Marlins Park (Miami, Florida)

It's a wrap!

On Sunday, April 14, 2019 Dan and I visited our 30^th and final Major League Baseball Park. When we hit the road in August 2007, one of our goals was to get to a baseball game at every team’s home park, with 29 located across the country, and one in Toronto, Canada. It took us 11 ½ years to get to them all, but we did it!!! On this day the Miami Marlins were playing the Philadelphia Phillies, and little did we know this would turn into a 14-inning game-and-a-half marathon. By the 6^th inning, the score was tied 1-1. No runs were scored in innings 7-13, and we wondered if either team was going score again. Finally, the Phillies got 2 runs at the top of the 14^th inning, and the Marlins couldn’t match them, so the 4 hour 38 minute game finally wrapped up.

Here are some fun facts about the park:

• Marlins Park is located in the Little Havana neighborhood of downtown Miami.
• The park spans 17 acres of the former site of the Miami Orange Bowl.
• The stadium is the sixth MLB stadium to have a retractable roof (and it was closed the day we were there, not for rain, but for the heat!).
• Seating capacity is 37,442, and is the third-smallest stadium in official capacity (attendance the day we were there was 15,238).
• Dual bulletproof aquariums serve as a home-plate backstop.
• The distance from home plate is specified on the outfield walls in meters in addition to feet, making Marlins Park the only such major league ballpark to do so outside of Canada.

Everyone is asking us, now that we’ve been to every MLB Park, do we plan to attend any future baseball games? Of course! 

Citi Field (Queens, New York)

September 2018, and baseball season was close to wrapping up. We were down to our last two Major League Baseball parks, Citi Field in Queens (The New York Mets), and Marlins Park in Miami (The Miami Marlins). As our schedule played out, we would end up splitting these last two parks between two seasons, picking up the Mets during our stay in New York in September. Our room in Queens was walking distance to Citi Field, making it very convenient to get to the game on September 7^th. It was Mets versus the Phillies , who won the match, 4-3. It was a close game, but we were able to relax and enjoy it because we were rooting equally for both teams.

Had we come to see the Mets play earlier in our travels, we would have caught them at Shea Stadium, which was their home until the 2009 season, when Citi Park opened. The new stadium holds 42,000 fans, but the day we were there attendance was only around 24,000.  Because there are so many similarities among baseball parks, I try to find the things about each one that makes it unique. Here are some fun facts about Citi Park:

1. An original neon Mets sign displayed in the old stadium was preserved and rehung in the Taste of the City dining area.
2. The park is known for its selection of snacks that go far beyond the typical hot dogs, peanuts and Cracker Jacks. Here, and only here, you will find Strawberry Cheesecake Doughnuts, Grilled Elote Corn, and Ragu/Nutella/Blanco Verde Rice Balls.
3. You can run the old Shea bases in the parking lot, but finding them is a serious challenge, especially once the lot has filled up.
4. The Coca-Cola sign changes colors during the game, and, during the National Anthem, a red, white and blue flag waves through it.
5. There is a home run apple hiding in the outfield waiting to show its head when the Mets hit a home run.
6. You can get married on the field, but not on game day.

 Here are a few pictures from our visit to Citi Field. Twenty-Nine down, one more to go!!!