Accessibility Review: Nationals Park Section 141

For Opening Day 2014 we ended up with tickets in section 141.  I would have preferred to be up a level, but certainly better than when Mom and I had seats one row from the top for the Opening Day six years ago when they opened Nationals Park.  Also, good seats considering we only finally decided to go to Opening Day versus another game while in DC this weekend and this game ended up being a sellout with the second highest Opening Day attendance for this park.

The main downsides to this section are you cannot see the scoreboard because you are under it and you cannot see plays that happen deep in the outfield in front of you.  However, they do have TV screens showing the game, which are nicely placed sideways instead of straight in front of you. Thus, they are not obstructing the view, but are still easy to look over at.

Mik was of course happy with the section because there were cup holders.  The section had a standing view are behind it, but it was nicely separated and you did not feel crowded even though the concourse was very busy and we were on the end of the row.

Overall section 141 was good, but I still like the view of the park best from the right field terrace level (sections even numbers between 222 and 236) and in particular 224. Maybe, I'm biased just from having sat there so many times when I had partial season tickets during the park's inaugural season, but I have sat in 236 and in left field mezzanine level (203 I think) and 224 remains my favorite.

Mik also said he preferred the view from 224 at least based on his remembering it from the brief few minutes we sat in 224 before getting to go to the Diamond Club on the ballpark trip.  Also, Mik found the speakers in 141 to be too loud and they really bothered him before the game when they are constantly on. I remember him having that issue a few years back at Chase Field.  Both times those were seats on the main level covered concourse area and I don't think he would have a problem with the open area upper levels like 224 is.

Mik's Mini Ballplayer Collection: Louisville Slugger

Dad and I had a hard time choosing just one mini figure for Mik's collection when we were at the Louisville Slugger Museum to see the Big Leagues, Little Bricks Exhibit.  They had several that were from the National Baseball Hall of Fame series and it was tempting to get those, but in the end we decided not to since we were not at the Hall of Fame and none of them were among the players Mik particularly favored.  The figure with a Louisville Slugger uniform made sense, though.

Big Leagues, Little Bricks LEGO exhibit at Louisville Slugger Museum

 Earlier this month Dad and I were driving through Louisville and noticed a billboard for a LEGO exhibit at the Louisville Slugger Museum.  The Big Leagues, Little Bricks exhibit requires admission to the Lousiville Slugger Museum, which also includes the factory tour, but since we have done that twice before and did not want to add to much more time to our travel day we just saw the exhibit and the shop (had to get a new figure for Mik's mini ballplayer collection!).

The exhibit features models of several ballparks at different scales.  The largest model is of Wrigley Field.  The other ballpark models include Miller Park and PNC Park.

The exhibit also featured some LEGO murals.  My favorite was the one called Take Me Out to the Ball Game.  This features the lyrics raised as part of an image of a player at bat.  There were also murals of ballplayers.

One of the more interesting parts of the exhibit was a display of bats made out of different materials including cardboard, glass, and, of course, LEGOs.

The exhibit also features LEGO models of figures doing different baseball moves such as sliding, pitching, catching, and hitting.  There is also an area to build your own LEGO creations.

Kj's Baseball Collection: 1993-2012 Chipper Jones

I did not even think of getting a baseball when we were at the Chipper Jones Number Retirement game because I remember them having nothing special back in 2009 when we went to Maddux's number retirement.  However, I guess because Chipper Jones was a much more major player for the team they did have merchandise (or they have learned from people wanting to buy stuff and there being nothing) including a baseball with an image of Chipper Jones and the years he was active/a Brave.

Mik's Mini Ballplayer Collection: Chipper Jones

The Chipper Jones mini figure was the obvious choice for Mik to get for his mini ballplayer collection when we went to the Chipper Jones Number Retirement game.  It was from the generation one series that was released last year rather than this year's series and was overpriced at $20 vs. the normal $12.99, but it makes sense for his collection and there likely will not be another one featuring him and the other players/generation two figures may be around on another visit.

Accessibility Review: Turner Field Section 229/231

On June 28, 2013, we went to the Dbacks @ Braves game.  Mik wanted to go to the game as soon as he found out that the one time the Dbacks were in town at the new closest MLB ballpark for us (4 hours vs. when we were only 2 hours from Phoenix) was also when they were retiring Chipper Jones jersey (only one of Mik's favorite players that was never a Dback or a pitcher).  I put off getting the tickets for awhile since we did not know our flights for our Disney Cruise until late April.  Once I knew we would be back in barely more than enough time to get to Atlanta for the game I found the game sold out when I went to the regular online ticket buying, but when I clicked the accessible link and went through the chat process to purchase there were still wheelchair seats with the best available being in 229.


Not sure if the seats have been changed throughout the park since 2009 or it is just the 200 level, but they now have seats that can be folded and swung to the side out of the way every two or three spaces for the accessible rows.  That seems to be an improvement, but sadly still no cup holders and it is annoying with the regular seats in that section having them.

The view from our seats was not bad, but the scoreboard was partially blocked.  Mostly that did not matter, but during the Chipper Jones number retiring ceremony it was annoying to not be able to see what was going on on the field due to only seeing the bottom half of the scoreboard.  Since the row is raised up a good amount from the section, heads do not get in the way, but it also leads to it being mainly just an obstructed scoreboard view for the accessible row.  They attempt to fix this problem with television screens, but the one in our section was not on and there was nothing they could do about it (or even say that it was broken).  What is really sad is now that I look at the ballpark map, I believe we got seated in 231 and not our ticketed section of 229 and that TV worked.

Mik Food Scrapbook: Corn Dog @ Turner Field

Mik was not sure what to have at the ballpark after referring to his post from 2009.  He considered some waffle fries, but he wanted something more than that, so Dad and I walked to the stands near our seats to see what we could find for him to try.  We decided to get him a corn dog, which he ended up enjoying and did not need any waffle fries in the end.