Blogging the Camden Waterfront, Part Two: Campbell's Field

As you may or may not know, this past weekend (3/19-3/21) was Camden Waterfront Attraction Blogging Days, wherein 200 or so local bloggers, having applied and been accepted, were invited to visit, for free, each of the three big Camden Waterfront attractions (the Battleship NJ, Campbell's Field, and the Adventure Aquarium) and blog their fair and unbiased impressions. Phillyist was one of those bloggers, so here's part two of a three-part series covering our weekend adventures.

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The great thing about going to see a Camden Riversharks minor league baseball game at Campbell's Field is that you don't even have to like baseball at all to enjoy it. I'm the kind of person who can't watch more than a few minutes of a baseball game on TV before getting painfully bored and changing the channel, but I've been to numerous Riversharks games and I've always had a great time. The reason for this should be obvious: hanging out with a bunch of your friends outside in the spring/summer, eating tons of junk food and drinking gallons of soda and beer, is really fun. Plus, there's always so much other random stuff going on that you don't really have to pay attention to the game at all if you don't want to.

At Saturday's game, for instance, there was a brush-the-bases-off race, a hockey challenge, a shopping cart race, a potato sack race, a trivia game, and on and on. Everything is sponsored by somebody or other, too, and certain occurrences can cause your ticket to be redeemable for various products; like, if so-and-so steals a base, you get a slice of pizza. This kind of thing can really add some drama to the game; even those with no interest in sports probably have an interest in pizza, and may begin rooting wildly for one player or another. If you want to get people excited about something, just offer them free stuff. You should see how the crowd goes crazy when the fellow with the T-shirt gun starts wandering around.

But if you do feel like paying attention to the game, as I did on Saturday, you won't be disappointed. Yeah, these guys are minor leaguers, but that doesn't mean they're chumps. The Riversharks played a pretty good defensive game, allowing only two runs by the visiting Barnstormers and making some pretty exciting plays, but unfortunately only scored themselves once (while I was at the concession stand, of course), thus ultimately losing by one. Still, it was a beautiful day at a beautiful park, and I had a dog and a beer and hung out with my friends. Who could ask for anything more?

(Btw, getting to Campbell's Field is easy. My wife and I drove in on this occasion and parked in the field's lot for $3, but you can just as easily ride the PATCO train to the City Hall stop and walk from there, or ride to Broadway and get on the RiverLine.)

All photos by the author