Travel Tips

Albuquerque's new Isotopes Park will have it's grand opening on April 11, 2003, at the first home game of the minor league baseball team's inaugural season.

On Saturday, April 5, the stadium held an open house. More about the stadium (and the team) can be found on my Albuquerque VT page with various "General Tips", "Sports Tips" and a Travelogue. But I had so many good photos of the stadium, I wanted to share a few more here. Enjoy!!

The $1 million scoreboard is of a type common at European soccer stadiums but is only one of two in the United States (the other is in Atlanta, Georgia).

There is a wide variety of food available at the various concession stands. In addition to hot dogs, hamburgers, pizza slices, and peanuts, you can also buy burritos, chimichangas, BBQ nachos, and Indian tacos. Yum!!

The new team's mascot was also unveiled at Saturday's open house. It's an atomic creature named "Orbit" - very popular with the kids, I'm sure.

During the open house, I checked out seats in many different sections. There doesn't seem to be a bad seat in the entire stadium - all of them have a great view of the field. The stadium has over 11,000 reserved seats, plus more seating available in the 30 luxury suites.

Beyond the left-field fence, there's a "Picnic Pavilion" where groups of up to 500 people will be served catered picnics.

To right-field is a large grassy slope on which you can sit during the baseball games. General admission tickets for this section cost just $5.00. The unique drive-in section popular at the previous Albuquerque Sports Stadium (home of the Dukes, before they were sold to Portland, Oregon, in 2001) has been removed because of security reasons.

Ticket prices for the ball games are very reasonable: box seats cost $10, reserved seats are $8, and the aforementioned "berm" seating (general admission) costs $5.

There will be giveaways for about 40 of the games this year, ranging from free baseballs and seat cushions to water bottles and knee pads.

This is an absolutely beautiful stadium; I really like how the outer walls reflect the color of adobe giving a Southwestern personality to the structure.

I think we are all happy to finally have professional baseball back in Albuquerque. Go 'Topes!!!