Steve A.
Yelp
Okay, I didn't get kicked out of here. No one spat in my food or stole my stuff. But since most baseball games are a 4-5 star experience, I feel the need to draw a clear distinction. First impression: ugliest ballpark I've ever seen. It looks like a suburban strip mall, and the big Coca Cola brand name only enhances that impression. The inside is similarly sterile. About all it has going for it is that you can walk all the way around.
Next: They were sold out of everything but general admission. Coming in, they were happy to have us pay for parking without telling us the game was sold out. Not that it mattered to us, but I can see where some people might not want a choice between standing or bleacher lawn seating. At least they do have general admission, but what it tells me is that they need a bigger ballpark.
Onto the game: Unprofessional. Music is played between EVERY PITCH. Every other park will play a little ditty every few pitches, then the next batter's music, whatever. It got tired really quickly and became grating to the point that I was thankful for the rain delay because it shut the music up. Sorta. They still tried to play (annoying pop) music during the delay, along with 10+ year old clips of Phillies stuff no one was watching. (Note that A-B-E is as much Yankees territory as Phillies.) I don't think I can make it through 9 innings of constant noise. To further justify "unprofessional," they turned the name of visiting player Chun-Hsiu Chen (notice how I took the time to spell that correctly) as "Chun Chen," which just _sounds_ racist from the get-go. What it really is, is racially ignorant, and that's absolutely unforgiveable.
The final straw: At the end of the first inning, I started seeing lightning over the left field seats. After a couple of strikes, thunder started rumbling in. Every other ballpark would have called the game by that point, if not sooner, but no, they kept playing until the rain came down. Someone could have been hit by lightning by that point! I would have thought they have no one watching the weather, because they started to dry the field out again only to have another storm roll through - tarp starts to come back out, storm stops again. Then, they dry the field and have it just about ready to play, all the while a storm is about 2 minutes to the west and moving fast. So is there really no one paying attention to weather? Even in the name of public safety? Then I put it all together - they do a very brisk concession business during rain delays. They want your money! They kept saying the game "would be played" so that people would stay around and, bored, keep eating a drinking. With the weather coming in, it was a sure bet to cancel the game completely, especially at the AAA level. I had it confirmed as I left that they knew the bad weather was still coming and coming.
So in short, it's a corporate ballpark. Profit-driven, no ambiance, all in the name of packing in people and profit and not giving a damn otherwise. Yes, they have the fun game where you pee in the urinal and try to smash into penguins as you go. Fun, if not bloody. It was at ONE urinal of the several. If you're going to do a gimmick like that, at least do it right? Doesn't surprise me. It's just one more draw that they try to get to pack the people in. Well, I'm not going to be packed in again. Christopher C. (4/15/2012) hit the nail on the head.
P.S./tl;dr: If you want to see AAA baseball, drive up to Scranton.