What a great Labor Day weekend! I’ll have another post up later tonight about some SL stuff, but what I have to talk about now is the once-in-a-lifetime experience of attending an Arizona Diamondbacks game in the pool.
For those of you who don’t know your baseball parks and fields, the D-Backs field has a swimming pool out past centerfield. It’s a decadent thing to have for a ballpark, but let’s just say that I can sometimes enjoy decadence.
The cost of booking this pool for a game is $6500, but my brother-in-law Larry won it as part of a silent auction at a fraction of the cost. He was given 35 tickets to use as he pleased, plus some grand parking spaces. Okay, I was impressed with the parking spots — right outside the ballpark. Unbelievable.
I was a lucky person who was invited to join other family members and friends for a day at the game. It was a blast. I swam with the kids, partook of baseball food goodies, bought some new D-Backs shirts (I really like the older colors better — I looked great in the purple, but the new red doesn’t do anything for me).
The highlight is the 5th inning Jumbotron shot of the pool. The camera crews joined us and filmed everyone waving and then turned on the water jets behind the pool. I wasn’t prepared for that. The water poured onto us folks in the pool and the hair I was going to keep dry didn’t stay that way. So the folks in the park saw us all getting wet, including one of our party who was perched decoratively behind the pool looking glamorous as only teenage girls can. She got the thorough wetting with the water jets shooting off. So much for decoration.
The pool is great. The kids who would find the game boring can splash around for hours. The only bad thing about it? It would be nice if the D-Backs had won.
DilettanteVille 
September 5, 2007 at 9:30 am
There’s something uniquely decadent about a swimming pool in an air conditioned ballpark in the middle of the desert. It’s not as bad as the ski slope the Saudi’s built in their desert, but it’s in the same “ballpark”. (Oh grooooan!)
September 5, 2007 at 12:01 pm
If you could only see my eyes rolling and hear my sigh heaving. 😉
September 26, 2007 at 1:55 am
Its really heavenly to be in such a classic pool….I wish if I could dive right in now…..
June 22, 2009 at 1:33 am
[…] The Arizona Diamondbacks’ beautiful home stadium houses perhaps the most famous ballpark diversion, a swimming pool just beyond the outfield fence. Don’t show up in your swimsuit for just any old Snakes home game, though; according to the team’s site, the Riviera Pools Pavilion can be rented to you and 34 friends for a meager $6,500 per game. Of course, that comes with a $750 voucher for food and beverage, so really, it’s only $5,750 per game. At that price, you can’t afford not to rent it out. [Image courtesy of Dilettanteville.] […]
October 31, 2010 at 10:57 am
at home we have a kidney-shaped swimming pool that is well maintained, i love swimming on it all day long ”