Loading ...Yesterday, I made my first trip up to GABP for the season and I thought I would share some thoughts on my trip and experience. I’ll do this in a Chad’s Titanic Struggle style recap!
Positives
- The Reds won. I don’t care what the situation is or at what juncture in the season we are in, anytime I go to a game and the Reds win, it’s a positive. The club went 5-1 in games I attended live last season and are 1-0 this season. Hey Reds, how about making it easier for me to attend more games in person! 
- I took my dad and my 4-year old son. I have taken my son to plenty of games already, but this was really the first one in which he was old enough to really know what was fully going on and would remember what happened. He talked about it the whole way home and loved his Brandon Phillips gold glove that he got as a give away. It had been about 3 years since my dad attended a game and, despite his crankiness, he enjoyed spending time with his grandson at a game.
- The weather was beautiful. The temperature was probably low-80s with a nice breeze/wind the whole time.
- Our seats were great! I am nearly convinced that the 400 level is about as good as you can get at GABP for the price. The seats were $22 (minus half for two-others thanks to the family day discount) and we had a great view. We sat just to the right of the ‘gap’ in the stadium on the homeplate side and could see everything great.
- I have admitted to having a man-crush on Votto and yesterday just supported that cause!
- Jay Bruce! Enough said! After his first homerun of the game, my son was alive and watching the whole game.
Negatives
- The weather was too beautiful. Is that possible? Well, I have concluded that I have a better tolerance for heat than anyone else in my family. My dad was ready to find shade before the game started and my son complained at times about being hot. Both left in the 3rd and 7th innings to find shade. Granted we aren’t from the midwest where things will get even hotter as summer approaches.
- The drive to Cincinnati for me is long! We woke up on Sunday at 6:30 and drove for 4 hours up, and then 4 hours back just to see the game. For me, it is worth it. But it makes for a rough Monday morning at work.
- The scoreboard is nice, but busy! I love the clarity of the new scoreboards, but to me, it was really hard to take it all in. You have both teams listed, the player’s image, game stats, bio, and line score on the main board. Then on one of the lower strips you have the batter’s season stats along with the pitcher’s stats. On the wall, you have the out of town scoreboard which no longer shows you all the games at once. You have to look at the right time to catch the score of another out of town game.
- My son was glad David Ross hit a homerun. My son is still confused as to how players move from team to team. Not to mention the Braves are his #2 team since he was a member of the Braves T-Ball team last season in our hometown. I had to put a stop to that and coach my own team this year so he could be on the Reds!
Etc
- I plan on making the long drive back up to Cincinnati for the May 9 game against the Cardinals. It is Joey Votto Bobblehead day. Did I mention my man-crush?
Sounds like you had a great time! Thanks for sharing. My soon-to-be 4 year old is also confused on the players switching teams…he kept asking me where Adam Dunn was when we went to our spring training game this year.
Those are great seats – we had those every time last year. You discovered the only weakness, though. When it’s sunny, they are HOT.
I will attest to the crankiness of Chris W.’s father. I can only imagine how cranky he was with the heat.
I agree with you 100% on the 400 level being the best seats in the GABP, but i couldnt agree more with your comment on scoreboard being to “busy”, way to much red on that board, it all bleeds together. Ive been to 3 so far this year and also plan to go down to pick up my man crush Votto bobblehad. My dad had a “man crush” on Nick Esasky when i was a kid, found it odd then but now understand. :love:
I love going to games, but I really hate sitting in the sun for hours. It’s hot and I always end up with a sunburn. I don’t mind being hot, but the sunburn I can do without.
GregD: My son actually had to buy a white sox hat last year because of Griffey and watched the D-Backs play on TV because of Dunn. He went crazy seeing David Ross playing for the Braves.
Chad: My dad is always cranky. The heat only added fuel to the fire. He did enjoy visiting the $1 concession stand on numerous occassions.
