SunTrust Park - First Impressions

I’m here in Atlanta to see the Dodgers play the Braves at SunTrust Park.  This will be my 12th out 30+ MLB Parks that I want to visit, and the 26th Professional Baseball park I will have seen a game in after tonight (12 in the MLB, 11 in the NPB or Nippon Professional Baseball League, and 3 minor league parks in Reno, Spokane, Rancho Cucamonga).  

This morning, I decided to use my daily morning walk to go from my hotel to the stadium and check it out a bit before the game tonight.  These are my impressions.  

A Nice Urban Stadium

As I approached the park walking along Battery Avenue, I found myself reminded of Petco Park in San Diego, where the Padres of the NL West play.  Like Petco, SafeTrust Park has this area of restaurants, stores and bars that are nestled right up next to it.  In San Diego this area is called the Gaslamp District.  The area next to SafeTrust might be called “The Battery,” I think from the many multi-colored capital B’s I see in the area, but I can’t say that for certain.  What I can definitely assume is the area, the restaurants and bars especially, are likely havens for fans before before and after the game.  

I like these sorts of areas near the stadiums.  It gives fans a place to go after the game to celebrate their team, or commiserate depending on the score, and continue the “baseball feeling” they got from the game itself.  AT&T Park (now Oracle Park) in San Francisco and Wrigley Field in Chicago also have the advantage of a neighborhood that their a part of, though I did feel more like an outsider around Wrigley since so many of those places had the feeling of being long established local places.  Whenever I encounter areas like this it makes me wish that Dodgers Stadium had something other than the huge parking lot that surrounds it (Kauffman Stadium where the Royals play is another park with a parking lot for a neighbor).  

The side of the stadium where the park butts up against this

area is a fun-looking area.  There’s a big hanging baseball that has a screen surrounding it.  Plus a baseball field shaped area of artificial turf for people to play on.  When I got there people were filing in for tours they give of the park.  I was tempted to join them.  But since I’ve not taken a tour of Dodger Stadium yet, I decided not to.  You gotta remember where your loyalties are.  

 As I walked around the stadium, starting along the first base side, I found that at first the park is covered by a hotel that is right next to it.  This is also just like Petco, where you have to go all the way around to the left field side before you can see the stadium’s structure.  Once you pass the hotel at SunTrust, you get to see the exterior of the park itself.  It’s on this side, which faces a street, where you find a couple of statues of celebrated Braves, like Phil Niekro, the Hall of Fame knuckle-baller that played for the team both in Milwaukie and Atlanta, and Bobby Cox, the former manager that took them to World Series wins in 1977 and 1995.  

The park’s facade has a nostalgic, brick facing, though not as complete as Oracle Park in San Francisco.  It is very new looking, which makes sense since they’ve only been using it for two years.  The Lyft driver that picked me up at the airport said that its newness shows off on the inside as well.  

Walk There If You Can

Which brings me to the one negative thing I’ve seen about the stadium so far, and that’s traffic.  The stadium is not quite tucked into a corner between two major thoroughfares, the 285 Freeway and Cobb Parkway, which is four lanes in both directions, with a huge island in-between preventing drivers from making turns anywhere but at the traffic lights.  I saw what it’s location does to traffic, as my ride was approaching my hotel just before the game was about to start.  After crawling up the off-ramp we were physically located across the street from my hotel.  But because of three solid lanes of traffic at a standstill, and the big island in the middle, the driver had to go around the stadium to get to the intersection to turn left and go back down to the hotel’s entrance.  A trip that took about an hour (which I walked in about twenty minutes this morning).  I always thought the situation at Dodger stadium was bad (one reason why I always try to take the free shuttle bus from Union Station when I can), but the area around SunTrust was about as bad.  I don’t know if it’s any better coming from the opposite side of the stadium.  I’m glad that it’s only a ten minute walk to get there tonight.  

I’ll write up a follow-up posting after I see the insides of the game tonight.  

Go Dodgers!