Ultimate Baseball Road Trip (87 page)

For folks sitting farther back in the Loge Infield Boxes, the low overhang of the third deck does not obstruct the view of the field. The overhang does sometimes block the flight of high fly balls for those in Rows 18 and higher, though.

Beginning in Section 209 and continuing to 206 in deep right-field foul territory, you will lose sight of a certain amount of the right-field corner to the underhang. In Section 208 it is moderately annoying but if you sit beyond Section 207 any ball hit into the corner is blocked. We had to watch on the big screen. Even in the front-row, huge patches of the outfield lawn were missing. We recommend the bleachers instead.

The Loge Bleachers provide almost as good a view as Section 206, but go for half the price. Sections 204–205 are not as affected by the underhang; really only the wall is blocked from view. At the bottom of the aisles all along the Loge grates rise to obstruct the view slightly. Basically anything higher than Row 16 or lower than Row 3 is poor.

All of the seats on the Club level have a slightly obstructed view. These seats are almost as expensive as the Infield
Boxes but don’t offer half the view. So sit downstairs if you can. The Infield Clubs come with wait service, while the Outfield Clubs require folks to run their own errands.

These seats are in the first few rows of the fourth level. But we don’t recommend the Terrace Boxes. In fact, if you consider yourself a baseball purist (like we do) and must see every blade of grass, every inch of dirt, do yourself a favor and do not sit anywhere in the Terrace Level. Even directly behind home plate the view is not completely clean, as the bottom parts of the foul poles on either side are not within view. Many seats in the upper deck only have a small amount of field blocked, but who knows, an important play might take place out there. Rather, head for the Loge bleachers or, better still, the Field bleachers, which are far superior for less cash.

We had trouble grappling with the phenomenon of an upper deck without any pure fan sight lines. Now, we realize that in building a ballpark, trade-offs have to be made. Not every seat can be perfect. In the case of Miller Park the Brewers clearly decided to build a multilevel stadium with stacked decks that hang over one another. Fine, but this is a four-level stadium that feels like a six-level stadium. The upstairs seats are affected by not one, but two underhangs. This, it seems to us, could have been avoided by eliminating a few hundred (or thousand) seats, making the Terrace level smaller, and tucking it in closer to preserve sight lines.

Also some Terrace seats are stuck in the place that would (should) normally be the aisle, making it difficult to walk all the way around the park and seat-hop. Crossing over someone’s legs and suffering those annoyed looks add additional barriers to wandering the upper level at Miller Park.

The only piece of positive advice we can offer about this level is that if you prefer the shade, sit down the right-field line. The sun favors the left side. All sections beyond the outfield walls are in the shade, even when the sun is shining. Beyond Section 437, the foul pole becomes a blockage. In Sections 438 and 439 it cuts the view in half.

Even though the kids may want to sit here deep in the left-field corner to catch a glimpse of beloved mascot Bernie, the Bernie’s Terrace seats are terrible. Many in Section 442 are actually behind Bernie’s Dugout, which is no small obstacle, and are worse than Uecker seats. Furthermore, the concourse up here is desolate, looking like a corridor out of
28 Weeks
or some other sci-fi movie. There are no close concession stands or bathrooms. Worst of all, the seats feel about 100 miles from the game.

The old adage, “You get what you pay for,” clearly applies. The $1 Uecker seats are just plain bad. Not only do fans fight multiple underhang obstructions from these seats, but the right-field foul pole is in the way too. Still, the seats have a certain comedic appeal. They were named after the always-entertaining Bob Uecker, whose Miller Lite commercials gave us such memorable lines as, “I must be in the front row,” and, “He missed the tag!” that Bob shouted from his seat in the very top row.

Josh:
From the Uecker seats, right field is a myth and center field is a rumor.

Local rules prohibit scalping within eight hundred feet of the ballpark, so we followed the bridge over the river and into the far parking lot, where we found scalpers operating in plain view roughly 801 feet from the park.

Scalping 101: Know the exact bills in your wallet and have the amount you intend to spend at your fingertips. In Milwaukee Josh talked a scalper down from $20 to $15 per ticket, but only had two twenties. The seasoned ticket-trader wouldn’t make change for him, so we wound up paying the higher price. Learn from our mistake.

A more legitimate, but slightly less exciting, option is to merely visit the Ticket Resale Zone that the Brewers oversee between Helfaer Field and the Aaron Parking Lot. Here, reselling tickets at or below face value is allowed.

Before we left on our first road trip, we never thought we’d change our minds in the way we did while visiting Milwaukee. We thought every park that wasn’t in the middle of a festive downtown neighborhood was third-rate. But we learned in Brew City that this assumption was faulty. We (gulp) recommend driving to Miller Park and parking in one of the team-run lots (gulp, again). These open three hours before first pitch. Game day is all about the tailgating in Wisconsin, and what we experienced during our Brewers series beat any college football tailgate we’d ever attended. Little kids played catch with their dads, college guys threw the pigskin around, and tailgaters participated in such nontraditional sports as a ring-toss game that was much like horseshoes and parking-lot-bowling using real bowling balls, ten pins, and one drunk guy named Lenny who kept getting knocked down only to stand back up and resume his spot as the seven pin. Many of these folks had brought their kids along to shag beers and reset the pins. Very clever. We also saw parking lot volleyball, hopscotch, and people playing games with food used as balls and/or goal posts. All of this, of course, was brought on by copious amounts of alcohol. The people in Wisconsin are among the nicest in the world. Walk around and talk to folks and don’t be surprised if someone hands you a brat or offers you some of grannie’s pickled dilly beans. Tailgating etiquette states that you, too, should bring something to the party. We suggest picking up some cased meat to throw on the hibachi. Then sit back and talk to your neighbors. It won’t take long to make friends. As for the preferred brand of brats? Local sausages like Klement’s, Sheboygan, and Johnsonville are king.

