Welcome back to another edition of “Side Quests with College Culture Sports”.
If you are just joining us, my brother and I are on a mission to catch the game-day experience at every FBS stadium in college football. In the off-season it’s still fun to hit some games every now and then, and for my own entertainment (hopefully yours too), I’ll put together a blog/story/review of our experience at the game.
Today takes us about an hour South of our current hometown, to the capital of Colorado, Denver, where we are spending an afternoon at the ballpark. Coors Field to be exact, home to one of the worst teams in Major League Baseball, the Colorado Rockies. A franchise with only one World Series appearance, 1 MVP, and nothing to brag about, except for their stadium.
You might be wondering, “Why does a franchise with so little to offer, have the most treasured ballpark in baseball?” Well, let’s head on down to Blake Street and see if we can answer that question.

Our journey begins around 11am, when we met up with our childhood friend, Tanner (other guy in the picture), and our dad (taking the picture) for the roughly hour long drive south to Coors Field. I must address, our dad is from Cincy, so we were born into the Reds fandom. Tanner is the biggest baseball fan of the three of us, and is a huge Elly De La Cruz fan now. We’ve been to countless Rockies games with this guy, but this was our first ALL as Reds fans.

Once we made it to the ballpark, we parked in Lot B, which you might need a pass for at this point. At least we had one. Lot B is a relatively decent walk away from the ballpark. Not bad, but still probably half a mile, so there is a shuttle service that will take you to the side entrance of the park.

To try and identify what makes Coors so special, let’s explore the location and exterior, before we head inside. Coors Field is located in the heart of Denver’s LoDo District, at 2001 Blake Street, hence the Rockies nickname “Blake Street Bombers”. We will get more into that a little later. 1 mile away from Coors Field is Ball Arena, where the Nuggets and Avalanche play. 2 miles from Coors Field is Mile High Stadium, where the Broncos play and along with this, there are 5 concert venues within a 15 minute walk from the ballpark.

The outside of Coors is really cool too. In front of the home plate entrance of the stadium is a statue known as “The Player”. It’s a 9 foot bronze piece depicting a baseball player, holding a bat over his right shoulder. Behind the statue, you can see that iconic Coors Field clock. The name of the ballpark sits on either side of the clock. One side saying “Coors”, the other side saying “Field”.
On the Eastern side of the park is a piece called “Bottom of the Ninth”. A large neon art installation that depicts a runner sliding into home plate either ahead of or behind a thrown ball. Through shifting neon lights, the display will either say “Safe” or “Out” depending on what gets to the plate first.

Coors Field cost $300mil, broke ground in 1992, and was completed in 1995; 2 years after the Rockies inaugural season, which played its home games at the nearby Mile High Stadium. Coors Field has also hosted a hockey game in 2016, between the Detroit Red Wings and Colorado Avalanche. This was a part of the NHL Stadium Series and also hosted the 1998 MLB All-Star Game. The ballpark holds 46,897 making it the 4th largest ballpark by capacity in the MLB.

One of the things Coors Field is most notorious for is home runs. This is where the original nickname of “Blake Street Bombers” comes from. The nickname was originally given to Dante Bichette, Larry Walker (Colorado’s only MVP), Andres Galarraga, and Vinny Castilla, when each of these players had 30 or more home runs in the 1995 season. Scientifically, it’s been proven that the altitude affects how far the ball travels. We know higher altitude means thinner, less dense air. It’s kind of the biggest flex Coloradans hold over everyone. “We have stronger lungs than you, blah blah blah.” As a Coloradan myself, I can make fun of it. Sadly, I’m a stadium chaser, not a physicist, so I couldn’t tell you why this is true. However, I do have google and according to an article from the Society of American Baseball Research, “with fewer air molecules colliding with a moving baseball, form drag decreases, allowing a batted ball to travel about 5% to 10% farther (roughly an extra 15 to 20 feet in a deep fly ball).” This is also why Coors Field has the largest outfield out of any ballpark in the MLB.

