Every baseball road tripper has a list of ballparks that got away.
To explain, these are parks that you’ve visited but feel you owe a return visit. I don’t mean your favorite ballparks — yes, we all have parks to which we’d happily return again and again. But there are other parks that you need to get back to. These are parks that you didn’t get to experience the way you wanted. Parks that didn’t get a fair shake, for one reason or another.
Like other travelers, I have a list of ballparks that I feel deserve another visit. Honestly, the list probably exceeds five, but I’ll focus on my top five here — and perhaps look at some other worthy candidates in a future post.
Here are my five that got away:
HomeTrust Park, Asheville Tourists
When I think about parks that didn’t get a fair shake from me, a century-old facility immediately comes to mind. That ballpark is HomeTrust Park, formerly known as McCormick Field. It’s the home of the Asheville Tourists, and it opened way back in 1923. During my 10-day trip to North Carolina in 2024, I had a quick sojourn to Asheville on the itinerary: In the waning days of the trip, I’d make the 250-mile drive from Raleigh to Asheville for a daylong visit, spend the next day in Hickory, and then return to Raleigh to fly home. That schedule didn’t leave much margin for error, and Mother Nature wasn’t cooperative.
Soon after I checked into my Asheville hotel, the rain began. I remember a wet 10-minute walk to the ballpark and dodging raindrops as I explored the facility. Eventually, amid doubts that any baseball would be played that evening, I scarfed down a walking taco and waited for the inevitable postponement announcement. First, the team delayed the start of the game, and soon called it altogether. I can honestly say I enjoyed my 90-ish minutes at this ballpark, even if I didn’t see a single pitch thrown. And while I really liked the hotel I was staying in, I was a little dejected when I prematurely returned to it.
I still count HomeTrust Park among the 65-plus minor league parks I’ve visited, but it’s got an asterisk because I didn’t technically attend a game there. I’m not only eager to return to watch nine innings, but also to do more of a thorough exploration outside the park. To rub a little salt in my wounds, I couldn’t get the iconic, elevated view of HomeTrust Park during my visit that I’ve often seen online. That’s because Memorial Stadium, which sits up a hill beyond the ballpark’s outfield fence and from whose bleachers fans often take cool shots of the ballpark, was closed for renovations and inaccessible when I was there. Memorial Stadium has since reopened; now, I just need good weather to bless my next trip to Asheville.
Peoples Natural Gas Field, Altoona Curve
Mother Nature was an ally during my 2012 visit to Altoona’s Peoples Natural Gas Field. It was I who made this a visit that left something to be desired. Let me explain. That spring, I planned an ambitious May road trip that included a stretch of six games in six cities in just three days. Yep, you heard that right. I’ve often written about one-day, two-city doubleheaders, and this is where it all began for me. Here was my itinerary:
May 22: Matinee game in Allentown, PA; evening game in Trenton, NJ.
May 23: Matinee game in Wilmington, DE; evening game in Frederick, MD.
May 24: Matinee game in Altoona, PA; evening game in Buffalo, NY.
Looking at this schedule more than a decade later raises my blood pressure. It was ambitious to the point of being ridiculous. I sometimes had to leave my first game of the day just to get to the second ballpark in time, and spent a good part of these three days running on fumes. Altoona’s game was scheduled for 10:30 a.m., and I always like being at least a couple of hours early when I visit ballparks. I left my hotel in Frederick just after 6 a.m. for what should’ve been a 2.5-hour drive to Altoona. Horrible traffic made that drive closer to 3.5 hours, which meant I was late for a pregame tour and some press stuff I’d scheduled. I remember feeling incredibly flustered when I got to the park. To make matters worse, this was already going to be a short visit. With a 4.5-hour drive from Altoona to Buffalo coming up, I had to leave PNG Field in the fifth inning to get to Buffalo on time.
To make matters worse, I unknowingly changed a setting on my digital camera to lower the resolution on my photos to a minuscule 640 × 480 at some point during the game, which meant that I wasn’t happy with most of my photos when I eventually downloaded them to write my blog. I look forward to revisiting for nine full innings, in a calmer state, and ready to snap full-resolution photos.
