Kind of a flipside to that. I went to the Rockies game last night. Very nice ballpark in a setting which is highly condusive to having fun AFTER the game, too. No shortage of breweries nearby, and it's in a nice clean part of town.
The crowd, if you could call it that, was... not all that great. Sure they cheered loudly when Baker launched a bomb to deep (as in, I think it bounced into a restroom on the concourse) left center. Bonds was booed soundly each time, but there was nothing there, otherwise. Several sections were completely devoid of humans. Official attendance was 18-something, but if there were 12 there, I'm a monkey's uncle.
The park itself is really good, with nice sight-lines all around. I started at 108, with my feet up on top of the concrete wall that rings the outfield and watched Alou pick at the sod in his cleats for 3 innings, before I got completely bored. At that point, it was 12-3. The first 6 runs were scored on 4 outs. The next on 6. I think the final was 20-6 or something obscene like that.
Much as I loved the ambiance, temperature, lack of humidity and ballpark feeling (except the announcer sounds like someone just shot his puppy) the game itself was... well, bad, like t-ball.
On the OTHER hand, I arrived late to the Cubs game on Saturday (read online somewhere it was a 5pm start, and I got there at 4:45 to see the 6th inning score on the board outside). THAT was fun! Crowd was way into it, and afterwards everyone spilled out onto Clark Avenue (heh, how appropriate is that?). My friend and I wandered down to a Moroccan restaurant a dozen blocks down and listened to the jubilant baby bears fans holler their way up and down the road.
I really wish I could have made it to an Astros game this year -- especially the beginning of the season, when things on the field were going right -- but the new career is pretty time-consuming. Astros games aren't QUITE up to the "institutionalized fun" level of Cubs games, but MAN are we light-years ahead of the Rockies.