From the east or west, take Interstate 94 to Miller Park Way and take the Miller Park Exit.

From the north, take Highway 41 south to the Miller Park Exit, or take Bluemound Road and access Miller from Story Parkway or Mitchell Boulevard. From the south, take 43rd Street/Miller Park Way north and take the Miller Park exit.

Friendly men with fluorescent clothing will guide you to a tailgating spot in one of the many lots surrounding the park. The general parking price is $8 and the lots are named after former Brewer stars. Professional tailgaters know where and when to enter to get where they need to be. If you want to look like one, rent an RV and bring it to the game. Just beware that you’ll have to buy two parking spaces for an eighteen-to-thirty-six-foot vehicle.

The Milwaukee County Transit System bus stops right outside the park. Riding the bus allows you to set up your mobile tailgate unit anywhere you’d like, but it also means you have to schlep everything with you on the bus, then leave it in the parking lot, unattended, during the game. Routes 10, 18 and 90 service the park.

Milwaukee County Transit Info:
www.ridemcts.com/seasonal_services/index.asp?id=802

Beautiful Helfaer Field was built in the connecting lot to Miller Park, roughly on the grounds where County Stadium once stood. Local youth league teams play at this wonderful diamond in the rough, as well as softball teams. The outfield fences are only two hundred feet from the plate and the same grounds crew that works on the big league diamond cares for Helfaer. Informative murals surround the little field, offering facts and trivia about baseball in Milwaukee. Reading them, we learned that “Bud the Wonder Dog” used to chase seagulls out of right field at County Stadium.

Behind Helfaer you’ll find a memorial to County Stadium as well as one for the World Series Champion Braves of 1957. It’s not hard to picture County Stadium standing on this very spot. But it is hard to visualize the fateful game when Detroit’s Cecil Fielder became the only player to ever hit a fair ball completely out of the expansive yard.

Josh:
It should have landed right about where that guy is choking on that brat.

Kevin:
Nah, over there where that drunk woman just knocked down every pin but Lenny.

The day we visited, a tour group from Japan was listening to a guide reverently talk about the great “Hammerin’ Hank Aaron.” We found it funny to hear a Japanese guide say “Hammerin’ Hank Aaron” amidst a string of words we didn’t know. How about translating
The Ultimate Baseball Road Trip
into Japanese and letting these folks in on our secrets?

Kevin:
Anyone want to volunteer for that job?

Josh:
Or to invent a smartphone app that will do it?

Outside the Miller Park gates stand statues of Aaron, Yount and Selig. The Selig statue was erected in 2010 to honor the former team owner’s commitment to bringing baseball to Milwaukee and his championing of the new ballpark. It was
not
built, we’ve been assured, to honor his work as commissioner.

We were more impressed by the statue of Yount, who played his entire career in Brewer blue, a feat rarely seen in the free-agent era. “Rockin’ Robin” played 242 games as a teenager. He won the MVP at two positions—shortstop and center field—and was an instrumental member of the 1982 World Series team. Yount banged out 3,142 career hits and was a first-ballot Hall of Famer.

The Aaron statue stands not far away. While there is nothing about Mr. Aaron that we could say that hasn’t been said before, we’ll try. The player who broke Babe Ruth’s homer record was understated, humble and graceful in practically every way. Aaron began and ended his career in Milwaukee, hitting his first big-league home run as a Brave and his last as a Brewer. Elected to the All-Star team in twenty-one of his twenty-three seasons, many people forget that he also won two batting titles and four Gold Gloves in right field. Averaging thirty-three homers a year and never hitting more than forty-four, Aaron has been remembered for his durability and consistency. He broke the Braves’ color barrier in 1954, then two decades later weathered hate-mail and death threats on the way to breaking Ruth’s longstanding record of 714 career dingers.

Starting near the Yount statue, granite home plates form a “walk of fame” that fans can traverse to honor the greatest Brewers of year’s past. In addition to the previously discussed statue-worthy team icons, these members also include Rollie Fingers, Paul Molitor, Cecil Cooper, Uecker, Gorman Thomas, Jim Gantner, Eddie Mathews, Warren Spahn, and a handful of former managers and front office executives.

The best way to enjoy Miller Park is to tailgate. No doubt about it. Why drink in a bar when you have to drive to the parking lot anyway? But if you’re inclined to go to a brew pub before or after the game, you’ll find no shortage of joints from which to choose. You don’t have to look far to find a watering hole in Milwaukee. Be it an old brewery-sponsored bar, a new microbrewery, a traditional bar, or a corner hole in the wall, the beer is always flowing. The Water Street area has a wealth of pubs within walking distance of one another and is a nice area for dining and nightlife. Additionally, crossing the bridge over the Milwaukee River offers the opportunity to identify one of the “Seven Smells of Milwaukee.” Also try the East Side neighborhood for some great joints, dives, and local hangouts.