OneOK Field: My Home Away from Home

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When Dodgers fans think of their home away from home, Dodger Stadium, there are quite a few words that come to mind — Historic, Dodger Dogs, Tommy Lasorda, Iconic and Magical are just several examples.

Following the Boys in Blue, I have visited 11 other major league stadiums with not a single ballpark coming close to the atmosphere of Dodger Stadium on a beautiful summers night. Sure, I may be a little bias, but who isn’t for their favorite team.

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OneOK Field is one of the most state-of-the-art stadiums to which I’ve ever been. From the amazing video board to the first to third ribbon board, this stadium is a crowd pleaser.

One cannot forget to mention the beautiful view of downtown Tulsa, racing appliances, Hornsby and Justin(@JustGo11) who keeps the crowd going in between innings. As a Dodgers fan, I feel like the vibe at OneOk Field is pretty close to being at Dodger Stadium as the fans are just as passionate about their team and players.

The opening weekend of 2015 in Tulsa was an amazing experience that I wish every Dodgers fan could have experienced. Most of the fans at the game were fans of their home team, the Tulsa Drillers, but I did see quite a few Dodgers hats in the crowd. It was great to be able to educate the fans around me about the new players on their team and their hopeful future with the Dodgers. They won two of three games over that first series and we spent parts of each game walking around the stadium.

OneOk Field, much like Dodger Stadium, is filled with the history of players who have worn the jersey. A walk through the concourse will have you come across banners of Pudge Rodriguez and Sammy Sosa. We then took a trip to the team store which is run masterfully by T.J.(@drillermatchguy) and saw jerseys of Troy Tulowitzki and Nolan Arenado hanging on the wall. The team store is full of friendly staff and great team gear. I was a little difficult as I wanted a custom jersey with #15 and “Law” on the back and T.J. made sure it was finished by the end of the game. This Adam Law jersey still hangs on my wall to this day.

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Season One of the Tulsa Drillers as a Dodger affiliate was life changing for me. Being there for 21 games I got to watch the people of Tulsa fall in love with the players that were all new to them. The players had a big role in this as they were beyond fan friendly. Always willing to sign an autograph, take pictures and interact with the fans. I probably saw Corey Seager sign 100 plus autographs the first weekend.

As the season went on it went from the fans cheering for the Drillers to them cheering for the players as well. By the end of the season we had become very well known in DrillVille as we frequented the scoreboard as a fan tweet, chatted with the players and sat through 18 inning games. It was great seeing the Dodger fanbase growing throughout the Midwest.

In the coming weeks, I am hoping to do some Q&A’s with some of the players that made last season memorable for me. If you have any questions that you have always wanted to know from a baseball player, please comment or tweet at me and I will get the questions answered as best I can. I really want this part of the blog to be for the fans by a fan. I also plan on doing some giveaways this season of autographed baseballs.

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