I masturbated for days. Oh yes, did I mention the jean shorts? If you ask nicely I will email you my set of jean shorts around US Cellular Field. Believe me ... you're going to want these." (Jim O.)

"It's the 2007 season, I'm a White Sox season ticket holder in the upper deck. It's a Sunday night game for ESPN, 3rd inning or so, and we let some people returning to their seats pass by our group. One of the passing fans accidentally dribbles a couple drops of beer on the middle aged woman in the row in front of her. The woman turns around, and chucks an entire full cup of Miller Lite on me. I know it's Miller Lite because I could taste it, that's how much it was. Not knowing what happened, I assumed I spilled my own on myself (notice the theme here...drinking). This woman the whole game is hammering down beers as if Prohibition goes into effect the next day. At the end of the game, the woman leaves her email address on her ticket and mentions she is sorry for throwing a beer at me and I should email her for her tickets to a game later in the season. The email address ended in '@uchicago.edu'. Noticing she is far too old to be a student at The University of Chicago, I researched the name and address via Google to see if she was faculty. Not only was she faculty, she was a dean of students. Only in Illinois would this bribe be acceptable, Blago would have been proud." (Mark M.)

"white sox fans know their baseball. and any good white sox fan knows that most of the fans are rarely intelligent enough to find their own seat. during a 2008 indians/sox game, my friend and i took our nosebleed seats behind first base. a mother and her two bratty kids were sitting around two rows behind me, and the young boy-i think-was screaming his head off like a little girl everytime something even somewhat interesting happened. finally, an annoyed couple in front of me got fed up. the boyfriend turns around and says, "hey kid, why don't you give that one a shot once your balls drop?" the mother looks as if she's just been shot. a random drunk, cut-off t-shirt-wearing redneck throws himself at the guy and my buddy and i are left to witness the aftermath. the sox got hammered and i stayed sober, staring at my ticket stub. how much did i pay to sit here again?" (Evan)

"It's 1991, a good year for the Sox, new stadium, exciting team. My dad gets field level seats down the 3rd base line. A foul ball comes our way and the guy in front of me catches it. Someone in a group of guys in the row behind us asks to see the ball because there is some sort of special insignia on it since it's the stadium's inaugural year. As soon as the ball is handed over, the guy behinds me throws it to his buddy standing in the aisle who promptly runs away with the ball. This obviously incites the gentleman who caught the ball in front of me and he starts swinging at the guy behind me. This fracas goes on with me in the middle for about a minute before my dad and security can break it up and escort the combatants away. Guess who got their ass kicked: ME, BECAUSE I'M SIX YEARS OLD. Stadium staff quickly whisk me into the bowels of stadium to apologize profusely and bandage up my bumps and bruises. I still think we could've parlayed the whole incident into something bigger and gotten free season tickets or a copy of Big Hurt Baseball for Super Nintendo, but all I got was a baseball and an ice cream, so it wasn't all bad." (Mark H.)

"As a Cubs fan I can honestly say I would rather drown in a cesspool of smelly, creepy Cardinals and Brewers fans than spend 3 hours around Southsiders. Everything is about the Cubs. Everything. Especially when 'it's not about the Cubs.' They are most insecure, vindictive, petty sports fans I've ever been around. And that's counting hockey fans." (Drew)

"As a life long Sox fan, I'd say the easiest way to describe the Cell experience is to compare with that other Chicago team. Wrigley is old and falling apart. The Cell is new and full of modern amenities and a growing forest of bronze statues. Wrigley always seems packed. The Cell always seems half empty. Attendance was awful before the World Series and while it's gotten better, you can almost always get tickets on the same day as a game you want to see. Though you will pay like you're going to see a top ten team instead of a team that's come in 1st in the division four times since the Cell opened. Wrigley sits near one of the main centers of the gay community in Chicago. The Cell sits near some fairly harsh neighborhoods. And the fans... At the Cell our drunks aren't content to sit and look pretty while texting on their Blackberries and talking on the phone like the drunks at Wrigley. No, our fans rush out and beat the crap out of a Kansas City Royals first base coach. Our fans attack a first base umpire. At least once a month it seems like some asshat is delaying a game by running out on the field. If the Steve Bartman incident had happened at the Cell, he would have been torn to pieces and his head put on a pike over the front gate. In general, the fans are a reflection of Ozzie Guillen - foul mouthed, abrasive and a bit nasty at times but uniquely Chicago. Of course the best part about going to a game at US Cellular Field (besides wondering if you might get to see someone stabbed in the crowd or attacked on the field)? Not having to listen to the biggest homer announcer in all of baseball." (Sarah P.)

"I love the White Sox, but there too many fucking statues in and around the joint. The statue depicting DeWayne Wise's catch during Buehrle's perfect game is already being molded in Hawk's basement." (DomChota)

"We've all heard stories about the Vertigo Seats..consider this- When the Bears were rebuilding Soldier's Field- the most logical thing was to have them play at 'Sox Park' during the construction year ( After all the tax payers did pay for this place, and its in Chicago ). What did the Bears do? They avoided Sox Park like the plague & they shipped the Bears 2.5 hours South to The University of Illinois for every 'Home' game. Nothing like that "home feel" when you are being shipped to the middle of Illinois on a Saturday!" (Neal J.)

