| The Lookouts left Engel Stadium
for this ? This may be the best example of what is wrong with minor
league baseball. Teams are leaving perfectly fine baseball parks
to move into generic stadiums for the sole purpose of getting
luxury box revenue. I was greatly disappointed by BellSouth Park (now AT&T Field) -
it is a stadium built on the cheap that offers nothing unique and is simply
not an upgrade over the beautiful Engel Stadium. Apparently the owners
saw a similar park in Portland, ME
draw great crowds, so they thought they would build almost the same, identical
park in Chattanooga. The park is built on a hill with the freeway running
right by the third base side. I'm sure it was built to be scenic,
but there really is no view to speak of, even of the river which is close
by. My biggest complaint with the park is how cheap it feels - all
the upper level seating is set on metal and much of it is benches. The
concourse (like in Portland) is situated underneath the seating area, so
it is out of view from the playing field. It is very spacious and contains
numerous concessions stands, but with a very limited variety of choices.
Also off the concourse is a rather large gift store. Even the
color scheme of Bell South is similar to Hadlock - the seats are blue and
green. Sightlines are quite poor for some of the seats. Because they have angled the seats on the first base side, the right field corner is blocked out. One interesting touch is the location of the bullpens behind
the outfield fences. There's not much here to remind fans of Engel
Stadium, but I was able to find two things - the barber chair, and the very
talkative and entertaining program vendor ("Programs - just one teensy weensy
dollar !") Some cities build new parks because they actually need one.
Others just build them for the luxury boxes. Chattanooga is a
perfect example of the latter. What a shame.
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