Game 127 at Ameriquest Field in Arlington

My tour continues - stadium 19 of 30 is Ameriquest Field in Arlington, home of the AL West Texas Rangers - I have now seen every stadium in the both of the West leagues.

A top of my head ranking - "enjoyable place to watch a game category in the West" - would be;

1. Safeco Field
2. Dodger Stadium
3. Petco Park
4. Bank One Ballpark
5. Angel Stadium
6. Ameriquest Field
7. SBC Park
8. Coors Field
9. McAfee Coliseum

To be honest, there isn't much to choose between the top 3 - I would happily watch as many games as possible in any of them. Between 3 and 4, there is a big, big gap - but again, there probably isn't much of a gap between 4 and 8, before a big drop off to 9. If any of the Athletics fans that were throwing bottles of water from the top deck during the game against the Red Sox last Labor Day are regular readers - hello - man that was a scary night, in a stadium that really isn't designed for baseball.

The one stadium that people seem to disagree with me most on is SBC, or Pac Bell as it was when I was there. I had a great night at Pac Bell - Ken Griffey jr. hit a pinch hit home run, Tony Bennett sang 'I left my heart in San Francisco' during the 7th Inning stretch... but the stadium itself just left me cold. I think part of the problem may have been that I was in the lower deck on the 3B side, and so had no view of the Bay or the bridges - I will hopefully get the chance to change my mind in a repeat trip sometime.

Back to tonight - I used Ticketmaster to get "best available" tickets for today and tomorrow, and the tickets are in the 'Gold Club'. This is a restaurant area behind home plate, completely enclosed, with two rows of very comfortable leather seats - the picture top right, was taken from inside the club. It is a very strange place to watch a game though - absolutely no atmosphere (you cannot hear the outside world at all, and having a running commentary from the Rangers TV coverage which has a slight delay) and the people in the club are interested in the food, the beer and each other, but the game seems to come a very long way down the list of interests.

The Rangers won at a canter - three home runs, and a reasonable start from Kameron Loe. The Twins really never threatened, which gave me a lot of time to watch the Sox game on the out of town scoreboard - which was so far behind as to be frustrating rather than informative.