MLB Stadium #41!

We went to a baseball game on Saturday night to visit our 41st MLB ballpark! After going to Minnesota last fall, we were down to two remaining new stadiums since our initial completion of going to a game in all 30 MLB stadiums: Miami and St. Louis. When we realized that the baseball season would have started by the time we returned from our cruise, we were anxious for the schedule to come out to see if the timing would work for us to go to a game in Miami. Thankfully, it did, and because the stadium has a retractable roof, weather was not a concern at all! It was an evening game, so after we disembarked from the ship on Saturday morning, we spent the day in and around Miami until it was time to head to the stadium. We got there more than an hour ahead of the first pitch, which gave us the opportunity to roam around and really appreciate the entire place!

Overall, it's a very nice ballpark, even though it's on the small side (according to Wikipedia, it ranks 29 out of 30 in terms of capacity). It also seems like attendance is not that great because they had the entire upper deck closed off, which is something we also noticed when we were buying tickets a few weeks ago. There were lots of empty seats and we ended up having the entire row of seats to ourselves, if that tells you anything! Nonetheless, everything seemed to be well-run, the fans were respectful, and the ambiance was pretty high energy! One of the only negatives about the stadium: very meager food options, even for non-vegetarians! We were pretty much limited to nachos and popcorn and every food counter seemed to offer the same few items (burgers, hot dogs, etc.).

Since we weren't really cheering for either the Marlins or the Phillies (and there were a surprising number of Phillies fans in attendance!), it was a fun game to watch because there was a lot of offense. When you're hockey fans, baseball usually seems very slow-paced and boring, so when we left in the sixth inning with a score of 8-2 for the Phillies, we felt like it was one of the most exciting games we'd seen in a long time!

The reason we left during the sixth inning was because we had a three-hour drive to Daytona Beach ahead of us, since we were trying to shave a few hours off our long drive home yesterday. We got to our hotel after midnight and were back on the road before 6:00 am, knowing that traffic could be heavy because of it being Easter and the end of spring break for most of the school districts around here. For the most part, our drive home was uneventful, although I continue to be baffled as to why I-95 is only two lanes through South Carolina! Ridiculous! Traffic didn't really get heavy until we were north of Richmond, so we can't really complain, and it's always nice to come home after being away!

Here are just a few random pics from the day; there's nothing particularly noteworthy to share, as we were pretty much just killing time until the game!

As of now, we are down to only one remaining new stadium to visit, and if the weather cooperates, we are planning on going to a game there next month!

Happy Tails to you!