"First off, Sox fans, it's U-S C-e-l-l-u-l-a-r F-i-e-l-d. Not 'Cominsky Park,' not 'Cominsky's Field.' Not even Comiskey Park like the old days, but at least I can put up with that. Southside "Chicaaaahgoins" do tend to add an 's' on everything, but mostly to grocery stores for some reason. Jewel becomes The Jewels. Meier becomes Meier's. Soldier Field becomes Soldier's Field, but I digress. There seems to be a rule that no one can attend a Sox game unless their name is Tony, Tina, Vinny, Pauly, Lisa, or Marie. It's like a god damn Soprano's episode 'over dere.' It's AWESOME people watching, though. Tons of wife beater tanks and quarts upon quarts of hair spray which reminds me of my 1987 8th grade Jr. High yearbook. Just don't light a match. Lot's of green Southside Irish pride Sox hats to go 'round and the attitude to go with it. US Cellular is filled with anyone who has ever started a sentence with, 'Like I says' and 'Know what I'm sayin.' (No I don't, because you haven't started anything nearly resembling a sentence yet) They pull up in their Trans-AMs ready to raise hell. The park itself is a train wreck. An improved train wreck, but still a train wreck. They really missed the mark, as The Cell was one of the first of the new breed of ballparks in the 90's. Builders had to do a re-work on the upper deck steps well after many games played, because too many of you clumbsy 'yooz guyz' fell on their craniums with two beers in their hands. (They really tripped over their gold rope chains, in reality)The upper deck was way too steep. Ingenious planning. I miss the old days of Disco Demolition already at the old park. If you want decent food and cold beer go right ahead. If you want to fear for your life because of the shiteous neighborhood and lack of security be my guest. Leave your suburb SUV's at home and pull up in your IROC-Z or Fiero and you'll be just fine. You may get a fist bump or a shout out by one of the guys from youtube's 'My New Haircut.' See also: William Ligue Jr." (Craig H.)

"For some background, this was my first time to Chicago and the South Side so I had no idea what to expect. As I'm walking off the L with a buddy who made the trip, the first thing you notice is the smell. It literally smells like garbage as you're walking in. Why? Who knows, but WTF. Secondly, is the bathroom fight that took place. The bathrooms in the outfield have the urinals and stalls in a row next to each other with very little room to form a line. This causes confusion about who's next in line as no one knows if there's on singular line or a line for each stall. So, this sketchy gentleman, complete with the ratty shirt and cocked hat takes a place in front of a couple of us but directly in one of the stalls. He also has a shit-eating grin on his face like he pulled a fast one. Anyway, a stall opens up and he goes for it. Well, the gentleman directly in front of me also makes a play for the stall. They soon put their arms in front of each other as they angle for the open stall. Shoving ensues, yelling is abound but shit-eater wins. Well, would'nt you know, the stall next to him opens up and his adversary takes it. For some reason, he decided to talk shit to the shit-eater about the stall which took all of 30 seconds out of his life. Shit eater then steps it up and starts using insults you'd expect from drunk trailer trash: bitch, pussy, cocksucker, etc. The other man doesnt let up either and returns the favor. Shit-eater then reaches over the wall and starts punching the guy as they both spill out of their respective stalls.. All of this in front of children using the urinals who were almost collateral damage. Thank God a security guard decided to take a leak or else an actual fight might have taken place." (Michael M.)

"I used to attend games at the Cell often. Then I found a job." (Ryan S.)

Photo via statlerhotel's Flickr account.

Next up: The Minnesota Twins' Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome. Got any horrible experiences to share? Send them to craggs@deadspin.com.

Err Bud: Miller Park is the pleasant brick timeshare for Cubs fans built along the Menomonee River, whose mighty waters, for many years, swept the fecal matter of baseball fans into the currents of Lake Michigan. Cynics might find something of a metaphor in this for the career of Bud Selig, once a mere local nuisance whose presence has spread foully into the wider world. Miller Park is Bud's kind of place, a tribute to the onetime used-car dealer's distinctive brand of hucksterism. At first, Selig promised a new stadium financed entirely by the Brewers. Then, Selig proposed a contribution of $105 million toward a $140 million stadium. That became a $90 million contribution toward a $250 million stadium, of which $50 million would come in the form of loan from some vaguely crooked public-private alliance.

It is now Milwaukee's $400 million lemon, the "ultimate stadium wheel-and-deal," it's been written, and "one of the biggest public bailouts in urban planning history." It cost the public $310 million. It cost George Petak his seat in the state legislature, and deservedly so. It cost the mascot his enormous vat of beer. And above all, on a windy day in 1999, during the installation of a $50 million retractable roof that probably isn't necessary more than four weeks out of the season, it cost three men their lives. Last September, Bud Selig sat in his home in Bayside, watching on television as the Brewers celebrated their first playoff berth in more than a quarter-century. Mostly, he thought about two things — the ballpark he built on the backs of taxpayers, and the introduction of the wild card — and apparently Bud Selig began to feel very good about himself and all that he had accomplished. "Before he knew it," reported the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel's Tom Haudricourt, "the commissioner of baseball had tears in his eyes."

Turd.

The view from the stands (everything sic'd): "As a Chicagoan, every time I take the two-hour hike up to Miller Park, I marvel at the human skeleton's ability to support unconscionable levels of obesity. The park itself is wonderful. But when your clientele averages a size 52 pants, you better build a stadium with a colossal supply of fatty food options, wide seats, and parking no more than 60 feet from the stadium. Nothing captures the essence of Wisconsin like Miller Park's star, intra-game attraction: In the middle of the sixth inning, tens of thousands of Wisconsinites rise up to cheer as 5 encased meats race around the infield. You get the sense that this is someplace special - someplace great - a place where heart disease and hypertension aren't just societal health risks... but ways of life. Other than that, the park is great... until you think about how many people died trying to build it." (Jim T.)

