Our review of Great American Ballpark - Cincinnati Reds (6/8)

As the baseball marathon road trip continues, the whole family had to deal with the toughest day of all on the trip.  Michael and I drove back to Chicago from Miller Park Tuesday night and got back at just after midnight.  Then, four hours later, we had to hit the road and leave my beloved Chicago behind so we could make a 12:30 pm game in Cincinnati between the Reds and the Cubs – and do it all on Michael’s Birthday!!!  Yes, my main man turned 11 today.  And I have to say, he has been a great kid on the trip.  So far, he’s had only one moment of “I want to go home” and that was after we pulled into Denver after three long days of driving from Seattle.  He got over it after getting a good night rest and he hasn’t had another moment since.

Anyway, Helen provided driving support for me this morning as we crossed the great state of Indiana and into Ohio.  I drove a little over half way, but Helen was a huge help as I got my first nap of the trip in the car.  So far, we have logged over 5,000 miles and we aren’t even half way done.  Anyway, we pulled into Cincinnati and met up with my old law partner in my firm, Eric Wittenberg and his wife Susan who drove down from Columbus where they live.  Helen wasn’t feeling well enough to go to the game so her and Andie stayed home.  It was probably best since it was really HOT AND HUMID!!  Nothing like a day game in 97 degree 80% humidity weather! 

Great American Park is a really nice park.  It sits right on the north bank of the Ohio River along the back of the right field stands.  The entire stadium has a riverboat theme to it.  It’s a smaller park, but it has a really nice feel to it.  There is a giant scoreboard/video board in the upper deck in left field and the center field has a riverboat restaurant, which was a cooler place to watch a game then where we were – right along the left field line in the middle of the sweltering sun.   The place was well-attended for the weather and it being a Wednesday afternoon.  The views from the park are very nice.  In the distance, you can see buildings on the other side of the Ohio River, which incidentally is in Kentucky.  Unfortunately, the Cubs managed to pull the game out on back-to-back home runs in the 4^th inning and they went on to win 4-1.  There’s really not a bad seat in the house.  Michael had his toughest time at the game because of the heat.  If it wasn’t so bad, we would have walked around a little more, but we still managed to see a good part of the park.  I’d say it’s definitely in the upper half of parks.  And thanks again to Eric and Susan for spending Michael's birthday with our family.

Great American Park from the outside

The view from our seats.  We just can't seem to shake the Cub fans.

Cincinnati has a very nice scoreboard.  Although, I'm partial to having them in center field.

The view from behind left field.
That's the Ohio River in the background and the buildings across the river are in Kentucky.

This is a great mosaic of the Reds players from the Big Red Machine of the early 1970s.

Check out the riverboat in center field - nice!

Here’s Michael’s take:

Hey everyone, it’s me Michael.  First of all, I had a great birthday.  I got treated to a nice dinner with my family and dad’s friends.  Then we went to this ice cream place called Graters’ in Cincinnati.  That was some good ice cream.  I just wished it was a little cooler, but I guess that’s what I get for being born in June.  Anyway, I really liked the Reds’ park.  It’s pretty simple, but I liked the views of the River.  And the food was really good.  I had a Skyline hot dog, which was a chili dog that had cinnamon flavor in it.  It was really good.  Anyway, I give the stadium an 8 out of 10.

Well there you have it.  We wake up bright and early as we head up to the Motor City – Detroit, Michigan.  We’ll be there a couple of days and I will be staying at my brother’s house, who I haven’t seen in about 20 years.  Andie and Helen will take off back to Phoenix on Friday and it will just be Michael and I for the next week until they rejoin us in New York for a little over a week.  We hope to hit the Motown Museum and maybe even the Henry Ford museum.  We are scheduled to see the Tigers take on the Mariners (that’s the fourth and final time for these guys) on Friday night.  We’ll have our updated rankings through Great American Ballpark tomorrow and we also hope to have the St. Louis, Milwaukee, Chicago, and Cincinnati videos up throughout the next couple of days.  More tomorrow!