G&T Guest Column: Indians fans should know, it’s good here

Listen up, Spokane Indians fans. You may be better off than you think.

No matter your thoughts on Avista Stadium’s facilities, Indians ticket prices, concessions and parking, appreciation may fall short of the mark. Things are better here.

A recent evening spent watching a Salem-Keizer home game brought comparison into sharp focus. The Volcanoes were Spokane’s opponent for our city’s final regular-season series.

Volcanoes Stadium, located in Keizer, Oregon, a Salem suburb, like Spokane, has paved parking. That will be $3, please. Here, it’s free.

Advance tickets for an upper box seat? How about $12? At Avista Stadium, they’re more comfortable seats and a dollar less. Program? Sure. For $2. The Indians charge nothing.

When you’re hungry, you’ll pay $5 for a German sausage and $7 for a large beer. In Spokane, you pay $4 and $6.

The ballpark? Avista Stadium, nearing the end of its 57th season, ranks with the handful of best minor-league parks in the country, let alone the Class-A Northwest League. The Indians have led the league in attendance every season for more than two decades.

Salem-Keizer’s facility, built on a low budget when Oregon’s state capital returned to pro ball in 1997, scores points for a grassy picnic area down the left-field line, and most seats do have backs. But, the ballpark’s bare bones are apparent, particularly to motorists passing right by on Interstate-5.

Atmosphere may be a matter of taste. Spokane fans, facing east and south, watch the moon rise over Tower Mountain or freight trains pulling out of the Union Pacific yards. Volcanoes constituents, facing north and east, view a fine forest over the left-field wall. The freeway stands beyond right field.

S-K fans watch a small volcano atop the scoreboard puff out smoke to celebrate local home runs. Indians fans can sit in the Depot, a right-field railcar replica. In Keizer, Rooftop Man jazzes up the crowd by tossing rolled-up T-shirts to the relatively few fans sitting beneath him. Spokane has three mascots, two Spokanasauruses (saurusi?) and the energetic Recycle Man.

On the field, the Volcanoes, in the postseason hunt late into the season, could have had an even better year. The parent San Francisco Giants sent them 10 players drafted within the first 10 rounds, almost twice as many as Spokane’s first-half champions. Last Thursday, S-K looked impressive on offense while pounding out an easy victory over Tri-City.

Two older men sitting nearby, close friends and longtime Albertson’s truck drivers, made excellent grandstand neighbors. One has visited 25 major-league ballparks. The father of the other played five seasons in the minors. Both live in southern Multnomah County, and it was their first visit, too.

“Why are we here?” one said. “Well, it took us 20 minutes to get here. Because of the traffic, it took two hours to get to a game at the new park in Hillsboro.”