After a 4 hour drive, interrupted by the temporary closing of I-85, we made our way to Gwinnett Stadium on Saturday night, to watch the Gwinnett Braves and Charlotte Knights square off in a late season match-up.  Per the Gwinnett website, I punched the ballpark address into my GPS, [...]]]>

Gwinnett Stadium - Lawrenceville, GA

After a 4 hour drive, interrupted by the temporary closing of I-85, we made our way to Gwinnett Stadium on Saturday night, to watch the Gwinnett Braves and Charlotte Knights square off in a late season match-up.  Per the Gwinnett website, I punched the ballpark address into my GPS, but it really gave us the long way around.  You’re much better off by taking the Buford Drive exit off I-85 than meandering for miles through the surrounding suburb as we did.

The ballpark is brand new this year, and while it had everything you would expect from a family friendly entertainment mecca in suburban Atlanta, I found the whole stadium itself to be unremarkable.  There was a good size crowd, yet they really didn’t seem to have an efficient traffic plan for getting people in.

Once we were in and parked, the most amazing thing about the park in total was the number of tailgaters that had clearly been out already for a few hours.  I’ve tailgated minor league games before, and it’s a lot of fun, but generally the rest of the crowd looks at us funny. In Gwinnett, people had grills going, and their UGA tents up, and were having a good old time like it was a college football Saturday.

The outside of the park was not particularly distinguished…  It’s a single level park, with the only upper deck seating being luxury suites and a party deck.  It’s built into a sloping piece of land, so the field is well below street level, and there are berms and patios in the OF area that are 50 feet or moe above the playing surface.

There’s a solid, but unspectacular scoreboard in right-center, and the outfield walls are reminiscent of Turner Field.  Beyond thew walls, there’s a brick wall in left, necessitated by the slope, and right field ends in grass berms.

Inflatable City

Here’s something interesting about the layout…  many times when new parks are built, they do their best to try and take advantage of a natural backdrop – like the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, or a downtown vista.  There’s nothing to see in or around Gwinnett, so instead, the outfield is ringed with the largest collection of inflatable amusements for the kids.  I counted at least 10 different attractions, and it makes for the most unique skyline.

One odf the things I was most interested to see was the diverse set of concesions available throughout the park. I was a little disappointed to find a number fo the stands were closed, even through the park was at “Berm Tickets Only” capacity on a Saturday night. My guess is that they opened with the idea of one of the most diverse ballpark menus around, and it was probably hard to maintain.

Of the available options, “Choppers Corner” was the most consistently crowded, and it offers only the most pedestrian options (hotdog, burgers, nachos, beer).  The hotdogs were very good – high quality Hebrew National franks, but they had clearly been pre-made, and the buns were crushed. We also tried the garlic fries from the “Catcher’s Mitt” stand, and they were quite good, and not too greasy or overwhelmed with the garlic like you might find at ATT Park in San Francisco. Later in the evening, I tried the Chicken Philly sandwich from “Georgia 44″.  Tasted fine, and was a quality size portion… but way to much bread for the amount of sandwich filling involved.

Our seats were down the 3rd baseline, just beyond the infield.  Unfortunately, the seats were oriented with a view towards centerfield, so watching the batter/pitcher matchup meant craning your neck all night.  In a new park, this is unforgiveable.  the last major league park to make this mistake was new Comiskey, and it’s been the bane of that stadium ever since.  However, seats and aisles provided decent personal space, and a cupholder.

I’d also recommend buying the cheapest ticket you can find, and sitting where you want.  the ushers did not seem interested in enforcing seating, as we saw dozens of people in our section have to re-seat themselves when the rightful ticketholder arrived.

When the Braves decided not to renew their lease for their AAA team in Richmond, this park was built in less than a year in order to be open on time.  I think it’s fair to say that it feels a bit rushed at this stage, and I’d hope they’d try to complete some of their vision in the upcoming offseason, as well as make a few tweaks to increase enjoyment for the game watching public.  There’s plenty of potential here, I just don’t think they’ve realized all of it yet.

Final Score: 80/100