"I seriously hate Miller Park and Brewers fans. God created the Earth in six days. He created Brewers fans in 2001. The club used to draw around an average of 20,000 (sometimes less) in the 1990s, and all the sudden they have great support. Fuck all of them. I'm the fan of a NL Central team (not the Cubs or Cardinals) that unfortunately spent two years living in Wisconsin and I was never treated worse at a baseball game than I was in the 12 games I attended at Miller Park. Most fans at Miller Park at any given night didn't give a shit about the team before 2001, and most of them know as much about baseball as Prince Fielder's smelly jock strap. Many Brewers fans are so loyal that once Milwaukee is eliminated from playoff contention, they feel no remorse about wearing Cubs hats and cheering for the Northsiders. Don't judge them harshly, though. They were Cubs fans 10 years ago." (Matthew H.)

"As a Cubs fan, my friends and I frequently travel to 'Wrigley North' to catch games. This year, we went to the April 12 Sunday Night Baseball game. My friend secured good seats, second row just about on the left field foul pole. There were four of us, seats 5-8. We show up a late, just before game time (we caught the end of the Masters before heading in). Anyway, we go down to our seats, and there is a family sitting in seats 1-4. Dad, mom, daughter (maybe 19) and son (16 or so). The problem is, being Wisconsin mouth-breathers, they are fat as fuck. Honestly, the daughter, who was supposed to be in seat 4, was spilling into the area of the bench marked 6. Each of them looked like the spawn of Dom Deluise and Rosie O'Donnell, but blonde. When my friends and I tried to cram in, the daughter had the nerve to yell AT US for trying to sit there, and told us there wasn't room. Clearly. Anyway, after shoehorning ourselves in, we proceeded to find out exactly why 'sconnies look the way they do. In the first six innings of the game (they left after 6!), the girl alone polished off the following: a bratwurst, a soft pretzel, a slice of pizza, fried cheese curds, and cheese fries. Oh, and about 4 miller lites. Welcome to Miller Park." (Brian)

"I am a lifelong resident of southeastern Wisconsin (and as such, have spent most of my life observing fat, hideous, drunk xenophobes), and I have seen more fat, hideous, drunk, xenophobic people in Miller Park than in the rest of the state combined. It's bad enough that most of the fans couldn't name more than five players that play for the team (unless, of course, 'Fuck the Cubs' is the name of a new utility infielder), but they don't even understand basic baseball stategy (e.g., booing a one-out bunt by the pitcher with runners at the corners). Oh, well. Fuck the Cubs anyway." (Timothy H.)

"The fans have a permanent inferiority complex regarding a certain NL team from Chicago. Why one would feel an inferior to the Cubs, I will never understand. However, this means that at any given game, no matter who is playing, even if it is the Minnesota Twins in interleague play, one is likely to hear 'Cubs Suck!' or 'Fuck the Cubs!' chanted during the game. When the Cubs do come in to play, Milwaukee fans bitch and moan that the stadium is filled with Cubs fans. Miller Park jacks up their prices for these games (hey, there's profit to be made here!), therefore pricing all of the comparatively lower-class Milwaukee fans out of a seat. The sad thing is that the prices are still a deal compared to Wrigley, so Cubs fans come in droves, thus causing Milwaukee fans to bitch even more. Thus. the stadium and its fans are stuck in a positive-feedback cycle of stupidity. Being a newer stadium, Miller Park is filled with all kinds of fun family-friendly destinations, guaranteed to bring out people who know jack shit about baseball to the stadium. Thus, instead of watching their mediocre team blow another game in the ninth, or fall apart in the second half of the season, the fans will be eating at a restaurant (T.G.I. FRIDAYS!) or playing in a kids' area. Even worse, every single game, guaranteed, you will see the entire stadium doing the wave. They will do your conventional wave, then perhaps a backward wave, then a forward wave, but really quickly, followed by a very slowly propagating wave." (Ryland S.)

"A group of monkeys compiled the rules for when the roof and outfield panels close. Apparently the roof is not allowed to open until the calendar hits June, there is no percentage chance of rain, there's a full moon, or there's a nearby crane ready to tip. But the biggest problem is that the fans have become overbearing, overexcitable morons that become angry, overbearing, overexcitable morons when the Cubs, Twins or Cardinals pay a visit. There was a time when going to Miller Park was a nice, quiet, relaxing time at the ballyard. But you had to watch shitty baseball. Now the place overflows with fat drunken slobs who cheer wildly for the giant phallic symbols to make their appearance in the middle of the 6th inning, and now you're watching frustrating baseball." (Corey Gloor)

"I'm sitting in the left field bleachers with a couple buddies and (surprise) the Brewers are getting killed. It's like the 3rd inning, when all of a sudden the people right in front of us finally find their seats. Which I have to give them credit for, because they were WASTED. It was a couple, some douche with fake Oakleys and hat sideways like he's all gangsta but is actually a huge pussy and some whore wearing a JJ Hardy t-shirt. (It's easy to spot the slutty girls at Miller Park. Just look for the 7's. ) First thing they do is order grab a round and then they drink some more. They were actually cut off by the beer guy, which I have never seen before. When they weren't drinking or peeing, they were straight up making babies on each other. They weren't even watching the game at all. The huge grope fest eventually catches the attention of the whole section, but mostly my friends and I, who had the misfortune of being 6 inches from this fat girl getting felt up her jean skirt. We started laughing at them after a while and they evenutally realized it and the dude turns around and cleverly says 'fags.' So it's like the 7th inning and they're going at it, when out of God's good graces they stop for a moment. Just like it was out of a movie, the girl just pukes EVERYWHERE. I have never laughed harder in my entire life. The people sitting in front of them got sprayed. It was awful/wonderful. But the best part is instead of helping the poor girl out, this guy IMMEDIATELY just books it up the aisle and disappears. I guess they weren't such good friends after all. Anyway, she sits there for a minute and tries to play it off like nothing happened, but there's vomit everywhere so there's nothing doing. Everyone is just howling at this girl. Eventually she gets up and stumbles off to the whoratory or wherever she was going. Then we grabbed their bobbleheads and left. (Eric G.)

