Hard to believe, isn’t it — 10 years since that opening pitch at Isotopes Park.

After that electric night, the ensuing decade has been both financially prosperous for the franchise and emotionally enriching for this community.

I’ve been fortunate to visit 21 of the current major league venues, and Isotopes Park rates favorably, as a baseball experience, with several. Aesthetically, I’d even rate it ahead of the stadiums in Oakland and Phoenix, to name two.

Isotopes Park is an architectural marvel. It combines all the elements you’d want in a baseball stadium. What’s not to love?

And what’s more, this cosmetic miracle was — thankfully — not erected Downtown, but on the site of the previous stadium, to which Isotopes Park bears absolutely no resemblance. That is, except for the glorious views of the Sandias, which, gratefully, remain intact.

Isotopes Park was constructed in precisely the right location. It never belonged Downtown.

Having laid that groundwork, I come before you today to offer a public confession:

I miss the Albuquerque Sports Stadium.

It is nonsensical to speak such words aloud, and I’m in the minority on this. Not miss it in the sense that I want it back, or that I prefer it to Isotopes Park. That’s not what I’m saying.

I miss it in the way I miss an old friend.

While we rightly celebrate 10 outstanding years at Isotopes Park, our package earlier this week on the Dukes-to-Isotopes transition got me thinking about the Sports Stadium and what it’s meant in my life.

And it was important to me to give voice to those thoughts, to sit down and craft what is essentially a valentine to a rundown baseball stadium that doesn’t even exist anymore.

You have to understand this in context.

The Sports Stadium is where I spent hundreds of spring and summer nights as a kid.

The Sports Stadium is where those of us who sat under the roof on July 4 had to move down and scrunch together in order to be able to see the fireworks.

The Sports Stadium was the frequent destination of me and three of my closest buddies, who would cram into the front seat of a lime green Toyota pickup and drive in from Rio Rancho, because that’s what teenage baseball players did.

The Sports Stadium field is where me and those buddies (and a few others) celebrated winning a state championship as Cibola Cougars. Stunningly, that day was 30 years ago next month.

I am an unabashedly, and almost ridiculously, sentimental guy. So yeah, I miss the damn place.

Sure, it was out of date, but the Sports Stadium and Dukes baseball did have its endearing nuances. The lava rocks, the drive-in area, those toss-for-gas contests. So much more.

And for all of the bells and whistles at Isotopes Park, the Sports Stadium, as a media member, did have one distinct advantage — a better connection with the crowds.

With an open-air press box, you could often smell the food in the stands. Do some people-watching between innings. You could even hear some of the fans talking amongst themselves, especially in the late innings on those brutally cold April nights, when most everyone had (smartly) bailed much earlier.

The kids of this generation, and the next, will someday be mothers and fathers and grandparents, and they’ll have decades of memories from Isotopes Park.

For me, it’s the Sports Stadium. It was the site of some of the most joyous, wondrous times of my life. It brought me more happiness than it is possible to articulate in this space. I think maybe the whole point of this was just to remind myself, and maybe I’m not alone, that a lot of us won’t ever forget the old girl. Warts and all.

Look, I get it. We’ve all moved on, and Isotopes Park is our dancing partner now. We’re lucky to have such a looker. I enjoy the new stadium immensely.

I will always appreciate the beauty and the splendor of Isotopes Park.

But my heart is already spoken for.
— This article appeared on page D3 of the Albuquerque Journal