Tuesday night, after a very successful day of training (ArcBest) in Sacramento, California I had some personal time to catch a River Cats game at nearby Sutter Health Park. This was my second trip to Sutter Health Park and the first potential game there. The first visit was just after the city and MLB had announced that Sutter Health Park, home of the AAA Sacramento River Cats (SF Giants), would be used as a temporary field for the former Oakland Athletics while their new stadium in Las Vegas was to be built. That was roughly November, 2024. Needless to say, my first visit wasn’t much more than the exterior of Sutter Health via the parking lot and amongst a throng of construction teams tasked with a small makeover to make the stadium more MLB like. Fast forward to last night, where the River Cats hosted the Salt Lake Bees and a much different Sacramento baseball experience.
Traffic from my hotel in Elk Grove to Sutter Health Park was about what I expected for a 6pm time frame on a California highway – congested. California traffic is like nothing else in the entire road map of US travel. The volume is what gets me, not many places can compete with the volume of cars, trucks, motorcycles, and other vehicles traveling on CA streets, roads, and highways. Armed with that knowledge, I left plenty early to get to the game so I could arrive shortly after the gates opened to do my usual self guided tour. Plan worked, it took me about 40 minutes to go the roughly 15 miles, and I arrived at the steps of Sutter Health Park at around 6pm local time. Parking was easy, found a spot in the general lot, walked right up to and into the stadium, and began to check out the Sutter Health Park experience.
Back home in VA Beach, the temps are mostly in the 90s and the humidity is in the 900s. In Sacramento on Tuesday night, temps were in the high 70s and the humidity was not even a blip on the screen. A wonderful Delta Breeze was blowing and flowing through the stadium and it felt like a dream at times – that’s how comfortable the air was. I walked through the front gate and proceeded around the stadium to check out all the views I could. I was able to walk down to the foul pole in left field before turning around, walking through the back stop area of home plate, and out to the grassy, family seating areas of right field. Sutter Health Park is now home to both the River Cats and the Athletics and is large enough to accommodate large crowds or more sparsely filled ones like Tuesday night. I took the time to chat with a few of the Sutter Health Park guest services folks, who were all really nice.
My seats were behind home plate, Section 112, but I really enjoyed my time in the right field grassy area. There was a slanted grassy area for families to throw a blanket down and let their kids roam around. It reminded me a ton of my time in the grassy areas of McCoy Stadium with Rachel, my sister and her kids, and my buddy Larson and his daughter. Giving families of young children an option like this grassy area is really thinking broadly and I loved reminiscing with the stadium folks about my time in Rhode Island and the grassy areas I watched games on. The immediate grassy area behind the team’s bullpens was roped off, so I just snagged a few photos from the sidewalk area in front of the playground in deep right field.
Bogle Family Vineyards had a cool set of plaques that linked their wine business with baseball and more specifically the Sacramento River Cats. Here are a few of the plaques I thought were interesting.
As game time approached, I grabbed a tall can of Modelo and took the steep walk down to my seats in the 9th row. I had awesome seats and maybe it was because it was a Tuesday night. On a rivalry night or weekend, Section 112 Row 9 Seat 1 is likely occupied. But, I was happy to be there and was sitting down and ready for first pitch around 6:45 CST. As I mentioned previously, the Sacramento River Cats are the AAA affiliate of the San Francisco Giants. Their opponent for the night (and week) was the Salt Lake Bees, the AAA affiliate of the Anaheim Angels. There weren’t any players on either squad that stood out to me after seeing the starting lineups, so I was excited just to sit back and enjoy the game.
Did I mention the weather was incredible. Sunny skies with this absolutely breathtaking spiral cloud moving across the stadium from first pitch to about the 2nd inning. Wind was whipping the flags out in right field at a pretty good clip but it wasn’t chilly at all. I sat in utter joy watching the first several innings without a single care. I had great seats, a tan can of beer, the CA breeze in my hair, and just about nothing to complain about. Pretty awesome night.
After a few innings of sitting, I took a small walk around the concourse and found some cool stuff to photograph. On each column of each stadium section, there were painted tiles with all sorts of interesting images, some baseball related and some just creative ideas. There was a giving wall near one of the ice cream stands that I stopped to check out. And that beautiful cloud was just out there waiting to be photographed another two or three times. And this composite schedule of games that featuring home games for both the River Cats and the Athletics. Night skies came pretty quickly at around the 7:30pm mark.
After my walk, I grabbed a box of popcorn and settled back into my seat for a few more innings. The score was pretty close, SAC was using a bullpen by committee type pitching rotation for Tuesday’s game. Salt Lake had used just one pitcher by the 5th inning. I made it through the River Cats half of the 5th inning before taking one last look of the stadium and heading back out to my rental car. Score when I left was 2-0, Salt Lake. Final score was Salt Lake 4 – River Cats 1.
I got one last photo of Sutter Health Park as I was departing the stadium area with the stadium lights were all lit up. It’s funny, I never thought about the stadium’s sign lighting up for some reason. To the casual observer, you might have thought Sutter Health Park was an amusement park, not a baseball stadium.
Second time was a charming time at Sutter Health Park, home of the Sacramento River Cats and the Athletics. Tuesday night, I got to see the inside of Sutter Health Park, take a self guided tour of the concourse area, check out the family seating spots in the right field grassy area, and chat it up with a number of really friendly guest services folks. Sutter Health Park has some amazing views from the left field party decks to the grasses of right field and just about every where in between. Parking was easy, my seats were amazing, the game was entertaining, the weather was ideal, and the play on the field was just spectacular. Overall, it was an awesome Sacramento baseball experience checking out the Sacramento River Cats vs. the Salt Lake Bees at Sutter Health Park, Sacramento, California, USA.
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