| After my first visit to Frontier Field in 1998, I was greatly disappointed by it after having been to Silver Stadium several years prior. This is one place where the new stadium is just not as nice as the old one was. Silver Stadium may have lacked the amenities (i.e. luxury boxes), but was a much better place to see a game. Part of the problem with Frontier is that when it was originally built, soccer was played here, so that may have been taken into consideration when designing it. Fortunately the city has since built a separate stadium for the soccer team, so Frontier Field is now used solely for baseball. I'm not sure how much they spent building it, but it has a rather cheap feel to it. Unlike most other ballparks built since 1990, the concourse is located behind the seating bowl, completely out of view from the field. The seating is split by a small middle concourse. While the signtlines are good, the ones above the center concourse are just too far from the field. Frontier Field just feels very massive and is in no way intimate, something that Silver Stadium definitely was. There is no upper deck here and the grassy berms down each line are on the small side, so to get all the seating in, they had to extend the seats higher than you normally would (the soccer configuration may have also necessitated this). Also, there is no wraparound concourse, which is something you come to expect at every ballpark nowadays. Concessions here are outstanding - it is probably one of the best varieties of concessions I have ever seen at a minor league park. Gourmet burgers, Red Osier roast beef sandwiches, Big Red BBQ, mac & cheese, deli sandwiches, and calzones are just some of the unique food choices. Prices are reasonable and the quality is top-notch. A large gift store sits near the front entrance of the stadium and is accessible from the concourse. Rochester is known to have some of the best fans in the minors, so the atmosphere is mostly geared towards the game. While there are a few between inning contests, the team doesn't do anything to distract from the game being played on the field. Besides the park feeling too big, there are a couple of other small complaints I have about Frontier Field. First, the littering of ads in the outfield is really an eyesore (much like those at Allentown). And they weren't any even on the fence. Instead they have several large walls of ads that served no purpose other than to advertise. Secondly, new scoreboards are desperately needed. During day games, the scoreboard which displays the linescore is almost impossible to read. After a return visit in 2012, I did like the ballpark better than when I first visited. Still, besides the superb concessions, there is really little that I like about Frontier Field. It just does not provide the same baseball atmosphere that Silver Stadium did. It's too bad that they had to build this new stadium just for a few luxury boxes.
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