INDIANAPOLIS, Indiana– Every time I visit a new minor league baseball stadium, I can’t help but compare it to the Tulsa Drillers ONEOK Field, and Victory Field in Indianapolis measures up quite well.
Victory Field is home to the Indianapolis Indians, the Triple-A team of the Pittsburgh Pirates. On the night I was there last week, the Indians were playing the Columbus Clippers (Cleveland Guardians). Ironically, I’ve been to six Triple-A stadiums, and Columbus is one of them. This was my first time to watch a game in Indianapolis.
The ballpark is in the same open concourse style as most of the stadiums that have been built in the past 15 years, including the one here in Tulsa. You can watch the game from just about anywhere, while walking the concourse completely around the perimeter of the field.
However, Victory Field was built in 1996, but due to many renovations and updates, especially to the suite and club level, the ballpark looks a lot younger than its age.
One remodel that was made in 2019, was the addition of a dinning club on the suite/press box level. Much to the chagrin of the folks that work in the press box, the dinning club, cut the press box seating in half. They now have a couple tables on the concourse behind the home plate box seat section, for the media to use. That’s where they put me, and I loved it. The weather was beautiful that night and I enjoyed the experience of sitting outside with the fans to watch the game, and had a great vantage point. It might have been different if it was cold or raining, but not that night; no complaints.
Most baseball teams feed their press box personnel and the media with either a buffet or boxed dinner in the press box, but not in Indianapolis. Because of the limited press box space, they now offer the media members a voucher to use at any of the concession stands. I liked that idea. I wasn’t limited to one choice, and if I didn’t like what they were serving, too bad. Instead, in this case, I could pick from several different concession options and have whatever I wanted. The Smash Burger and fries were very good.
The video board changes from looking like an “old-school” scoreboard to a highlight and live action video screen between innings.
Like ONEOK Field, Victory Field is situated downtown, just a few blocks from Lucas Oil Field, home of the Colts.
Another thing that caught my attention is the location of the bullpens. They are not beyond the outfield wall, as the case in Tulsa and most new ballparks, but rather they are situated in foul territory, just outside the outfield foul lines. In fact, the bullpens are so close to the action, that when a pitcher is warming up, someone needs to stand behind the catcher facing the field to catch any ball that might injure the bullpen catcher who has his back to the field of play.
Tulsa Connection
While shopping in the gift shop, I saw a familiar gap-toothed smile on a t-shirt. It was a caricature of former Indians player and former Tulsa Drillers manager, Razor Shines. When Shines led the Drillers in 2015, I wrote about how I first met him in his very first pro season, as he was a member of the Jamestown Expos (1978), where I served as a batboy, and we became reacquainted during his season in Tulsa.
Shines was a fan favorite wherever he played throughout his minor league and Major League career, and they loved him in Indianapolis; enough to still be selling to different t-shirts with his name and likeness on them.
I took a photo of the two shirts and texted them to Shines, telling him that I was “in Indianapolis watching a game and look what I found.”
He replied, “Jeff, first things first man, I really hope you and your family are well. That’s Indianapolis, they loved me there, and it looks like they still do.”
I understand Shines was offered a percentage of the profits from the sale of the shirts, but he turned it down. That’s the type of classy guy he is.
No wonder they still love him.