A visit behind the scoreboard at Coors Field

This Yankee fan didn’t care much who won this evening’s game between the Giants and Rockies at Coors Field. But I love a ballgame anywhere, especially in a park I’ve never visited before (Coors is No. 24 for me). So I gladly attended tonight’s game with colleagues from the Associated Press Managing Editors, meeting in Denver this week.

I’ve watched from the outfield many times, but never before from field level. We ate, drank and watched from The Warning Track party room, right behind the right field warning track, watching through a chain-link fence.

Carlos Beltran and the San Francisco Giants from the Warning Track party room at Coors Field.

That was cool, but not as cool as getting to go up behind the hand-operated out-of-town scoreboard. You climb steep, narrow stairs …

Stairs to the scoreboard at Coors Field

… to a narrow room with numbers …

Behind the Coors Field scoreboard

… and abbreviated team names.

Team names behind Coors Field scoreboard

Workers behind the scoreboard monitor out-of-town games on two TV sets. (I was politely but firmly asked to move when I inadvertently stood between a scoreboard operator and her TV. When someone scores, the operators quickly update the scoreboard.

Posting a new score at Coors Field

And, if you want to feel like a little kid getting away with something, you can watch the game through a knothole.  Not the best game I’ve ever seen (Giants won, 8-5), but one of my favorite ballpark experiences.

Knothole view of Rockies and Giants playing, from behind the Coors Field scoreboard.