Next up: The Chicago White Sox's U.S. Cellular Field. Got any horrible experiences to share? Send them to craggs@deadspin.com.

Meat-beating in St. Louis: This is less about the stadium itself than about the fans who fill the stadium day after day, the best fans in baseball, who are so self-evidently the best fans in baseball that in the old Busch Stadium one could find a billboard in center proclaiming the fans to be the best fans in baseball. Why are Cardinals fans the best fans in baseball, you ask? I don't know, exactly, but one possibility is that the best fans in baseball clap loudly for sacrifice bunts and players named Skip. That's what baseball fans do, when they're the best fans in baseball. And you can tell it's true because people keep repeating that Cardinals fans are the best fans in baseball. "The best fans," Andy Van Slyke said in 1987, en route to Pittsburgh. "Best fans in baseball," Gerald Perry said back in 1990, as a new Cardinal (and it would be ungenerous to point out that, as a .250 hitter with no pop, he had good reason to butter up said best fans in baseball). "Best fans in baseball," Albert Pujols said the other day. "Best baseball fans in America," said Mark McGwire. "Best baseball fans in the world," said Rex Hudler (and it would be ungenerous to point out that Rex Hudler is an idiot).

But don't think it's just players who think St. Louis has the best fans in baseball. People from St. Louis also think St. Louis has the best fans in baseball. Why, here's a letter from one Matt Dwyer of St. Louis, written to USA Today in 2004 in response to the loutish celebrations in Boston after the Red Sox won the World Series:

As a 36-year-old male, born, raised and still living in St. Louis, a devout Cardinals baseball fan, I have a few comments concerning Jon Saraceno's column ("Real sports fans don't celebrate wins with drunken hooliganism," Oct. 25).

We here in St. Louis have grown accustomed to the "nicest fans" and "best baseball fans" slogans and tags over the years.

But guess what?

We also have the largest brewery in the world in our backyard, Anheuser-Busch, and we have yet to riot, loot or have anyone killed because of a win or loss of a Cardinals baseball game. St. Louis and Cardinals fans are class acts.

You "assume" that these "fanatics" who celebrate a win/or loss of the big game are drunk.

Maybe they were on drugs, maybe they were just stupid teenagers in a mass of people wanting attention. Or maybe, just maybe, they were like the hundreds of people who rioted, looted and a few even beaten to death after the O.J. Simpson verdict was read.

My point is, don't assume that "drunken hooliganism" is associated with celebrating a victory/loss.

Maybe it's just some people's outright stupidity and their blatant disregard for the consequences that their idiotic actions cause.

Understand? The best fans in baseball do not kill people.

St. Louis is baseball's Shangri-La. I know this because Joe Buck says so, and he is my baseball sherpa. And because St. Louis is baseball's earthly paradise and therefore populated only by the pure of heart, the thought has never occurred to me that maybe there is a hint of rebuke in the phrase "best fans in baseball," that maybe the best fans in baseball think the rest of us are poor paste-eating slobs who don't appreciate baseball the way they do because we don't have full-body orgasms whenever a guy named Skip moves the runners over, that maybe the best fans in baseball have fetishized the idea of playing the game "the right way" as a way of clinging desperately to some lost and imaginary ideal of the past, that maybe the phrase is actually a sign of an ugly regional chauvinism, not to mention a deep-seated insecurity, and that maybe there is a serious pathology at work here, a sort of civic narcissistic personality disorder.

No, sir, that thought has never occurred to me. St. Louis. Best fans in baseball.

The view from the stands (everything sic'd): Note: A couple responses concerned the old Busch Stadium, but I've included them anyway.

"I admire the Cardinals fans' loyalty to the team, and 95 percent of the stadium is wearing red. However, of that 95 percent, 95 percent of them are wearing a lousy 11 dollar 'uniform t-shirt' that looks like it comes from K-Mart's sale bin. And the majority of those bear the name and number of some mediocre white player from the Cardinals' recent past, like David Eckstein or Scott Rolen. You see more of those than you see Pujols or Molina jersey-shirts. But then again, what do you expect from a team that hasn't had a black player since Ozzie Smith retired?" (Jeff P.)

"When you talk about Busch Stadium III, don't forget to mention the big storm they had there back in 2006 that almost killed a bunch of fans. Here's a link if you don"t remember. I wasn't there, but I've heard through the grapevine that the ushers had absolutely no idea what to do in the event of a violent thunderstorm or tornado blowing through. But that's okay, I guess, because they rarely get those in St. Louis..." (Andrew R.)

"About 1987, when I was in between 7th and 8th grades, my parents took me to a Pirates game at the old Busch (old Busch - that sounds nasty). I bought a Pirates hat at a kiosk vendor outside the stadium, and as my Dad was paying, the college-age kid working took his cup of soda and threw it on my shoes. You stay classy, STL." (Doug E.)

"Why Busch Stadium sucks: September 8th, 1998 at 8:18 p.m." (Charlie J.)

Photo via Jeremy Plemon's Flickr account.

Next up: Miller Park. Got any horrible experiences to share? Send them to craggs@deadspin.com.