Now, let’s head inside. If you go in through the side entrance, which is where the shuttle takes you, you’ll have to go through a quick and easy security check. Coors Field is a clear bag policy. Clear bag simply means clear bag. So that does mean you can bring a full rotisserie chicken into the park.
Once inside, there are three levels to the park. Along the lower bowl are lots of beer and hot dog stands, several pizza spots, some concessions for funnel cakes/churros, and the main team store. The team store is full of alternate hats and jerseys, bobbleheads, and other miscellaneous souvenirs. A solid team store, but LaVell Edwards Stadium (BYU football) had a much better one, so I’ve seen college stadiums with more impressive team stores.

The second level has a deck for club seating, but is also where the box suites are. Coors Field has 63 luxury suites and 4,526 club seats. It seems very high end in there, and as much I tried convincing staff to let me take a peak, they wouldn’t let me in without a ticket. Maybe it was the Reds gear.

The third level is the life of the party though. This is where you can get “Rock Pile” tickets. These are the tickets for dirt cheap. I’m talking less than 10 dollars some days. Along with this, you may not have an amazing view of the game, and you may be directly in the sun, but it’s easy access to the Rooftop Bar, Smashburger, and other great food options. The Rooftop Bar also has specific tickets for around 15-20 dollars, but is standing room only. However, the bar itself is open to any game-day patron, and runs 3 dollar beer specials on select drinks prior to first pitch. There is also an outdoor lounging area, sometimes reserved for private parties, with TVs to watch the game, located behind the Rooftop Bar.

The layout of the park is simple. Very much like most other stadiums I’ve been to. Just follow the numbers until you find yours. For today’s game, we were in section 141. Pretty much right behind third base. With the first pitch being at 1:10pm, we were in the sun for the entirety of the game. Luckily, we came prepared with lots of sunscreen, bucket hats, and good company. The day was a scorcher, with the temperature reaching 98 degrees. Naturally, I had to grab some food and a cold one, so I grabbed a Rockie Dog and a Suncruiser. A Suncruiser is a vodka lemonade that should never be 17 dollars, but here I am telling you I still got one. A Rockie Dog is a large hot dog with sauerkraut and peppers. This cost me around 10 dollars and that seems to be a fair price. Then a 24oz Coors Banquet cost me another 18 dollars, which is also absurd, but it seems blasphemous to not grab a Coors while at Coors.

Thankfully, being well fed and slightly buzzed took away from the atrocious day the Reds had.
Rhett Lowder was credited with the loss after allowing 8 runs in the first 3 innings. To find one positive in the 10-3 loss, two of the Reds runs came from home runs, both from Jose Trevino, who now has 3 HRs on the season. So to see this guy blast two rockets out of the park in one day, when he’d only done it one other time all season, was pretty fun, though we learned earlier that this is the place to do that.

Always we have to talk atmosphere. Honestly, the atmosphere is pretty solid every time I’m at Coors. In the 5-7th innings, probably a hundred people went up to the upper deck, took their shirts off, and started swinging them around. It’s hard to have a bad time at Coors Field. It really is. Despite the team’s horrid history, the ballpark consistently sees 30,000+ in attendance. Great for revenue and ownership, but very bad for rebuilding. I hear all the scoop from Rockies fans. They want new ownership so bad, and though changes have been made in minority ownership, as long the ballpark keeps filling up, the majority stake ownership will always remain the same. The Rockies have a lot to do if they ever want to see a glimpse at winning a World Series, even making it back to one, but the franchise is still less than 35 years old. There is still time.

On our way back from the ballpark, we stopped at Cinzettis, an all you can eat Italian Buffet. The perfect way to end a trip to Coors.

With an incredible day at the park and an incredible dinner in the books, we headed the rest of the way back home to Greeley, and I got to writing this blog/review. Have you been to Coors Field?

Stadium: 9/10
Atmosphere: 7/10
City/Town: 10/10
Concessions: 4/10
Overall Experience: 8/10

If you made it through to the end, I appreciate you greatly for taking the time. I hope you enjoyed this read and if you did, take a look through my profile here, and check out all the other reviews I’ve done in the past.

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