Rob reviews: American Family Field, Milwaukee, WI

This past Sunday, I had the opportunity to check another ballpark off of my list: American family field, whole of the Milwaukee Brewers. This is my 15th park overall and my 11th current ballpark.

I originally planned to come here in April; the first time I traveled out to the university of Wisconsin for Kid 1’s out-of-state student orientation. Those plans kind of fell apart. So I decided to make the trip now just before one I was getting ready to move Kid 1 to the university.

When I got these tickets, I didn’t realize that today was going to be the “Bob Uecker tribute“. The ceremony lasted about 1 hour, during which time, the stadium was at least 3/4 full. Bob Uecker was a baseball icon. It makes sense that fans would want be a part of the tribute ceremonies. That the Brewers currently have the best record in the national league was even more reason to see the team on Sunday.

A tailgater’s dream

Milwaukee – and Wisconsin in general – is known for is tailgating. Here in Detroit, the Tigers really only see tailgating on Opening Day. So I was a little surprised to see dozens of tailgaters, in my parking lot alone, on a random Sunday in late August. Not only that, but I was struck by the fact that tailgaters would leave their grills and the folding tables either in front of or behind their cars. If something wasn’t theirs, people left it alone. Perhaps a big reason tailgating never took off I. Detroit is the fact that Comerica Park is set in downtown Detroit; whereas AmFam is situated in the outskirts of Milwaukee proper. Of course this setting turns the surrounding areas into…

Oceans of parking

If you’re parking at AmFam, either be ready to pay top dollar for parking or be reading to walk across an ocean of parking lots. Shuttles are avail or for those who have mobility issues. But these “shuttles” are golf carts. I half-expected to see vans transporting g people from the parking lot to a drop off are outside the stadium. Also, it wouldn’t kill some of these teams to build a 4-6 level parking structure and free up and lot of this land; especially as teams want to get into the real estate business of owning properties around their ballparks.

I still have mixed feelings on ballparks with retractable roof/retractable dome. The weird thing is that it was 72° today in Milwaukee and they closed the roof during the fourth inning. What’s more, because of AmFam’s roof design, even when it’s open, the roof still covers about 2/3 of the park. No matter how hard most of these retractable roof stadiums try, they can never completely abandon the whole “bowl” feeling as they have to have something around the perimeter of the stadium to support the weight of the roof. Even still, one cannot helped but be impressed this architectural feat.

That being said, “AmFam” does include sliding panels past the outfield concourse, which can open when the stadium is open in order to bring some outside air into the park. I have heard that in the ast, the stadium could get warm with the roof closed however I have heard that this last season, the building was “winterized” thus they can hold events year-round with the roof closed.

Another great, and sometimes overlooked addition to the are surrounding AmFam is Helafaer Filed. It is a little league sized field that site approximately on the site of the old County Stadium

The more ballparks I visit, the more I’m coming to the realization that one game or one stadium tour just is not enough to take in everything that I want to see. I thought the same way at AmFam. Having said all that, I had a great time and I will definitely return!

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