HOKey: This is the patient zero of Major League Baseball's neo-retro epidemic, an era that took for its guiding philosophy the notion that you can make anything in a ballpark, even luxury boxes, seem quaint and old-timey if you surround it with enough brick and get George Will to wax rhapsodic about the sociospatial asymmetries of the john. Baseball, more than any other sport, is afflicted with a pathologically inflated sense of its own historical value, and Camden was, and remains, a very expensive symptom. The ballpark was completed by Populous (then HOK Sport) in 1992 and modeled after the same firm's Pilot Field, a minor-league stadium in Buffalo that opened in 1988. It's little-remembered now, but the retro craze was largely a Rust Belt phenomenon, a product of an age when cities across the Northeast were hemorrhaging manufacturing jobs and their once-robust tax base. Local politicians were thus particularly vulnerable to the specious idea, pushed by the lords of baseball, that a new, publicly funded stadium was just the thing to revitalize their decaying urban core.

Within a few years of Camden's opening, stadiums were springing up across the country, full of ersatz quirks and odd angles (just like Fenway or Ebbets!) and other vague, cutesy allusions to local history. Of course, none of this was real history, any more than Epcot is actual human civilization. Take Baltimore's famous B&O Warehouse beyond right field, now home to the team's offices and a private club. According to Joanna Cagan and Neil deMause's Field of Schemes, the northern end of the warehouse was lopped off to provide better views of the skyline from the seats behind home plate. There's a metaphor in this: Those old quirks and odd angles now imitated by modern ballparks were a function of wedging baseball into an urban environment. The game, in other words, had to accommodate the city. Now, large pieces of the urban environment are lopped off to accommodate the game.

Land sharks: Outwardly, the park may have been a nod to the old stadiums of yore, but probably the biggest influence of all was, weirdly, Joe Robbie Stadium (now Land Shark Stadium), which in the late 1980s demonstrated for the entire sports world the enormous benefits of premium seating — executive suites, club seats, etc. The Orioles seized on this idea and stuffed their new home full of luxury boxes, which in itself might not have been so offensive had Maryland not raised the money for a stadium it did not need through a state lottery — a regressive tax, essentially, to fund a corporate playground. What's more, as Cagan and deMause note, Memorial Stadium was a perfectly serviceable venue anchoring an integrated middle-class neighborhood, a rarity in Baltimore. Now the team plays in the midst of a government-sponsored tourist trap known as Inner Harbor, which caters to anybody but all those poor souls who bought all those losing lottery tickets and thereby built the Orioles their pretty new stadium.

The view from the stands (everything sic'd): "I found a dog (yes, a dog) roaming around the MIDDLE CONCOURSE one night at a Game between Milwaukee and the O's late IN 1996. Just roaming around, chilling, hanging with people and what-not. I bought a pair of orioles shoelaces, made a makeshift leash,and still have the dog to this day. Well my ex in-laws do. Ex wife was a Brady Anderson fan, and since he had just hit a Grand Slam, we named the dog Brady. That bitch." (Joe S.)

"My lone time at this park was July 1994 during the baseball strike. I went on a tour and in the dugout, I opened the bullpen phone to see that they had the number for Pizza Hut written down. No wonder the Orioles were awful; too busy crank calling Pizza Hut." (Dan S.)

"I once was given a free Rafael Palmeiro bobblehead. Truly horrifying." (Patrick B.)

"I am 27 years old and live in Philadelphia. Before Phillies games, I tend to enjoy a few grown up sodas in the parking lot. My roommate and I were on a road trip and hit an Orioles-Yankees game on the way through Baltimore. We grabbed a six pack because we didn't have much time before the game started, but we didn't see anyone else drinking in the parking lot. When we asked the attendant, she told us that you weren't allowed to tailgate for Orioles games. NO FUCKING TAILGATING. It's Un-American. We had to duck behind a dumpster like 17 year olds to kill the sixer." (Kenny R.)

"1) 'Prime' Games. You have to pay extra for the privilege of having the Red Sox and Yankees come in and whoop the O's ass. 2) Everything is too expensive from the seats to the food. 3) The nasty sense you get from team management and ownership that even though it's been 11 straight losing seasons, you should somehow be appreciative for paying too much to watch bad baseball." (Dan W.)

"Seat jumping is a time-honored baseball tradition that mostly holds true at Oriole Park. However, I wouldn't recommend trying it in the lower sections behind home plate, where the ushers are some of the coldest bastards you'll ever see. There is one in particular that spots seat jumpers within a couple minutes of their arrival and makes them leave without mercy, usually after making a spectacle of asking them to produce tickets they don't have. I've seen this guy (we've nicknamed him The Hawk) make a father with his young son, both in full Orioles gear, turn around and go back where they came from in the late innings of game in which the Orioles were losing (shock) and the entire section was deserted. Just brutal." (Chris S.)

"'Fenway Park at Camden Yards': There was a time where Red Sox fans would visit, buy a round or two, hold an intelligent conversation about the game and commiserate over having mutual ballclubs who never quite made it past the Yanks. Those days ended around 2003. Old men who had seen Johnny Pesky & Ted Williams play gave way to Loyola (MD) co-eds in pink ballcaps and their profane boyfriends with freshly minted Johnny Damon alternate unis. Remember that episode of 'Family Guy' when the New Yorkers come north to watch the leaves change? That's what the past several years have been like." (The Ghost of Floyd Rayford)

Next up: Busch Stadium. Got any horrible experiences to share? Send them to craggs@deadspin.com.

