With the latest comparisons in the newspaper in Syracuse and all I decided to go to P&C Stadium to take a look for myself. I'll blatantly say to start with that I don't feel P&C even compares to Frontier. With that said, it certainly is an improvement over their old ballpark. What I will basically do is run through everything at P&C Stadium.
I have said this before, but why did they put the park where it is? While it is very convenient for Rochester fans driving up on the thru-way, it is on one side of the city and is in a very beaten up area. There seems to be a few houses and a few industrial buildings and little else. One of the things that makes Frontier what it is happens to be it's fine location. You get a great view of the skyline here and you are within walking distance of High Falls, which is one thing that benefits from Frontier here.
After last nights Rhino game, I walked down there and a large number of Rhino fans did the same. They stopped at the restauraunts and this is something else that makes a stadium worth the money. The stadium has already spurred some growth in High Falls with two additional occupents moving in soon. This is a plus, plus for everyone and that was blown in Syracuse. Not only do you lose a nice view, but you lose a chance to enhance downtown like what is going on here.
Well, moving on, you then pull into the stadiums main, gravel parking lot. They then have four ticket windows, not anywhere as classy as at Frontier. You then go up a stairway to the "open air concourse". The idea seems decent, but it does not quite work out in Syracuse...
There are a number of pretzel vendors (among others) lined up to where you might be able to get a view of the game. I don't think you would really get a good view of the game anyways, but now the only thing you have a chance of seeing are the vendors at most stands! On top of that they have no TV's so almost everything is lost.
Now to move on to the food aspect of things, their selection pales in comparison to Frontier. They seem to have several less stands than Frontier, and the selection is worse then what there was at Silver (as at least Silver had a chicken stand). We can all probably thank the Rhinos for raising the standard of food here with the vendors they used last year and the Wings did a fine job replacing them.
Well, how I'll compare something that no one has compared, but I simply couldn't resist doing so after seeing them in Syracuse: the bathrooms! There seemed to be quite a few more in Rochester, but the appearcnce inside the ones in Syracuse paled in comparison also. The ceiling (or lack of) looked very similar to the way the entrance in the War Memorial looked this year because of renovation's, very lacking. You could see pipes and all, a ceiling would have been nice. Also, the overall appearence at Frontier is just much better!
Now back to the more normal comparisons! I know some have made the upper deck to be a plus, but I simply don't see it that way. It separates the crowd and the fans up there are further from the action (they gave away seats for the upper deck the night I went and it was less than half full, on a very nice night). Also, if you go to Syracuse, the Wings are in the first base dugout, I sat on the third base side thinking it would be the Wings dugout (and that is probably why there were ten or so Wings fans in my section)
I sat down low for the game (the seats are all the same anyway). They had the cup holders like at Frontier and the seats at Frontier look nicer IMO, and are slightly more comfortable at Frontier. The legroom and elevation between rows also seemed to be less than Frontier (I didn't take any measurements, just what I noticed).
Moving on to the field, as you know it is artificial turf. As I watched the game I can only say we should be very happy we have real grass! One ball took a huge bounce over the wall and was a ground rule double, that never would of happened on grass. Also, instead of putting a warning track they drew a white line around the field. Usually I would think outfielders would be looking up so that does them little good, plus it looks pretty bad. I don't know why they did that (maybe to configure the other sports, but if we can cover the diamond with real grass for soccer, I think they could add carpet for other sports on the warning track.
Their outfield wall looks (like it was said in the D&C) like a hefty bag! The wall looks like there are several flimsy pieces of material tied to the wall and I saw more than one bad bounce off the wall because of it's weird makeup. Also, the dimensions are 330 to left and right and 400 to the wall. It adds no character to the park.
The bullpens are not raised and are behind the wall. The only way you could see if a SkyChief is warming up is by walking to left field and looking down while there is no way to see a visitor warming up as it is placed in center field.
The speaker system in the stadium is similar to Silver, as they are all placed behind center field. The sound quality is not as good as Frontier because of the quirky setup. There is only one scoreboard and it is smaller than the one at Frontier. The video is not used often as they don't tape the game (only for ads) and the quality is about the same as Frontier. What amazed me is the scoreboard lights were burning out there and no one replaced them. The S and K in Skychiefs were gone and "balls" and "strikes" were missing letters. It would seem in a park not even a year old they would do that!
The lighting at P&C was pretty good. It may have been better than Frontier, but it was tough to tell. They went with the bulky, old fashion lights. The ones of their roof look nice, but the ones in the outfield do not.
As far as their roof, the upper deck covered three rows of the lower deck (sililar to the number that the roof at Frontier covers where the luxury boxes are), while the upper deck roof covers under half of the seats I would say there. They claim the roof covers 15% of the seats and that might be a bit optimistic. No big deal there.
The souvenir stand is much smaller than at Frontier and the selection is much smaller than what the Wings have. On top of that I could not get a program (luckily I brought my camera to get a few picturess), only a scorecard! I don't know if they ran out or they just don't have programs this year, I thought that was weird!
P&C will have a restaurant, which has yet to open. The Wings went with the picnic areas, like the large ones in left field, and I would have to say I consider our choice a plus. Syracuse has no open place like that, I think that area allows for bands and perhaps gives non-baseball diehards a reason to come as it increases the atmosphere and the grassy areas and access to the outfield really add another dimension to Frontier. This is something P&C lacks (they do have a tent behind the outfield, but you can't see the game from there and you can't get in there).
After the game ends, all the lights but two go off almost immeadiately. To make matters worse, leaving the park is a mess (and there were only 5,900 when I went). You couldn't budge for a good ten minutes. At Frontier things are not nearly as bad and they let you stick around for almost as long as you'd like. Again, the area to left field where you can place bands and all gives people a little more and a reason to stay anyways. They were beginning to close the gates about a half hour after the Rhino game yesterday, you get alot more time here (and nothing was going on after the game).
I really didn't go in there intending to bash P&C Stadium. They have lower ticket prices (and parking, though you don't have to park at the Wings lots at Frontier) and it certainly is an improvement over their old park. It just seemed to me that Frontier was a much classier park. There is an added dimension to it with the picnic areas and the area (High Falls, downtown) seemed to add even more to Frontier. It seemed that everything about Frontier, from comfort to food, was better. The overall look of Frontier has a head up also I feel. I have to go with Frontier by a wide margin, I expected quite a bit more out of P&C and it did not come through. We have the better ballpark this time through again it seems!