Camden Yards, Nationals Park and Yankee Stadium

I mentioned the past few entries that I was on vacation in Baltimore and Washington D.C area. Of course one of the things I had wanted to do was check out the ballparks in the area, so with that said a little non Yankee talk (Although I will compare a lot of stuff the Yankee Stadium).

First was Baltimore, the Orioles were playing the Texas Rangers on a Sunday afternoon. The weather forecast was for rain, but the rain was holding off and it was pretty hot. Unlike at Yankee Stadium, at Camden Yards they let you down behind the dugouts no matter what type of ticket you have so I was able to get a few autographs (Also unlike NY, no pushing and shoving for autographs) including Mike Gonzalez and Brad Bergesen.

Right before first pitch, it began to rain hard and the game was delayed. Like most fans I headed to the concourse to keep dry. Their was plenty of room to move around during the delay, unlike at times at the current Yankee Stadium (don't even get me started on the old stadium), but that could also be because the attendance was only a little over 14,000.

Once the rain delay ended and the game was set to start I went to the seats I had purchased the week before over the phone. The seats were behind home plate on the field level and were the most expensive seats in the stadium at $55. That's right the same view at Yankee Stadium would have cost $300, and for $55 in Yankee Stadium you would be sitting in the second deck in the out field.

Hey where is everyone ?

I had been to Camden Yards before in 2007 to see the Yankees play, and since then not much has changed. The only thing I could really think of is that now the Orioles draw less fans, to the point they had a sign up that said "Buy an authentic fitted cap, get two tickets free". The other thing was that parking increased from $7 to $10, meanwhile when I go to the Bronx it cost $23 ! Once the Orioles lost to the Rangers 6-4, many of the crowd departed, I stuck around for a few minutes to get a couple of pictures and never once was asked by security to leave. The only thing that I hated was after the game I went to look for a vendor outside the stadium to buy a shirt or baseball cards and only one vendor was still around, in fact the area around the part quickly cleared out to the point it was a ghost town.

The second ballpark on this trip was to Nationals Park in Washington D.C. I had visited relatives in the area and since we were so close I also wanted to check out the Nationals park that opened in 2008. I may have complained about the parking at Yankee Stadium from $23 but in D.C they charged $40 in many of the lots surrounding the stadium, that is just insane. Eventually I was able to find a garage for $20 and found that more reasonable. The area around the stadium isn't the greatest, but the traffic is similar to what you find in the Bronx.

This time around I had not had tickets and went to the box office to buy a pair. I wanted the cheapest tickets, just to explore the stadium and picked up a pair for $10 each. It was suppose to be Strasburg t-shirt night but I arrived to late to get one.

Upper concourse similar to Yankee Stadium.

The stadium itself is a nice park, but nothing that distinguished it from other parks built around this era. It was built by HOK Sports, the same architectural firm that has built many of the current ball parks including the new Yankee Stadium. More and more I'm not a fan of the company since most of the ball park designs have been similar. I took a picture of the upper deck concourse at Nationals Park and it was almost identical to the new Yankee Stadium upper deck concourse.

I was wearing a Washington Redskins, Santana Moss jersey (fan of Moss from when he was with the Jets) and it seemed like ever few minutes somebody commented on it or wanted to talk about the Redskins, too bad I'm really a Raiders fan (Yes seriously I am).

The highlight for me on this trip was seeing that they sold Chien Ming Wang shirts at the team store, so even for the high price I had to buy it since they didn't sell them at Modells. In face when I was looking at the Wang shirt one of the store employees said that I was one of the first people he can remember looking at Wang shirts and why I wanted one. All I had to do was point to the Yankees hat I was wearing for him to know why.

The ushers at both parks were friendly, at Nationals park one usher even let me sit in a section that didn't have too many fans and was not where my ticketed seats were. This is something you would never see at Yankee Stadium, even if seats are empty they never let you just go to them and sit their.

Yes that is a large bug below the cup holder.

The worst park about Nationals Park was that their were a lot of  bugs flying around and I saw one of the largest grass hoppers ever. I can say that being from New York that I don't like flying bugs ! The attendance at Nationals park that night to see the insects along with the Cubs beat the Nationals 5-4 was just 18,250.

Both parks were great, cheaper prices , fan friendly, kind ushers and laid back security. Following this trip I would love to see the Yankees on the road in one of these cities. After the Nationals game on the way back to the parking garage one vendor outside was even selling CC Sabathia jerseys along with Nationals hats. I don't think I have ever seen vendors outside Yankee Stadium selling other teams products.

Now that I am back expect more Yankees related posts.