It's a tarp!: In 2006, the A's and new owner Lew Wolff spread a green tarp across the Coliseum's often lightly populated, largely unpoliced upper deck, a move rather similar in spirit and effectiveness to an aging man throwing a few pitiful shoots of hair across his bald dome. This was done in the name of stadium "intimacy," as A's officials said time and again, which was plainly a con, and a popular one, too, among baseball owners. What the team had done, in effect, was to slash the Coliseum's seating capacity down to the lowest figure in the majors, creating an artificial scarcity for tickets and thus pumping up demand. An ancillary motive was to discourage cheapskate walk-ups in favor of the wealthier types who buy tickets well in advance. A business can cater to whomever it wishes, I suppose, but the result was that the stadium lost the last of its raffish charm, which is to say, the only charm it ever really possessed: the vast, scruffy 300 section, which, among other things, was maybe the last place in professional sports where one could freely smoke a joint, if one so desired. I don't want to sentimentalize Oakland's upper deck too much — a friend once witnessed a knife fight there while on a second date — but it was a relic of a time when baseball stadiums weren't shopping malls with a bit of grass in the middle, when the game had a narrow but unmistakable countercultural streak that, more often than not, could be found in baseball's cheap seats. The game's renegade spirit is all but gone now, buried beneath a fat, stupid pile of Ken Burns movies and neo-retro nostalgia palaces, and covered up in Oakland with a tarp that looks more and more like a burial shroud.

Mount Davis ... on a wall: One day, I maintain, we'll all get misty-eyed and wistful about the unsightly multi-use doughnut stadiums of the 1960s, the way we do now with ye olde brick-and-steel ballparks of yore. The sustainability fetishists will praise their efficiency. Cash-strapped mayors warming their hands over trash-can fires will marvel at the days when they didn't have to float a bond every time a new sport sashayed into town. The idea itself was perfectly sound — a venue that could be used almost year-round, rotating from sport to sport — and the only wonder was that it took sporting people so long to come up with something farmers figured out in the Middle Ages. That these facilities, and especially the Coliseum, are now counted among sports' ugliest is a testament to the unruly growth of the NFL. I refer specifically to Mount Davis, a chunk of third deck seating added in 1995 at the behest of Al Davis, whose Raiders were arriving once again in Oakland in much the same manner as the Clantons in Tombstone. The seats had been dropped on top of two new rows of luxury boxes, and the hideous additions replaced a wonderful view of the Oakland hills to the east. The stadium was now enclosed; it was a football stadium where baseball trespassed during the summer months. And now, when people think of dual-use stadiums, they don't think about their simple practicality; they think of a dyspeptic old rich guy and his silly mountain.

The view from the stands (everything sic'd): "One of my friends used to work parking at the Coliseum and one night he was in the VIP parking area and a guy in a BMW flies up and doesn't have a parking pass. He tells this guy he can't park here, etc. The guy starts yelling and screaming at him, demanding to speak to his boss and saying he is going to have him fired for even asking for a parking pass and storms off after my friend won't relent. Yeah it was Billy Beane." (David R.)

"I hate this stadium and hope Billy Beane trades it for 14 maple wood bats and a speedy bottle of wine with a high OBP." (Zach P.)

"Oh, good Christ, what can I say about that place beyond thanking God that I'm not a Raiders (or other AFC West team) fan, so I don't have to watch football there too. The worst part about the Coliseum is that it's awfulness hides what are truly great fans. I'm a Mariners fan (I'll pause for laughter ...) living in the Bay, so I go there often as the enemy. A's fans are awesome – knowledgeable, nice, love their team ... but they're stuck in this terrible place with no hope for a new home base. ... And then there's Mt. Davis. Fuck that guy." (Corey L.)

"I remember the season when they built Mount Davis- they did not finish construction in time for the baseball season, and were drilling in the outfield DURING the games. No joke. The concourses are dirty and crowded, and the football-friendly field creates the most foul ball territory in the bigs. Translation- there are no premium seats, cause nobody is anywhere close to the action. But many of the aspects that lots of people would criticize the Coliseum for are, in fact, its most endearing attributes. The smell of pot wafting from the bleachers, the unabashed chant of 'Fuck the Yankees' that resonates through the concrete hallways after every win over the Evil Empire- you gotta remember, most of these people are Raiders fans during the offseason. But they take it easy for baseball games. I've never seen an opposition fan held down and urinated upon at the Coli during a baseball game (sorry Dolphins fan). Someday, a glorious city (San Jose, Sacramento, Las Vegas...) will build my scrappy and loveable A's the home they deserve. Until then, make sure you are three beers deep before you walk through the gates, and hide your liquor in a camelback so you can enjoy the true Oaktown experience at the Coliseum. (Noah F.)

"well, first of all, and to get it out of the way before all those asshats in the comments who've never actually been to our fair city make the tired joke, it's in oakland. second of all, mt fuckin' davis. not only did it replace a spectacular view with an eyesore that reminds all in attendance of the corpse that ruined oakland sports, it also fucked with the wind patterns to the point where, on the worst nights, it can be downright candlestick-esque. this is particularly harrowing for me as it brings back memories of a drunken father, a shitty team, and a darker time when i was, ugh, a giants fan. third, it's a big old mess of concrete and plastic seemingly designed only for sterile functionality which, aside from the few planted areas outside the stadium, would look more at home in the eastern bloc than the east bay. add to that the fact that it's situated between the nimitz freeway, a mostly stagnant bay runoff, the train tracks, industrial wasteland, and one of oakland's gnarliest neighborhoods and you've got the basic foundations for the world's stereotype of our city. on the plus side though, it's not in fremont, i've never had an easier time smuggling in booze, and you can generally find a joint rotation to weasel your way into in the smoking section." (Ian H.)