Nick in va: My arms and tops of my knees are burnt today. It didn’t help that I played golf all day Friday. My arms are extremely red. They are sore, but I won’t complain considering it is my own fault. I never left my seat the entire game.
I drove 4 hours last week to go see the Reds in Chicago (the other options: 5 hours or StL, which may or may not happen later this year).
That’s uh, 5 hours to Milwaukee or StL
Chris, you are right about the 400 level seats, we have now sit in the 400’s 2 of our last six games and by far the best seat in the house, we sat in 422 on Sunday and 419 on Friday, we sat in the top row of the right field seats next to the Braves bullpen on Saturday, I prefer if in the outfield seats those in left….and yes ouch on the sunburn got mine on sat and sun, paying for it today, but yeah it was worth it especially after seeing Votto double and Bruce’s 2 shots…tell Carter he needs to comment ever now and then
The last game my Dad and I saw together was at Riverfront (I refuse to call it Cinergy). We were sitting down the LF line and were fried like sizzle-lean. I don’t think most folks realize how hot it is in Cincy in the summer time.
One more observation for the new scoreboard is that there are WAY to many “kiss cams” “beefcake cams” “rockband cams” “crazy dance cams” between the innings, very lame and tired. And also, has anyone noticed that the ‘Reds Race’ has become very predicatable? It seems everytime i go to the GABP “Mr. Redleg” “Rosie” and “Mr Red” all round third base for the thrilling finish ONLY to have one of them (usually whoever was leading at the time)get sidetracked by Gappers Skyline Chilli Wagon. Anyone else with me on this? Anyone?
mmmmm…skyline chilli wagon….oh, what was I doing?….
Can’t wait to get my man crush doll
I finally realized what that multi-million dollar HD scoreboard reminds me of. A MySpace page.
Yeah, gotta agree with Chris Wilson on one of his comments. My arms, feet, and head are on fire today. That was an extremely fun game to attend and great weather to, but I’m paying for it today.
Except for Harang’s 114 pitches on opening day, in no other start has the Reds starting pitcher thrown 110 or more pitches.
I see B.P is back in the lineup, did anyone actually think Dusty would bench him? I saw a highlight where you could see Dusty in the dugout very angry as B.P turned a double into a single.
And to Jason, I said that same exact thing to my brother yesterday about that. Going to games as a kid the Red race seemed unpredictable(then again I was like 8 so maybe I’m over analyzing)but now the outcome does seem to be given away. My other complaint is with everything having a sponsorship, I know every park in baseball does it but it drives me insane. The “Skyline Chili” cup game for example. Remember when those scoreboard games were just games, and not everything had a company name directly in front of it. I’m 28 and I miss the old days, that’s a weird feeling to have.
My favorite sponsorship is now the DHL delivery of the game ball! It is ridiculous that the first game ball is now sponsored and we have to watch it be ushered out by someone in a DHL delivery box.
I’m waiting for the day in when the ump needs some more baseballs, the game is stopped so the batboy can make the Dominoes Delivery of the inning with a fresh supply of game balls, delivered in under 30 seconds!
I also meant to note that in the 8th inning yesterday, a guy in the stands was hit by a broken bat. He was sitting about 3 rows back of the Reds dugout when the larger end of the bat flew into the stands. The fans motioned for some support immediately and a guy even took off his shirt in an apparent move to stop some bleeding I assumed.
What always amazes me here is that the game continues on, while an entire section of the crowd, in this case one very close to the field, isn’t even paying attention. About 2 pitches later, while medical personnel attend to the guy, a foul ball flies over their heads a few rows up. How can this be safe? At the end of the inning, I look down and notice the guy has his head completely bandaged up and I think he was carried off on a stretcher. What would have happened had someone sprayed a screaming foul ball in the direction of these fans while NONE were paying attention? Yet the game was stopped numerous times because the batters were obviously distracted by the rotating add in CF in the batter’s eye.
Jdarts84, I just turned 30 and feel the exact same way.
Anything that employs someone at DHL can’t be so bad.