Trenton's Waterfront Park worth the wait

TRENTON, N.J. -- The winter of 1993 was miserable. There were heavy snow showers, ice storms, sleet, rain and unforgiving wintry mixes.

Unfortunately, that was the summer the Detroit Tigers' Double-A affiliate -- the Trenton Thunder -- was breaking ground on their new stadium.

Mother Nature had other ideas.

Workers were stationed in a rental office, using cardboard boxes as desks and walking materials back and forth between the office and construction site, rushing to complete the project in time.

"They hadn't broken ground until November of '93 and worked through the winter. It was one of the worst winters ever, and they managed to get this thing built," said Darryl Beam, 51, who's been a fan of the team since its inception.

The Thunder were forced to play games on the road because the sod didn't set correctly, and there were multiple seams in the field that could cause injury. Trenton made their first appearance at Waterfront Park on May 9, 1994. One season later, the Thunder switched affiliations to the Boston Red Sox.

Since then, the park has been a southern New Jersey hot-spot, welcoming a variety of spectators and a bevy of future big leaguers within its walls.

"You've got better views; you've got better prices; you've got hungry players that make it to the Majors who aren't spoiled by the money yet," said Beam, who holds a 10-game season ticket plan and attends 15 additional games every year. "For the baseball purist, you can enjoy the game and understand the game, but you get the entertainment thrown in at no extra charge."

Trenton's 6,500-seat bowl is full on most nights, as the city is an ideal distance between New York and Philadelphia, attracting fans who may not have the budget to regularly attend Major League games.

There's also the view.

"What's great about this park is that it's right along the river," said Steve Rudenstein, Trenton's director of broadcasting. "So it's kind of neat when the ball is hit to right field, and it ends up going over the wall and into the Delaware River. Then you also have the highway that sits beyond the stands on the third-base side. So you kind of parlay the scenic aspect of it, being right alongside the river, with the hustle and bustle being right along the highway."

In 2003, the team changed affiliations, which created some hustle and bustle in its own right.

"It's not going from one team to the other team, it's going from Boston to the New York Yankees -- one of the biggest rivalries in sports," said General Manager Brad Taylor. "But since the transition, the Yankees have been nothing short of phenomenal. They've treated us with the utmost class and respect, and they do things a different way. It's kind of cool to be part of that."

Taylor, who's in his ninth season with the organization, can be hard to track down during a game, but if you do manage to find him, he's probably conversing with a season-ticket holder, welcoming a first-timer to the park or getting jokingly poked by the cane of the "Thunders' oldest fan.

It's an attitude he stresses to every employee, and part of what makes the Thunder experience so unique.

"You can bring your family and your friends, and we hope that people leave here with the impression that we've put on a great show for you. We've done all we can to accommodate you just to make sure that you always feel welcome and you come back," Taylor said.

Waterfront Park has an open-air concourse (one of the first of its kind) and a unique 32-foot high wall of display ads that runs from the left-field foul pole and stops in right-center field, so spectators can see the river beyond the regulation eight-foot home run fence. Also in right field is a manually-operated scoreboard, which sits to the right of the digital scoreboard and video board in center field.

Taylor said the ad wall is a unique way for sponsors to get their name into home run calls, because the ball doesn't "just bounce off the wall, it clanks off the Acme sign or the Bank of America sign."

The ad wall isn't that aesthetically pleasing, but the Yankee Club & Conference Center is. Re-styled when the team switched affiliates, the Yankee Club allows private groups and businesses to dine indoors and drink from an open bar while watching the Major Leagues on one of six flat-screen TVs then slip outside to take in the game from second-deck seating.

"Over time, we've collected some memorabilia from our players who became Yankee players or are now somewhere else in the big leagues, just to go along with the Yankee façade on the roof or the Yankees symbols in the carpeting," said Taylor, who said the team has between 1,800-2,000 ticket holders.

For those not fortunate enough to dine in the luxury suites, Waterfront Park offers a variety of local favorites (funnel cake, cheese steaks and soft pretzels) as well as Famous Dave's BBQ and Chickie and Pete's crab fries -- certainly straying from the ordinary when it comes to ballpark eats.

As spectators peruse the concourse searching for food, they will stumble upon a "Road to the Majors" board -- one of Taylor's favorite attractions. Located behind the press box, the board not only lists every player in the Major Leagues who used to wear a Thunder jersey, but also former Trenton broadcasters, reporters and grounds crew members who've made it to The Show.

Location is another aspect of Waterfront Park that has it thriving. The Thunder can thank Philadelphia Phillies owner Bill Giles for that. Major League teams have the right to reject any plans for Minor League parks if they are within a 50-mile radius of a MLB stadium. A fan of baseball first and an owner second, Giles allowed the project.

"We're fortunate because we sit in between New York and Philadelphia," Rudenstein said. "Not many teams are that fortunate to sit between two major cities, so we get a lot of fans from Buck County, Burlington County, Mercer County, who are interested in coming out and enjoying the experience here, more so than maybe following the players on the team."

Season-ticket holders like Beam are among those who enjoy following the players as much as the park atmosphere, while others know Waterfront Park has been an enjoyable destination for families for well over a decade.

"That was our highlight. Finally, after 15 years of waiting we got it. We got that," Beam said, pointing behind him to the 2007 Eastern League Champions banner.

"People have been able to introduce their kids to the game and have something really fun to do and not break the bank here in Trenton," Rudenstein said.