Saturday was a day to remember. My son TJ came up from Austin to go to Game 6 of the new Globe Life Park in Arlington. For a couple of years, I looked forward to seeing the Texas Rangers play in the new ballpark. As I have said before, I bought four, twenty-game season tickets to see the Rangers this season. But COVID sidelined our plans and the Rangers played the 2020 season in an empty stadium.
Then Major league baseball announced that the National League Championship Series and The World Series would be played in Texas at Globe Life Park. A short while after the announcement I got an email from the Texas Rangers saying that 2020 Season Ticket buyers would be given the opportunity to buy up to four tickets for one game during both the National League Championship Series and the World Series. I jumped on the opportunity.
The first question I had was safety. The old Globe Life park had a seating capacity of 48,114. At 40,518 seats the capacity of the new ballpark has almost 8,000 less seats. It was decided that only 11,500 seats would be sold. In other words, the capacity would be about 28%. Seating was in pods of 4 seats that would be scattered out around the ballpark. As I said TJ came up and invited two of his friends who were huge Braves fans. We had great seats in the front row of Sky Box 2, a dozen feet outside of the Left field foul pole. The scene was breathtaking. The only bad seats in the house that we could see were the ones in Skybox 1 right behind the foul pole.
The weather was perfect and the roof was open. I love October Baseball no matter who is playing. Everything was perfect…that is until we went to the concession stand. On the way to the ballpark (my wife and my granddaughter went to Six Flags) I told her I was going to eat junk food like an unsupervised 10 year old with a hundred dollars. First, I bought a hot dog and a drink for over $20. They only took credit cards, NO CASH. I put my credit card in the slot, then the guy behind the counter turned the screen toward me and said: “you need to pick an option to complete the transaction.” I was faced with the choice of tipping 10%, 15%, 20% or 25%. That was the first time I had been openly “Tip Shamed” at a concession stand. At first glance, there was no clear option for “No Tip”. I paused for a second, but since there were people behind me I was “Tip Shamed into choosing 10%. Before you say it, I get it. Concession workers have gone an entire season without the income they had counted on. I’m sure our out-of-state guests would love to leave a tip, but don’t tip shame them.
Don’t get the wrong idea. I’m a little above average as a tipper and that is the range I tip. 10% for poor service and 25% or more for superior service. But that is in a regular restaurant where a professional server spends as much as an hour serving me food, listening to my jokes and filling my drinks. To suggest that a concession stand worker who spends two minutes at most putting a hot dog on the counter and drawing a drink deserves the same percentage for food that is way overpriced in the first place is unrealistic.
About the 3rd inning TJ and I went for a walk to see the ballpark. He stopped and bought a $10 hamburger and a drink. When prompted to leave a tip he chose an option to the right of the screen and a second screen gave him the option of not leaving the tip. TJ unwrapped the burger to find it was tiny and dry with a bun that was so stale it was crumbling. He took a few bites and was not happy. Remember that for years he was a food manager for a couple of entertainment venues. So he is no novice. I told him that if he took it back, maybe they would try to improve their product. He did and they exchanged it for a burger that was just as bad. I bought a Sweet Baby Rays BBQ sandwich and found the same tiny stale bun with a less than generous portion of meat.
It occurred to me that the stadium was filled with thousands of fans from outside Texas that were used to great food at their home ballparks. As a Rangers Fan and Texan, I was embarrassed. If we had guests in our own home, we would never serve such a thing. After all a Texas BBQ sandwich is big and juicy and Whataburger is the gold standard for burgers. This was worse than food you would expect at a college cafeteria any day except Parent weekend.
When the Rangers emailed me a comment survey, I answered it immediately. I gave the highest scores possible for the new ballpark, friendliness and safety but the lowest scores possible for the food. I also sent Concessions at the ballpark an email I got from the Rangers web site. It bounced back as a bad email address. In it I told them, the World Series is in Texas this week. It isn’t too late to improve the quality of food. Even TJ and I could do it. Just make the call and put us in the game. We have guests from Los Angeles and Tampa Bay. Let’s feed them like guests in our own home.
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