Originally written April 30, 2009

The 2009 season kind of snuck up on me. I didn’t really give much thought to where I wanted to travel for the season, and like I did in 2008, at least one big trip where I’d hit up multiple parks would have to be on the agenda somewhere. But what about the in-between times? Minor-league ball and Nationals Park weren’t going to satiate my desire to expand my ballpark horizons.

So, it all boiled down to just looking at the Braves calendar, and see who they were drawing on the road on weekends in cities not too far away from Atlanta, and the key was, playing an afternoon game, which would afford me the opportunity to fly in, in the morning, watch baseball, grab a bite to eat, and fly out, and make it back to Atlanta in the evening.

Enter Cincinnati, home of the Reds. The Reds have the dubious honor of being the FIRST Major League Baseball central-division baseball team that I have ventured out towards. Nothing against the Central, just never thought about going out there just yet. But anyway.

I actually flew in from my old home in Virginia, on an eye-straining 6:10 a.m. flight leaving Reagan National, and getting me into Cincinnati-Kentucky CVG airport at like 7:45. This would be the first experimental day-trip for baseball that I’d be making, so I hoped for the best.

I rented a car, since probably a round trip’s worth of taxi cabs would have been more than the paltry sum I paid for a rental, that served a dual purpose of being my storage locker, since airports no longer have rent-a-lockers in fear that people would like, bombs or something.

It was a leisurely drive from North Kentucky into Cincinnati, and I arrived way early. No bother; I found a place to park my car relatively inexpensively, and I spent a good portion of the early morning walking around in the late spring morning. The weather for a day of baseball couldn’t have been any better than it was that morning. I actually walked into Kentucky again for food, and walked back when more things started opening up.

Panoramic photo edited by Danny Hong, April 2009

The park is quite plain, as it comes to baseball ballparks. But there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. The walkways are not too narrow, and there is an airy openness to the park as a whole that allows the gentle breezes from the Ohio River to blow around comfortably.

The seats were well planned, are all angled, so that the patron would always be facing towards home plate, where the action is. They’re standard sized, and not uncomfortable to sit in. Everything is also very red – but that’s lamely obvious, considering the team’s name is the Reds.

The Power Stacks out in center field are also a nice sight in person. The whole thing as a whole seems kind of hokey, and I’ve gotten the impression that many locals also feel the same way, but hey, it’s a part of Ohio’s reputation, so why not roll with it. I enjoyed how they shot fireworks when a Red hits a homer. It’s certainly one of those things that any baseball fan sees on television, and is kind of surreal when you’re actually there.

And the field itself – one thing noted was the subtle advertising done at GABP. Not so in-your-face ads everywhere, like it is in Atlanta, but all the advertisements are conglomerated on the big scoreboard out in left field which is pretty cool in its own right, being all new and fancy graphics. Right field also has some ads on the wall, like a minor league park, which is pretty good at keeping it subtle too. And of course, the field is one of the smallest in baseball, and I wondered how many GABP-only homers I would see on the course of the day.

Food options were well done, because Cincy has things they like to boast, like Skyline Chili, which when I ate it was good, but not to the standards that Cincinnati locals had hyped it up for me. But name-brand establishments instead of generic ARAMARK branded crap being sold there though, which I could appreciate.

Overall, Great American Ball Park is a winner. A great ballpark in a nice city. The Reds are quite lucky to be playing in such a decent place and I could see myself one day returning to GABP and the city of Cincinnati for a relaxing weekend once the brunt of my travels have been finished.

Noteable performance:   Joey Votto, 1B Cincinnati Reds. Certainly wasn’t one of my Braves players who did any sort of standing out that day. Votto went a perfect 4-for-4 batting, with TWO home runs, much to the delight of the Cincinnati locals. Braves import project Kenshin Kawakami was utterly crap that day, and backup catcher David Ross was the only reason we avoided a shutout with his own homer late in the game.

Game Result:   Cincinnati Reds win, 8-2. At least I could take solace in the fact that the Braves had taken the first two games of the series, and that the Reds were just playing to avoid getting swept at home. But it still kind of stinks knowing that the one game that I show up for is the one where the Braves don’t even look good and/or put up a fighting chance. Overall, the Braves are 2-5 in my presence at away games. Maybe I should just stop trying to see the Braves on the road…

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