Originally written December 3, 2011

As a Braves fan, it wasn't much of a choice that I had to see the Surprise Saguaros during my trip out to Arizona for Arizona Fall League baseball.  Along with the Braves, the Surprise Saguaros were the team made up from prospects from the Texas Rangers, Florida Miami Marlins, Tampa Bay Rays and Kansas City Royals.  The Braves homer in me made it a priority that I had to see the Saguaros out in Surprise, even if I didn't get to see them anywhere else throughout the duration of my trip.

I'll concede that Salt River Fields at Talking Stick is probably the nicest ballpark out of the six AFL parks, but I will go on record by saying that Surprise Stadium was probably my favorite overall.  Not because of my rampant homerism favoring anything Atlanta Braves-related over all else, but because to my personal preferences, Surprise Stadium was more pleasing to me than any of the other AFL parks visited.

In the spring, Surprise serves as the Spring Training home to both the Texas Rangers and the Kansas City Royals.  As I'm coming to the hypothetical conclusion, I have to assume that parks being backed by two franchises tend to be better financed, and therefore built to nicer standards than single team-use parks.  Whereas Salt River impresses with architecture and a modern aesthetic, Surprise gets my favor by being a little more traditional, but by doing everything clean and correctly.

This was very pleasing to me, as Surprise is the furthest west of all the AFL parks, significantly outside the Metropolitan Phoenix area as they come, and was kind of a pain in the ass to get to; it would have been unfortunate to have made such efforts only for the place to turn out to be a dump.  Instead, when I made my way to Surprise, it was a pleasant surprise (no pun intended) to find the most beautiful ballpark in all of the Arizona Fall League.  Upon arrival is a complex just on the outskirts of a bustling commercial area, with just enough space to flourish and serves its purpose as a vast spring training complex for two teams.  Surprise Stadium was to me, the AFL’s crown jewel of lush greenery, without being as busy or glamorous as Salt River was.

The overall size of Surprise Stadium itself is more along the lines of an A-level or AA-level ballpark, but unlike Phoenix Municipal, everything about the place was clean, well-manicured, and had an elegant look to it.  The outfield grass bern is more less hilly than all the others, leading for people to have plenty to view without giant graded hills to traverse.  Like at Salt River, Surprise’s outfield is split by the opposing sides housing the office and training facilities for both the Texas Rangers and Kansas City Royals.  Space around the entire stadium is wide and spacious, with little chance of rubbing shoulders, even in the most crowded of conditions.

Perhaps it just happened to be the day in which I attended a game, but it couldn’t have been any more out of a picture perfect day to watch a baseball game.  The skies were a bluer blue than I tend to see on the east coast, and there were tons of white fluffy clouds in the sky, like it was a painting.  The weather was a mild 70 degrees of Arizona fall climate, and there was baseball in front of my eyes, sitting in the front row right behind home plate.  But I can assure that it had nothing to do with the Braves affiliation with the Surprise Saguaros, but I can pretty easily say that Surprise Stadium was my favorite of the AFL parks.

Notable Performances: A disappointment to me would be lack of Braves prospects being utilized in this particular game, the one and only time I would see the Saguaros on my entire AFL trip.  I'm glad I got to see Braves prospect J.J. Hoover do well, completing two innings of not inconsequential work, but Joe Terdoslovich had an 0-fer, and none of the other Braves players made an appearance on that day.  Texas Rangers prospect, Leonys Martin had a big day going 3-for-3, with a double and two RBI, but despite coming out on the losing end, Boston Red Sox prospect Alex Hassan had the best game of the day, going 3-for-3 as well, but with all of his hits being for extra bases (two doubles, HR) and notching three RBI.  Too bad whenever I see Alex Hassan's name, I can only remember him as someone who was victimized in the covert Duke University “Fuck List” Powerpoint presentation that went viral a few years back.

Game Result: Due to one of the involved teams being the Scottsdale Scorpions, once again, it was another seven-inning affair.  However, no matter how popular Scorpions were in 2011, in terms of wins and losses, they were still behind the curve.  The home team Surprise Saguaros defeated the visiting Scorpions by a score of 6-4.

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