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Gary Wong 6/10/21 Gary Wong 6/10/21

Buffalo, June 5-6

If you’ll recall from my last trip to Tampa- St. Pete, I was able to catch a Toronto Blue Jays home game in Dunedin because of COVID-19 restrictions keeping them south of the border.

Beers 🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺
Breweries 🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻
Games ⚾️ ⚾️
Flights ✈️✈️

#ballpark32

If you’ll recall from my last trip to Tampa- St. Pete, I was able to catch a Toronto Blue Jays home game in Dunedin because of COVID-19 restrictions keeping them south of the border. Well, those restrictions are still in place but with summer approaching, the club had to find a new home or fall victim to the warmer, more humid weather to come.

Enter Buffalo - Sahlen Field, the home of their Triple-A affiliate Buffalo Bisons would become the new temporary home for the Jays.

Sahlen Field was built with the intention of possibly being a home for an MLB team. Well, a little over 20 years later, it happened with the Blue Jays playing their home games there in 2020 due to the pandemic. With US-Canada border still closed, it was pressed back into service for 2021 as their home after they finally “broke camp”, leaving Florida after their final homestand in May.

You can tell that there were higher ambitions for the ballpark as it’s a fairly large one by MiLB standards. That said, it’s still too small a footprint and would need considerable upgrades, even more than the ones made the last two years to have it be serviceable as a temporary home for an MLB team. That’s no knock on the stadium itself - it’s an awesome minor league venue and a fantastic place to take in a game of any caliber. It’s just not a major league stadium. It was, however, the 32nd ballpark I’ve seen an MLB game.

Also? I caught my very first foul ball here!

The start time for the Saturday afternoon game was a very Toronto home game time - 3:07 pm. That left me with just enough time to take a tour of a Frank Lloyd Wright home - Martin House. Alas, photography was not allowed inside the house on this tour so you’ll just have to take my word for it that the interior is phenomenal. Several rooms were incredible but the kitchen may have been the standout of the spaces we had access to.

The List

Breweries

Resurgence Brewing Company
Thin Man Brewery
Big Ditch Brewing Company
Lafayette Brewing Co.
Pressure Drop Brewing

Bars

Anchor Bar

Coffee & Baked Goods

Public Espresso + Coffee