Featured Article - June 2009
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Still Comin' Out Swingin'
In the 129th year of professional baseball in New Mexico, Albuquerque's home team, the Isotopes, is still hitting it out of the park. By Toby Smith
"This place is gorgeous."That’s what Suzanne Meyer remembers saying as she joined more than 12,000 other baseball fans at the first-ever home game for the Albuquerque Isotopes, on April 11, 2003.
“I was so happy and excited,” Meyer says of Isotopes Park, the team’s then brand-new ballpark. “It was the way a baseball stadium should be. Kind of old-fashioned, cozy, with ironwork and seats set up so that all were angled toward home plate, so you got a good view.”
Meyer, a trust officer for an Albuquerque bank, is a longtime fan of the nation’s—and New Mexico’s—pastime. She grew up in Clovis, where, in the 1950s, her father owned the Clovis Pioneers, a long-gone West Texas–New Mexico League Class-D outfit. Meyer and her husband, Bob, were fans of the Dukes, the team that preceded the Isotopes, but by the late 1990s the Dukes’ park, the old Albuquerque Sports Stadium, had fallen into disrepair. “It was hard to find a plastic seat there that wasn’t cracked,” Meyer recalls.
In 2001, the Dukes were sold to Portland, Oregon, and renamed the Beavers, leaving Albuquerque holding an empty rosin bag. Finally, the city lured Canada’s Calgary Cannons to New Mexico with promises of a new, glittering home, and re-christened them the Isotopes. For six years they played as the top farm club for a Major League team, the Florida Marlins. In September 2008, like wayward lovers, the Los Angeles Dodgers—who had had a successful, four-decade-long partnership with the Dukes—came calling again on Albuquerque’s farm team, and are now the Isotopes’ Major League partner.
Today, the two years Albuquerque spent without pro baseball, post-Dukes and pre-Isotopes, seem incomprehensible. “Without baseball here, it was like a hole in your heart,” says Brad Day, an Albuquerque financial advisor who, with his wife, Kathy, a school nurse, has season tickets four rows behind the Isotopes dugout. “When baseball came back, it seemed to lift this city’s spirits.” And the Isotopes’ $25 million stadium, where they play some 70 home games each year? “It’s so homey. You’re real close to the field, so you can see players close up. And on a warm summer night, you can’t beat the view of
the mountains.”
Give a cheer—D’oh!
Players come and go, but Isotopes Park—built on the site of the Albuquerque Sports Stadium—and the baseball fans themselves remain the magical constants. Whether you sit in an upper-deck suite or on the sloping grassy berm beyond the right-field wall, you’re in the game. Same with the tiered picnic-area pavilion beyond left field, or the fun zone for kids past center field. You can walk around the inside of the stadium on a single path about a third of a mile long, and at one point pass behind the massive scoreboard. Jazzy but easy to follow, the board displays player statistics, videos, glimpses of plays, and, periodically, that piece of film footage long familiar to fans.
In 2002, when owners of the still-developing Albuquerque franchise were searching for a team name, someone suggested “Isotopes.” The quirky name came from an episode of The Simpsons in which Homer foils an attempt to move his hometown team, the Isotopes, from Springfield to Albuquerque. The name seemed even more appropriate given that New Mexico was home to the Manhattan Project, and today’s Sandia and Los Alamos national laboratories.
Early on, the name got some flak, but eventually it stuck, and now no one can imagine any other. For many in New Mexico, their team has become “The ’Topes,” their stadium “The Lab,” and their battle cry Homer Simpson’s famous “D’oh!”
