Since there are only about 8 more days until pitchers and catchers report and some of you out there are starting to put some serious thought into flying out to the Great State of Arizona for some Cactus League action, I thought I’d do you a solid and help you figure out where to stay and where to eat. Who better to trust than a rabid baseball fan who’s lived in Phoenix for 20+ years?
I’m not sure why but we’re starting with the worst spot to watch a game in all of the Cactus League. Don’t get me wrong, Maryvale Baseball Park, the spring home of the Brewers’, is lovely and well constructed and filled with all the amenities a visitor to the Valley of the Sun would want out of a baseball experience. It’s the getting there that’s the problem. Imagine with me for a second.
Imagine you’re in the middle of a wonderful oasis. An oasis filled with sunshine and palm trees and coconuts and local girls that are free of oasis diseases (sand crabs?). Now imagine that someone then suggested to you that you take a walk, a long walk, barefoot in the hot sand, just to get to another oasis with fewer palm trees and coconuts and the girls look not only infested with sand crabs but also that they caught a bad case of fupa from a local boy that doesn’t wash his digging tool. You see what I’m saying here?
The fellas over at Spring Training Online do a nice job of giving you a few tips on getting around but they seem to be holding back a bit with the truthiness about the different parks. The closest I could come to anything critical about this park was this paragraph:
The area is especially spacious: when Phoenix worked with Ellerbe Becket to design the facility, the plan was to house two teams in the complex.
Hmmmm…reason with me now. Why would a beautiful stadium with enough room for two teams that is more centrally located than say, the Dodgers, Indians, Mariners, Padres, Rangers, and Royals, not have another team want to jointly occupy it? Hmmmm….I wonder why that is. Hmmmmmm.
But, if you’re going to stay in Maryvale and you want to eat near the stadium and you don’t want mouth herpes I will suggest a few things.
Food: Uhh…it looks like chain food and Wendy’s. Lucky.
Bars: Seriously I’ve got nothing. There’s something called the Purple Turtle right up the street but that sounds like one of those gay bars where the title is a euphemism to trick straight dudes into getting gang raped (Hey, you guys want to go grab a hotdog at Between the Bun?). Just drive to the Biltmore area of town if you’re staying on the East Side or head downtown. It’s only 6 miles to Central. You won’t regret it.
This would involve me wanting to travel across country to see the Brewers AA players cut their teeth against 35 year old independent league rejects…but well done
you’re right. the park itself was awesome. the area sucked. there is a bar called the Funny Farm near Maryvale Park. it’s more of a cantina (mexican for drinking establishment?) than a bar. the music stopped when four white guys walked in. after the original shock wore off, no one had a problem with us, and we got strong drinks and had a good time.
This is pretty funny.
http://www.gunaxin.com/steelers-locker-room-celebration-photo-leaked/11102
How about an All-Star game in PHX preview, Hefler?
Funny Farm? Wasnt that a cheesy movie starring Chevy Chase?
Nice site design (serious).
Funny Farm is a great 80s movie.
I’ll take Fletch over Funny Farm. Fletch is a highly underated movie in my opinion.
I pulled a coupla shifts at the Macayo’s down on Thomas by the stadium. Food right there sucks, so just go downtown for lunch-Pizzeria Bianco ain’t too far away.
Also, Stigs, the music didn’t stop because some white guys stepped into a cantina. It stopped because you asked for a Miller.
Spence’s boy is committing in like 5 minutes.
+1 Tuck.
“We drink cervezas en this bar, punto.”
macayo’s is the bomb. i was at the one downtown off Central Ave (i think). ever work there?
we were drinking JD. it was cuz we were gringos.
@rick: It’s not underrated. It’s properly rated as the best (or 2nd best) 80s comedy of all-time.
Might be slightly behind Caddyshack.
I love Fletch.
Fletch is great.
“Can I borrow your towel. My car just hit a Water Buffalo.”
Caddyshack v. Fletch is a classic argument. What saves Caddyshack is the Bill Murray/Chevy Chase totally unscripted “cannon ball” scene.
I did work at Central once. At restaurants, working at more locations=more opportunity for sex.
At my usual location, a couple of the girls drew up the Hook-Up Network. It was amazing to see that only 4-5 hubs connected everyone else. The key at a chain is to cover shifts at other locations and meet those hubs.
And I know you Milwaukee folks have your ’special sauce’ on everything, but just go to Macayo’s and get Baja sauce. It’s made of jalepenos, half and half, MSG, and dreams.
If you want real Mexican food, go to Carolina’s (from the ballpark, just take the 60 to central phoenix, and get at 16th and take Mohave west about a mile or so. Stop where the luxury cars are mingled with the landscaping trucks). Buy about 4 dozen tortillas to take home, but don’t give them out to family or friends. You’ll get a standing order to bring some home every time you go to spring training.
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