I'm going to try to add a few more pictures this time, and I'll add a few of the stadiums I talked about yesterday.

After Cleveland, I hiked north to Detroit, where Comerica Park beckoned. Comerica Park is one of those stadiums that is placed right next to the city's football stadium, and surrounded by lots of parking lots, though still right within the downtown part of the city, nearby Detroit's Greektown. I had just standing room for this park, and this may have been the best park we went to for standing room, as I think there were the most different vantage points from which a stander could see. (As an aside, one thing I noticed was that Detroit simply does not take enough advantage of the using the Tiger as mascot on apparel - all animal teams should be using their animals, as it's a huge advantage over teams without animals - sure, the D is nice, but how about a few more hats with tigers on them?) For the beginning and end of the game, I stood in the left field standing area, which was right near a series of statues of Tigers' Hall of Famers, like Hank Greenberg and Mechanical Man (one of the great nicknames) Charlie Gehringer. From virtually everywhere on the field level could I peak in and take a look at the game, and I watched parts or full innings from nearly everywhere, and watched a couple of innings in the right field standing area. There was no scenic backdrop to the park, and aside from Milwaukee, which was a strange scenario as a dome, this park felt the most contained within itself, rather than at play at all with the outside world. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing - I'm trying to figure out why this is - I think it's possibly because I felt it was the most lit up park, it seemed like the biggest, walking around (though I'm not sure if it really is), and the lack of a backdrop - really all you saw from any vantage point was the stadium. Also, if one of the two small moments of rudeness I experienced on our trip, when I incidentally walked up towards what was a private deck (which there was no way to possibly know) the woman working there told me to get out like I was a trespasser coming to steal some private views.

Next up, Cincinnati, where I viewed an afternoon game at the Great American Ballpark. My preference for day games was nearly overshadowed by the scorchingly hot temperatures at the stadium. I felt higher in Cincinnati than I had in any other park we had been to in our seats, but that may very well have been a function more of where I was sitting than the park itself. The centerfield view was over the Ohio River, which was pretty nifty, and a couple of bridges that crossed over it. Walking around the park gave me one of the best views I saw at any stadium - in a small area nearby home plate, I was able to get a field level view I stayed at for a couple of innings. The outfield area offered several intriguing vantage points as well - a huge standing area in Center was underneath some apparatus that shot water up in the air for some reason I could not figure out. The outfield walkway also offered great views of the river, and I somewhat unintentially interupted a tender moment between a man and woman when moving in for a particularly scenic view. There was a Reds museum just outside the park, but apparently it was a paid admission, which was sad - otherwise the entrance was really nothing too special.

Here's some pictures taken by one of my traveling companions,


So here's PNC's scoreboard, and the circular ramp entranceway off to the left of it.

Here's a view of the river from the stadium - research tells me it's the Alleghany River



Here's the Indians Hall of Fame Plaques at Progressive Field



Progressive Field and beautiful Downtown Cleveland


Commercia Park and with scenic Ford Field in the backdrop


Tigers retired numbers below their statues



Great American Ballpark