Trading Up
In 1880—long before scientists split the atom—Albuquerque’s first organized baseball team, the Browns, threw a horsehide ball around the then Territorial Fairgrounds, near Old Town. The Dukes came next, in 1915, as part of the Class-D Rio Grande Association. At various times the name “Dukes” was replaced by “Dons,” “Cardinals,” and “Dodgers,” but “Dukes” kept resurfacing. Where the team played its games, and its affiliation with Major League Baseball organizations, also changed. From 1937 to 1968, the team played at Tingley Field, near the present site of the Río Grande Zoo. In 1954, a skinny right-hander with a pretty fair fastball took the mound for the Dukes, but Pete Domenici went on to far greater distinction in the U.S. Senate, where he served for 36 years. As the years passed, the organization moved up in class, from C to A to Double-A, then on to Triple-A. In 1963, the Los Angeles Dodgers took over as the Dukes’ big-league big brother. Six years later, the Dukes left Tingley Field and settled in at the then-spiffy Albuquerque Sports Stadium.
Over time, the Dukes did well both on the scoreboard and at the turnstiles, winning an impressive total of eight Pacific Coast League championships. Winning has yet to come so easily to the Isotopes, but that hasn’t discouraged the fans. Last Fourth of July, more than 15,000 ’Topes devotees jammed the park. Weeks later, the final game of last season drew 13,576 spectators—the sixth largest attendance in franchise history. The final game’s crowd cemented 2008 as the club’s most successful year in terms of attendance—a record 593,606 fans attended a total of 71 games.
In their brief existence, the Isotopes have also developed a few heroes. Early on, catcher Matt Treanor was called up to the Florida Marlins, and today is a Detroit Tiger. Treanor gained great fame in 2004 when he married Olympic volleyball star Misty May, whom he’d begun dating during his Albuquerque days. Jason Wood, who has bounced between the Marlins and the Isotopes during his long career, is still a crowd favorite. And in 2008, third-baseman Dallas McPherson, of whom more bright things are expected, led the minor league in homers with 42 runs.
Beneath the Lights
Standing proudly on the northeast corner of University Boulevard and Avenida Cesar Chavez, Isotopes Park is a city attraction.
This fact was underscored in 2007, when Albuquerque was chosen to host the Triple-A All-Star Game, a four-day party. Though Isotopes Park lacks the venerable Sports Stadium’s parking area with a view of the outfield, parking at ’Topes games remains plentiful and free. In fact, some fans tailgate before and during games. Everyone loves the free Giveaway Nights—gardening knee pads!—but many of those in the seats would probably say that they’re drawn by the glorious setting. Others remember Albuquerque’s two years without baseball, and the resulting anxiety that now brings them to frequent the park. Fans also recall the bitter squabbling between city officials about where the new park should be built—downtown or where it now stands.
“For a while,” Brad Day says, “everyone seemed to forget us fans.”
No longer. Day can’t imagine a better way to spend a few hours on a warm evening than sitting with his wife in their customary seats. He’ll usually be eating his favorite ballpark food, a bratwurst—“You know, with all those bell peppers and onions”—and letting his mind drift. He and his wife will be laughing at Orbit, the goofy, Big Bird–like team mascot, as they have a hundred times. They’ll be smiling when the stadium Kiss Cam picks out smooching couples in the crowd. And they’ll be chuckling as, between innings, people costumed as red and green chiles run the bases.
For Suzanne Meyer, the feeling is much the same. “Being at the ballpark is fun; it’s relaxing; it’s a distraction. You come out to see the Isotopes, and you leave the day behind you.”
Speaking of behind, Meyer and her husband have gotten know the couple who sit just behind them in Section 113. When they first met, the couple was engaged. This past season they married, and the Meyers attended the wedding. Never say there’s no bliss in baseball.
Albuquerque writer Toby Smith spent a season and a half hawking beer to fans in Isotopes Park.
IF YOU GO:
The Albuquerque Isotopes hit the diamond through the first weekend in September. Home games are played at Isotopes Park, 1601 Avenida Cesar Chavez SE. Info: (505) 924-2255, www.albuquerquebaseball.com Tickets: $6–$24, (505) 222-4058, (800) 745-3000; www.ticketmaster.com
