Cubs Park

We've been waiting all season for the game at Cubs Park, the newest ballpark in the Cactus League system. There has been a great deal of publicity about it in the newspaper and on Facebook. The park is only about sixteen miles from Eagle View RV Park and is on the border of Mesa and Tempe. It's actually where Loop 101 and Loop 202 intersect on the site of the old Riverview Golf Course.

,

We parked on a grass field just behind the Center Field Gate. It was a l - o - n - g walk around the park to our seats on the other side of the outfield (we should have gone left instead of right when we entered) .

This is Erasmo Ramirez warming up. He is trying to crack the starting pitching rotation. He pitched 6 scoreless innings to lead the Mariners to a 3-0 win over the Chicago Cubs.

This is a shot of the Mariners crew just messing around with their warmups before the game. That's Cano (22) on the left, the heavily-bearded one is Dustin Ackley, and Justin Smoak (17) is on the right.

They were announcing that the game was a sell-out on signs as we approached on the highway. I guess they are trying to discourage people without tickets from proceeding...

This picture is of the grass seating on either side. The crowd was announced at 15,243, a new record.

 

 
This is where we were sitting. It's a long way to the infield and you really had to focus to keep track of what was happening. The rail for me was right at eye level and I had to peer under or over that top rail to see the scoreboard or what was happening in the outfield. The Cub organization brags that there is not a bad seat in the house -- the people around us definitely did not agree!

There was a light cirrus cloud cover overhead most of the day. The temperature was 78 degrees at game time, so the cloud cover was very welcome.