Baseball in Salt Lake City–from the travels of Todd Carton

One of the joys of minimally planned travel is having the flexibility to make last minute changes to any day’s activities. This was the case for me last week in when I was in Salt Lake City and I learned that the Salt Lake City Bees – the AAA affiliate of the Los Angeles Angels would be playing the Albuquerque Isotopes (yes, they were named for the team that Albuquerque “stole” from Springfield in a 2001 episodes of the Simpsons!). A quick early morning visit to their website showed that plenty of tickets were available so I changed my plans to be certain I’d be back in time to take in the game.

 

The Bees play at Smith’s Ballfield which was a bit less than two miles straight south of the hotel where I was staying. It lived up to its reputation as having one of the nicer vistas in minor league baseball.

 

 

 

All the seats in the 14,511 capacity are reserved. General admission ticket holders sit on the grassy area behind the outfield fence. I did a bit of both.

 

I was a bit surprised when I entered the stadium and a young woman handed me a towel emblazoned with Salt Lake Gulls. My confusion increased when I looked at the scoreboard and it read Dukes and Gulls. Asking around, I discovered that it was a throwback night to the franchise nicknames of a decade ago.

 

As for the game, although the Bees currently lead the PCL Pacific Southern Division, that Friday’s game was all Albuquerque. The Isotopes/Dukes scored in every inning except the fifth and ninth and their starting pitcher, Barry Enright, who entered the game with an ERA near 6.00 shut down the Bees on four hits over six and two-thirds innings as the visitors romped to an 11-1 win in front of an announced crowd of 7,231. However, judging from this picture,

 

 

 

the actual attendance was much smaller. You can see a few other pictures here.

 

The tab for parking, the ticket and food (including and $8.50 Shock Top draft) came to about $35.00. So, while it wasn’t an inexpensive night, it certainly was a fun one.

Todd Carton
There is One Response to this Post
  1. Todd

    Here’s the link to the Smith’s Ballpark photos that didn’t come through in the story:

    https://goo.gl/photos/cGA46nakiT2hENVA7

    Reply ·   11/12/2019

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