Here at East of Allen, we are baseball fans and particularly appreciate minor league baseball. A few years back we hit the road for our California League Tour. It was a fun time and you can read all about it here.
This season big changes are afoot, and they involve the World Champion Dodgers. Last year the Dodgers’ Class A minor league team was the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes. As of this year, the Quakes are now affiliated with the Angels. The Dodgers’ new team is the Ontario Tower Buzzers.
Before reviewing the new ONT Field, home of the Tower Buzzers, I want to say good bye to the historic Modesto Nuts franchise. Affiliated with the Seattle Mariners, the Nuts have moved to San Bernardino (now playing as the Inland Empire 66’ers). The move ends 80 straight years of minor league ball in Modesto. I enjoyed my visit to Modesto’s John Thurman Field, the local Hops of Wrath beer and mascot Wally Walnut.
Sorry to see the Nuts go. But, Modesto’s loss is our gain and that’s more minor league baseball for southern California. With Dodger ticket prices skyrocketing, we need some cheaper options. Minor league baseball is a good show and much better deal all around.
The season is young, but I’ve already made two visits out to ONT Field for see the Tower Buzzers play.
We were there opening night. Bad first impression. With drive-time traffic (hour and a half to get out to Ontario), an inappropriate national anthem (English please), terrible seats (avoid sections 104 and 105) and mediocre food, the long awaited opening night was a bust.
Last week I tried again travelling out to ONT Field for a 6:30 pm game between the Tower Buzzers and Fresno Grizzlies. That was a very good to great experience.
There is a lot to like about ONT Field and I am sure I will be back several times during the season.
It is a hike for us to get out to Ontario. But, there is a lot going on in that formerly sleepy little town. According to plans, the ONT Field will be set in a new 190-acre Ontario Sports Empire that is billed as the largest sports complex of its kind west of the Rockies. Designed to attract regional and national level tournaments, the complex will include 20 long fields, 14 youth diamond fields, 8 full-size diamonds, 4 football/rugby fields and 2 championship diamond fields. That’s a lot of fields.
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