Fifth Third Field, Toledo Mud Hens
The Mud Hens are unquestionably one of MiLB’s most iconic franchises, so I’m disappointed my 2011 visit wasn’t better. I visited Fifth Third Field on May 26, the eighth day of a 12-day road trip that was the longest trip I’d ever taken up to that point. This was another 10:30 a.m. game, set at that early time to accommodate roughly eleventy billion school kids on class trips. I don’t think I realized this when I booked my trip. Or, perhaps I did, but didn’t care at the time. What I found upon walking through the ballpark’s gates was a throng of children who clogged up the concourse, created impossibly long lines at concession stands and the team shop, and did a lot of screaming. Now, I hate to sound like a curmudgeon who hates school days at the ballpark. In truth, I don’t. But I remember all of these things getting to me on this day.
I also found the ballpark’s ushers a little vigilant for my tastes. Years later, I don’t recall any specifics, but they were too “MLB-style,” I noted in my blog post at the time. Combined, these factors meant that I didn’t enjoy my Fifth Third Field visit as much as I’d have liked. By the time of the final out, I’ll admit I was already thinking about my drive west toward Fort Wayne, IN, where I’d see the TinCaps at the picturesque Parkview Field a day later.
Over the years, I’ve never returned to Toledo, despite not being all that far away on a few occasions. I hope my next visit to Toledo won’t be too far in the future — and that it’ll be better than my first.
Classic Auto Group Park, Lake County Captains
Just two days after my short visit to Toledo, I found myself in the the Cleveland suburb of Eastlake, OH, to see the Lake County Captains. I’d scheduled being in Eastlake on this day because the Captains were hosting a doubleheader, and you know I love these days. Unfortunately, there were two things that made this visit feel lackluster: Being near the end of a long trip, I was absolutely running on fumes, and I was also coming down with a cold. I remember doing my best to stay positive and enjoy the visit — and I did, overall — but I also longed to check into my hotel, gobble some multivitamins, pull the drapes shut, and crash face down on the bed for about nine hours. Not the best thing to be thinking about while at a ballpark for 14 innings, right? (I’ve only been sick twice in all my baseball travels, which isn’t bad, all things considered.)
Anyway, I put up a good fight at this ballpark, which was then known by the simpler moniker of Classic Park. I ate some really good nachos, had a blast exploring virtually everywhere I could, and also sat back and enjoyed some entertaining Midwest League action. But I’ve frequently felt over the years that I owe the Captains another visit or two. Eastlake is only about 20 miles from Cleveland, so it should theoretically be easy to pair this park with my next Progressive Field visit.
Sahlen Field, Buffalo Bisons
Buffalo’s ballpark, now called Sahlen Field, has often felt to me like one that got away. And that might seem strange, given that I’ve been there four times since 2010. That first visit came in August of 2010, during just my second baseball road trip. It was an enjoyable visit overall, but I was a novice. I’ve since learned a whole lot about getting more out of a ballpark visit. My next stop in Buffalo came in 2012, as the last game of that unforgivingly intense travel schedule that I explained above in my Altoona Curve section. As I noted, I was feeling more than a little discombobulated while in Altoona, and I was downright gassed by the time I made it to Buffalo that evening. I remember enjoying that visit to a degree, but also being so tired that I felt I could’ve gotten more from it.
That’s what I tried to do in April of 2019, when I began my season of travel with two days in Buffalo. Game one of my visit was rained out, although I was thankfully able to spend a couple of hours at the park before returning to my hotel. After the rainout, the Bisons announced they’d make up the missed game with a doubleheader scheduled for the next day. Perfect, right? Well, the rain continued to fall on and off throughout that day, resulting in only two innings of the 14 scheduled doubleheader innings being played. Ouch. And here’s a fun stat: I drove nearly 700 miles, round trip, to watch those two innings. I hope that’s a record that I never beat.
Since then, Sahlen Field went through extensive remodeling to host the Toronto Blue Jays during the pandemic-shortened 202o season. I watched a lot of these Blue Jays “home” games on TV, and am excited to see the upgrades in person before too much more time passes.
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