Brady and I head home today after seeing four ball games in four days as part of our annual Baseball Trip. Having checked out the Rangers’ new stadium on this Texas visit, we have now visited all MLB Ball Parks except for the Seattle Mariners’ T-Mobile Park. That is on our list for next year.
In addition to visiting MLB parks and stadiums we have also been checking out NFL venues. This year, thanks to the scheduling gods, we managed to catch two football and two baseball games as we visited both Houston (Astros and Texans) and Dallas (Cowboys and Rangers.)
We started in Houston and watched the Texans vs. 49ers in a Thursday night game. Friday we drove up to Dallas where we watched the Cowboys play and beat the Seahawks in a night game.
The Dallas Cowboys’ Stadium is officially named AT&T. However, it is most commonly referred to as Jerry World after the Cowboys’ owner Jerry Jones.
Everything about it is very “Texas” in that everything is big and grandiose. Some critics have even called it a “shrine to football excess.” I understand why that opinion has some merit.
All that said though, I got to admit that AT&T was quite the stadium experience and one I’d rank in my top five with an asterisk. The asterisk would note that while I won’t say that it is in my list of favorite stadiums, I concede that it is pretty awesome. (Ok, so maybe their Cheerleaders influenced my opinion a bit.)
Saturday night in Arlington, Texas, we got around to the main purpose of our trip and checked out the Rangers in their Globe Life Ball Park.
Sunday we were back to Houston and caught the Astros play our boys the Orioles in Minute Maid Park which is in my top five favorites. (We visited it in 2003 and other than Camden Yards, it remains the only MLB park that we have made a return visit to.)
Of course we were hoping to see our O’s sweep the Astros after beating them in the first two games of the series. However, they came up a little short and lost 3-1.
Even if it didn’t work out as we had hoped and planned, it was still a great time. Minute Maid may well be my second favorite ballpark to Camden Yards. Minute Maid is a great place to kick back in and watch some ball. Also, the Astros fans are very nice folks and help make the overall experience a fun one. (Thank you Dondra!)
Music plays a big part in the whole ball park experience helping to entertain and rile up fans (click here for related article.) At the 4 ballparks we visited, this tune was played at 3 of them and of course you got to remember that we were in Texas. I don’t recall hearing it played at other parks we have visited. This was from the Texans’ NRG Stadium: