As a venue, there really isn’t anything wrong with Chase Field.
It’s modern, and comfortable, and has great sight lines. It’s got great food options, and a big scoreboard, and it’s super easy to get to, especially if you ride the Valley Metro Rail. It’s right downtown in Phoenix, so driving there can be a mess (especially on the Saturday night we tried to get to dinner nearby and found virtually every street closed), but there’s plenty to do, and great bars and restaurants nearby, and perfect weather this time of year.
But the ballgame experience just wasn’t that great.
The Diamondbacks try really hard. They had a DJ spinning tunes between innings, and they had a spirit/cheer/dance team, and they did a hot dog race AND a race of former Diamondbacks “legends” (if Mark Grace can be called a legend for the Diamondbacks). The seats are comfy, they have big colorful graphics that tell the crowd when to get loud, and the staff were all polite and friendly and helpful.
And it still wasn’t all that great for watching a ballgame. Things were just a bit…off.
Take that “legends” race for example. It’s a clone of the awesome Sausage Race in Milwaukee, the same sort of gimmick the Nationals have adopted in having their Presidents Race. But it’s one thing see a giant mascot-like version of Teddy Roosevelt racing Abe Lincoln, and an entirely different thing to see Matt Williams racing Mark Grace. I mean…
Meh.
The franchise hasn’t been around very long, so there simply isn’t a ton of history for them to promote. That’s okay. In that case, it might have been better not to even try. But they did, and didn’t do a very good job. Their one World Series trophy is tucked into a little museum/Hall of Fame area that isn’t well marked. Half of Randy Johnson’s Cy Young Awards are there, too, along with a bunch of Gold Gloves and Silver Sluggers, and other memorabilia. But it’s all sort of hidden from view.
Besides Jackie Robinson’s #42, the team has retired two numbers; Johnson’s #51, which makes all the sense in the world, and the #20 of Luis Gonzalez, which is sort of a head-scratcher. Yes, I know he’s the franchise leader in a bunch of offensive categories, but he only played there eight years. He hit 224 homers for them, which is certainly solid, but that’s sort of the same as if the Tigers retired Rudy York’s number, or the Red Sox retired Mo Vaughn’s, or if Cincinnati retired Adam Dunn’s.
Then there’s the banners that aren’t really banners. They’ve decided to honor all of their past playoff teams, as most franchises do. But rather than flying flags, or pennants, or true banners, Arizona has hung…logos. And they haven’t done that particularly well.
I could look past the fact that the logos aren’t uniform, in that many have their former color scheme with teal heavily involved. But there’s no rhyme or reason to which ones they’ve hung. They have the 2001 team up there twice, one for winning the NL West and once for winning the World Series, but skipped them for the NL Champions section. For 2023, they hung one for the pennant but none for the Wild Card despite having a separate Wild Card section and the team qualifying for it. If they did just one logo per playoff year, that would be fine, but they ruined that convention by having two for 2001. It just seemed sort of haphazard and sloppily executed.
Sort of like having an animal team name, but picking a completely different animal as a mascot because you realized too late that kids would be terrorized by a seven-foot-tall rattlesnake. So we get Baxter the Bobcat instead, which makes no sense at all.
They could have real grass but they don’t, and they could have a Randy Johnson statue but they don’t, and so on. It’s as if certain things have just slipped their minds, or were done as afterthoughts.
But everything I’ve mentioned so far pales in comparison to the biggest sin the Diamondbacks committed. We went to the game on Sunday the 14th of April. It was a perfect example of what they used to call a “Chamber of Commerce Day” in Phoenix. Not a cloud in the sky and 80 degrees at first pitch according to my Apple Watch. At the final pitch it was 83. It was April weather that the Guardians or Twins or Mets would kill for.
AND THEY PLAYED THE GAME WITH THE DAMNED ROOF CLOSED.
I understand the need for retractable roofs on some ballparks. They need one in Seattle where it rains a lot. Same for Miami. They sort of need them in Texas due to the heat and humidity at the peak of the summer. (But really, for as tough as Texans claim to be, how about being as tough as the folks in Kansas City or St. Louis who somehow manage to deal with 90+ degrees and 90+ percent humidity every summer without roofs over their ballparks?) And yes, they need one in Phoenix for those 110-degree scorchers in July and August.
But this was not one of those days. It was picture-perfect baseball weather, an advertisement for why fans should be in Phoenix in April, and the damned Diamondbacks decided to play indoors. And when I say indoors, I really mean it at Chase Field because the only wall of windows for any natural light is literally covered with advertising signs that are collectively even bigger than the enormous scoreboard. It’s like watching a game played inside of The Mall of America, but without the roller coasters.
The same thing happened to us in Miami last year, and in both Houston and Arlington in 2022, and it happened to me in Toronto way back in July of 2008. Just unconscionable decisions to make fans sit in air conditioned ersatz weather rather than the genuine fresh air of the outdoors.
Apparently part of the problem in Arizona is that the cables that open the roof aren’t in the best shape, and they’ve decided they won’t open or close the roof while fans are present out of concerns for safety. That’s admirable, but also speaks to how sloppy their operation is. This has been a known issue for a few years now and still hasn’t been fixed. It caused them to have a game rained out during Spring Training when an unexpected storm developed and they couldn’t close the roof mid-game. And it also means that once they decide in advance to close the roof, regardless of the reason, once fans arrive they can’t simply open it no matter how gorgeous the weather turns out to be.
What I don’t know is why they decided to have the roof closed for this particular game in the first place. Like I said, it was a perfect day. There hadn’t been rain for days, and there was none in the forecast. They knew in advance that the temperature was going to be perfect. Hell, WE knew it before we ever traveled to Arizona days earlier. There’s no readily available reason for the Diamondbacks to plan for this game to be played inside.
And let’s be clear, inside baseball sucks. It’s necessary at times, and I’d even say it’s convenient when the weather doesn’t cooperate. But the times it’s warranted are few and far between. They should be limited to:
Inclement weather. Rain, lightning, hail, snow, extreme wind, etc. And yes, an eclipse qualifies.
Extreme temperatures for baseball, meaning over 90°F or under 40°F.
That’s it.
Barring one of those conditions, there was no excuse to start the game with the roof closed. There’s also no excuse to have malfunctioning or unsafe roof cables for years without fixing them. The default position of every single team with a retractable roof on their ballpark should be “We’re playing this sucker in the sunshine unless an act of God makes us close the roof.” But that’s not what the Diamondbacks did, a baffling decision that fits very neatly with the rest of their operation.
They have a beautiful venue, in a good location. The staff and fans were friendly. The metro got us there efficiently. They serve a perfectly decent ballpark hotdog. But, for much of the actual ballgame experience, the Diamondbacks couldn’t seem to get out of their own way.
I agree with this 100%. We went there for the WBC last spring and the roof was closed the whole time. Contrast that with a beautiful spring training game where you enjoy a day outside and you’re left scratching your head.
The other comically bad thing they did was run out of Team Mexico merchandise. The crowd was 80% Mexican and Team Mexico kicked the crap out of Team USA. But nothing to be found in any of the stores, like they had one small batch and it sold out during the first game of the first day.
To be fair, as a Reds fan, I would be totally down with retiring Adam Dunn's number.