The Second Ugliest Stadium In Baseball

I am one of those people who love to meditate and watch baseball. I have been to ballparks in other cities and love to compare them to my home stadium - Skydome (Rogers Centre) which was built in 1999. The Jays were losing last night so I spent a lot of time studying the stadium. Only Oakland and Tampa have uglier ball parks.

Fake grass sucks. I felt like I was watching a Japanese league game. Usually the dome is open - but its been raining this week and it costs a fortune to open it so they leave it closed until a big stretch of clear weather is foretasted.

Had they waited 2 or 3 years the dome would have been glass like it is in many modern ball parks. In 1989 the Skydome was state of the art and arguably attracted the talent we needed to win back to back world series (we hosted the all star game back then as well).

In times since - it has fallen into disrepair. Rogers bought it for 30m which is less than they would pay for a superstar. They put some money into immediate repair - bought new turf - build dirt base running lanes and made some changes to the concessions.

They have apparently put a local University on contract to develop a grass mix that could grow in the Rogers Centre. This would involve giant lights on wheels moving up and down the turf (even with the dome open). They have talked about ripping out the seats and re-configuring the park specifically for baseball. After ice fell from the CN tower and pierced the Dome I think its time to look at a new roof.

I love the new ball parks and are incredibly simple (like in Philadelphia). They don't try to do anything other than provide an amazing "open air" baseball experience.

While I might have been in a good location to catch a foul - im glad I never sit in the same section twice. I was disappointed by the game - disappointed bythe ballpark - but even more disappointed by the number of people on their phones texting their friends or following the basketball game.

I'm a baseball fan - I'll go to any game at any stadium - but in order to get casual baseball fans filling the seats every night - the stadium needs to be redeveloped (not torn down) - and pricing on concession items should be lowered and built into the price of the ticket. Nobody should pay $20 for a drink, hotdog and popcorn to sit in a stadium that is 30 years past its prime!

Donaldson and Tulo were out for injuries. Stroman barely made it out of the first inning - Morales hasn't been able to hit the ball (Grichuck would have been a better option).. But they look OKAY for April but theres nothing worse than watching your starting pitcher blow up in the first - you know its going to be a LONG game.

Go Jays!