"Just a couple experiences for the stadium that weren't necessarily terrible, but highly indicative of the Oakland atmosphere: 1.) When sitting in the plaza level with friends, we all flasked the game up and were taking swigs as young men would. Course, within 10 minutes, a street-wise security guard pulled us from the seats. He tells us he is going to kick us out because the TV camera saw us drinkin from flasks. But instead of doing that, he proceeds to tell us 'listen, i smoke weed too, so i'm just gonna let this shit slide. all i'm askin is that if you gonna keep drinkin, leave the seats and shout me a holla cuz i could use a free drink myself' Don't know where he got the weed thought from, but good to know he was there to get fucked up too. 2.) When the stadium had the upper deck open about 5 years ago, me and my friends would have an entire section to ourselves, which would consist of us getting shit canned, others smokin weed right in the stadium, and then most of us basically pushing/fighting one another because hey, that's what all drunks do right?. I, unfortunately, got tossed from row 7 to row 3, tumbling head over heels, with my friends actually worried i might be seriously hurt. Now, most guards would see that, know we were shit canned, and probably smell the weed smoke on my friends, and kick us the fuck out of the game. The security guard that approached us: 'nice landing, but i only give it a 7 because you got up too quick.' (Bert G.)

"October 17, 1989. I was 9 years old and at Candlestick Park to watch Game 3 of the Battle of the Bay, and had come all the way from Florida to see my idols play - Canseco, Rickey Henderson, Mark McGwire, Uribe. For a kid from Florida whose little league team was the A's and had multiple pairs of those neon green batting gloves, it was everything. My dad had scored sick seats, literally on a makeshift box with fold out seats built on the field. Chris Berman sat next to me and signed my A's hat. And then the earthquake hit. We jumped over and exited through the player's exit and after looking towards San Francisco and seeing nothing but darkened windows and fires, we bailed on our hotel and headed to Palo Alto where twelve hours later a hotel let us sleep on their basement floor. Two days later my dad, intent on taking me to a World Series Game, came to his senses and decided we had to get out of there somehow. But not before we took the long way around the bay and went to the Oakland Coliseum. Which, if we're being honest with ourselves, has got to be one of the shittiest stadiums known to man. I mean, there is very little to be said about this concrete behemoth, plopped in the middle of a sea of yet more concrete. Not to mention the fact that its in Oakland. DNW. And yet, its probably one of my favorite stadiums for this simple reason: just days after the earthquake, my dad drove me around the perimeter of the Coliseum's parking lot until we found an open fence and then we drove through it, walked around that massive monstrosity of a stadium until we found another unlocked gate, and trespassed not only into the stadium but onto the field where I pitched my first, last, and only throws on a major league field. And then we ran like hell out of there once the guards saw us and started yelling like crazy. The stuff dreams are made of for a nine year old baseball fanatic who's life goal at the time was to see a game in every MLB stadium." (Walker S.)

Next up: Oriole Park at Camden Yards. Got any horrible experiences to share? Send them to craggs@deadspin.com.

Arlington cemetery: Rangers Ballpark is a monument to every crass instinct in the modern stadium business, a tombstone for good sense, corporate social responsibility and the belief that the public interest is anything but a nice phrase on which to campaign for a terrible bond issue. Everything about it is wrong and vaguely criminal, even — especially — the look of the place. The ballpark takes up an absurd 1.4 million square feet in the midst of that iconic feature of the Texas landscape, the office park. A couple sharp-eyed readers note this below, but the stadium is a mismatched collection of counterfeit parts: You can make out bits of Camden Yards (the red-brick exterior and general air of ye olde ballpark), Tiger Stadium (the home run porch), Yankee Stadium (the frieze), Fenway Park (the out-of-town scoreboard, since removed, that was built into the left-field wall), Comiskey Park (the arched windows), Ebbets Field (the quirks of the outfield dimensions, in this case wholly artificial). The corridor inside was patterned after Chartres Cathedral, which is not unlike modeling the Astrodome after the Kremlin. The ballpark's architect, David Schwartz, once said, "We tried to downplay the distinctions in class." Mind you, this didn't mean that they actually built an egalitarian ballpark with clean sightlines and close proximity to the action. This meant that they built, as the Washington Post put it, "plenty of lucrative luxury boxes, but without making it look that way." One of the owners at the time, a no-account oilman, would go on to build a political career on the principle of catering to the rich, but without making it look that way.

Eminently Bush league: Rangers Ballpark — more than anything not named Scalia, Rehnquist, Thomas, Kennedy or O'Connor — is what made George W. Bush president. This isn't an exaggeration. He put up $600,000 of his own money to buy into the team and flipped those shares into a $15 million fortune that he used to launch his political career, a bankroll that owed a great deal to the ballpark generously furnished by taxpayers. The stadium itself was a scandal, an unabashed land grab that lawsuits would later describe as "sordid and shocking" and "astounding, unprecedented and blatantly illegal." It was also Bush's signal achievement as an owner. I'll leave the details to others, but in essence, Bush and his fellow Rangers owners somehow contrived to privatize the city's power of eminent domain. Then they went shopping. They bought up land on the cheap for the twin purposes of baseball and speculation, and dropped a hideous, plagiarized ballpark in the middle of it all, next to an artificial lake, with thin bands of granite circling the exterior that might as well be police tape.

The view from the stands (everything sic'd): "Back when the Ballpark opened, in 1994, everyone was in love with the cigar-smoke antiquity of Camden Yards. This included your Texas Rangers, a team that debuted way back in 1972. So the Rangers outfitted their new stadium with a homerun porch (via Tigers Stadium), a frieze (via Yankee Stadium), and an old-timey sign in centerfield that said, 'Hit It Here and Win a Free Suit' (via, where, Bill James' wet dreams?). Those mindless and ahistorical little touches sum up everything you need to know about the Ballpark, and the Rangers, and-if we're in an expansive mood-Texas history: when all else fails, appropriate by force. Which is also how the Rangers got the land for the Ballpark, but that's a story for another day." (Jim Tom Pinch)

"It's fucking HOT!" (Jeff A.) ... "The seats are too small for fans in one of the most obese states in the country. There is dipspit everywhere." (Dixon M.) ... "Created in the image of Camden Yards, The Ballpark in Arlington/AmeriQuest Field, RBIA (Nandrolone Decanoate Field is the most appropriate name since it is, after all, Ground Zero for the steroid era) is a nice facility that just needs a winner. Yes it's hot. Parking costs $12 or something – big f-ing deal. Blah, blah, blah." (Sam E.) ... "With heroes like Canseco, Palmeiro, and Juan Gonzalez building the foundation for the ballpark, you knew things had to get better right??? I guess not." (Travis S.)

"It all boils down to one thing: family. Since the Rangers have sucked for a majority of their existence the organization is forced to market the ballpark as a family event. There's all kinds of stupid childrens' activities in the outfield, a stupid horse named 'Captain' but it gets even worse. You can't even heckle the opposing team (Swear free) without being asked to stop by an usher." (Brian H.)

"At the stadium, people are actually ordered to sit down at crucial moments. The stupid ass wave occurs at least twice a game. People aren't there for the baseball. Most people there don't even know what baseball is. The sad little plaques around the stadium celebrate the 3 playoff appearances. These netted one victory. One. damn. victory." (Lauren S.)

Next up: Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum. Got any horrible experiences to share? Send them to craggs@deadspin.com.

Lost Angels: The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim's Angel Stadium of Anaheim. Say it soft and it's almost like praying. The stadium is a nondescript slab of suburbia whose sole defining characteristic over the years has been its bipolarity. Opened in 1966, it was first a baseball stadium (for the California Angels), then it was a baseball and football stadium (in the latter case for an NFL team based in Los Angeles that would eventually move to St. Louis), then it was a baseball stadium again (first for the California Angels, then for the Anaheim Angels, now for Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim). It has been an open-outfield stadium, an enclosed stadium, and now it is open once more. It has been known variously as Anaheim Stadium, Edison International Field of Anaheim and now Angel Stadium of Anaheim. The stadium — and the franchise — has retained so little of the character and history of the region it's inhabited for nearly 50 years that it feels compelled to remind you with autistic repetition just where it's located. Which is in Anaheim. The place doesn't need a renovation. It needs a shrink.

Fuckin' A: Angel Stadium once offered a nice sense of place — in particular a big, Googie "A" in left field that served as a scoreboard. It was tacky, but in a distinctly SoCal way. After wins, it would light up, and Dick Enberg would say, "And the halo shines tonight!" In 1980, when the stadium got a facelift to accommodate the arrival of professional football, the "A" was moved. It now overlooks that most iconic of California vistas: a highway and a parking lot. What quirks remain today, after the Disney-sponsored renovations of the late 1990s, are at best wholly contrived. If the ballpark has any signature now, it's the pile of fake rocks in center, which looks as if it had been trucked in from Jellystone Park. Alas, Angel Stadium is now left with only one element that truly captures the character of the region. On clear nights, if you look close enough, you just might be able to see a distinguished older gentleman skeeving on a young girl.

If the stadium were an actor, it'd be Emilio Estevez: The stadium has appeared in such films as Angels in the Outfield, The Fan, Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo, and Air Bud: Seventh Inning Fetch, not to mention a number of horrible commercials.

The view from the stands (everything sic'd): "Just as PNC Park gives you a view of Pittsburgh's downtown and Pac Bell Park gives you a view of the San Francisco Bay, Angel Stadium gives you a view of...the 57 freeway. I don't think that there is anything more representative of living in southern California than being able to watch traffic while at a baseball game. ... And if you do decide to walk to or from the stadium to the bar, be prepared to take your life in your hands. The road that leads to the stadium doesn't have sidewalks and includes an underpass where Anaheim's homeless like to gather/use as a toilet." (Jason W.)

"Do you want to know what sucks about Angel Stadium? All of the Red Sox, Yankees and Dodgers fans who ruin the experience for anybody else. ... Smart Angels fans just don't want to deal with it. These fans are akin to suicide bombers walking into a crowded disco. Just give them their space because they are awful human beings. One Red Sox fan was taunting a woman in a wheel chair during last year's playoffs. Who does that? ... But California deserves some discredit here, too. The Raiders moved away in 1995, but their fans remained and have morphed into Dodgers fans. These fans look like the characters from the cantina scene in Star Wars – filled with Guido, Snaggle Tooth and Chewy. Make sure you wear body armor because when the Angels inevitably win, the Dodgers fans get stabby. I'm here to root for the Angels, not become one." (Adam R.)

And lastly, a tipster offers us the photo below, of which he writes: "I caught Bill MacDonald and his girlfriend(s?) at the Angels/Padres game on Friday night. I hope everything is ok, they talked off and on for about 10 minutes while he signed a few autographs, then the blonde walked away bawling her eyes out."

Next up: Rangers Ballpark In Arlington. Got any horrible experiences to share? Send them to craggs@deadspin.com.