Best Softball Stadium 2009 | Big League Dreams Sports Park | Arts & Entertainment | Phoenix
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Best Softball Stadium

Big League Dreams Sports Park

For the softballer who gets drunk in the parking lot before the game, and doesn't hold twice-weekly practice, any dusty old field will do. For the serious athlete, Big League Dreams Sports Park has the only fields worthy of such talent.

The park has eight replicas of iconic professional baseball stadiums like Fenway Park, Wrigley Field, and Yankee Stadium, scaled down to softball field-size dimensions. At Big League Dreams, you can hit one over Fenway's "Green Monster," touch the ivy at Wrigley, or take the mound at Yankee Stadium.

The stadiums will make you feel so much like a professional baseball player, you're gonna want to do steroids.

Best Place to See a Spring Training Game, Old School

Phoenix Municipal Stadium

The "ballpark village" known as Goodyear Ballpark, Cactus League home of the Cleveland Indians and Cincinnati Reds, cost $100 million to build. Camelback Ranch Stadium, the spring digs of the Los Angeles Dodgers and Chicago White Sox, features a fish-filled lake, a sunken playing field, and practice fields that mimic the exact dimensions of Dodger Stadium and Chicago's U.S. Cellular Field. By comparison, the city's dear old Phoenix Muni may seem a little drab, but if you're an open-air baseball geek, the preseason home of the Oakland A's has everything you require: warm sun, cold beer, a perfectly groomed field, and cozy environs with not a bad seat in the 7,885-seat house. And with the red buttes of Papago Park towering over the left-field fence, Muni exudes the kind of old-school Cactus League charm that even 100 million bucks can't buy.

Best Place to See a Spring Training Game, New School

Camelback Ranch

Picking your favorite spring training ballpark is like picking your favorite Beatle: Even if you're comfortable with your choice, you have to concede there are certain merits to the options you've passed up. Still, having been to every park in Arizona, we give the nod to Glendale's $100 million Camelback Ranch, home to the Chicago White Sox and Los Angeles Dodgers. As one of the brand-new Cactus League parks, it's got all the amenities of Chase Field in an intimate setting that mirrors the atmosphere in the best old-time ballparks. Parking is a cinch, the ushers aren't as Draconian about seat-sneaking as what you'll find at, say, Peoria Sports Complex, and the Chicago-style hot dogs are cheaper and tastier than the ones the Cubbies sell in Mesa. The architecture is what really sets this park apart, though: The copper-colored oxidized steel shell of the grandstand blends beautifully into the surrounding countryside, the gently sloping lawn unfolds gracefully inside the gate, and the Gabion stone retaining walls add a fresh modern touch. The overall atmosphere is still far from a finished product, and will come as the park is broken in, but it's already our favorite place to watch a game.

Best Place to Watch a Game Without Jocks

Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication

Sports are cool and all, but we like cheering for our favorite team sans the beer swilling, chicken-wing flatulence, and bro-dude'ing. For something more our non-jock speed, we like to watch the big game at the First Amendment Forum at the Walter Cronkite School in downtown Phoenix. The school shows the majority of the ASU football games (both home and away) as well as some ASU men's basketball clashes and the Super Bowl on a big projection screen. There's no cover and free popcorn is served.

Best Superfan

Clayton Jacobson

We talked to a great many Phoenix sports fans in the lead-up to the Super Bowl, but only one really sticks out: Clayton Jacobson of Parker, Arizona. Jacobson is a California native, the son of the man who invented the Jet Ski, but has adopted the Cards with a fervor we'd love to see in all local sports fans. Jacobson, who figured prominently in our cover story about Cardinals fans and also got his mug on the front page of the Arizona Republic, has the homemade signs and head-to-toe team gear, sure, but what really impressed us is his attitude. Jacobson absolutely refused to endure the self-defeating attitude of the namby-pamby Cards fans eager to throw in the towel after every setback in the Redbirds' historic season, even threatening hometown fans with physical violence when they expressed doubt in their team during the NFC Championship game. There's definitely no one in town we'd rather watch the game with than Jacobson.

Best Local Sports Radio Show

Bickley & MJ

We're Gambo & Ash evacuees. Ironically, we've gravitated to the time slot formerly held by the Valley's No. 1 sports-gab team, who remain at the top by being abrasive, controversial for its own sake, and downright mean to their yahoo callers. (Representative call from last March. Ash to a caller: "You're a moron." Gambo: "Yeah. You should go stick your head in a toilet.") Obviously, some people like that out-yahooing-the-yahoos kind of thing. For us, it's grown stale.

When John Gambadoro and Mark Asher quit XTRA for a big payday at KTAR in late 2006, they left a sucking p.m. vacuum at their longtime radio home that was finally filled early in '09 when the tandem of Dan Bickley and Mike Jurecki moved from morning drive to afternoons to compete directly with G&A.

Bickley's the Energizer Bunny of local sports, holding down afternoon drive 20 hours a week and — for his real job — cranking out crackerjack column after crackerjack column for the Arizona Republic. Bickley's a first-class radio presence — literate, knowledgeable, the ultimate hale-fellow-well-met. Longtime reporter Jurecki is an NFL/Cardinals insider and a straight shooter bar none.

Best Syndicated Sports Radio Show

The Herd with Colin Cowherd

Colin Cowherd is that know-it-all kid on the playground who all the big, stupid kids wanna slug. But while the meatheads grew up to be janitors and solid-waste technicians, Cowherd parlayed his wit and wiles into this big-time gig with "The Mothership" — ESPN Radio.

And don't he know it.

He's the most arrogant SOB on the 'waves (well, not counting Rush Limbaugh) and our pick for most fearless. In addition to calling it like it is in the general sports world, the former baseball play-by-play man and TV sports anchor frequently bites the hand that feeds, sticking it to the powers that be at ESPN.

Mostly, though, Cowherd's show is an oasis for the non-meatheads of the world, particularly those on the West Coast. Though The Mothership keeps him close to the vest in Bristol, Connecticut, the Washington State native purposefully plays to Western markets, especially Southern California and Phoenix. The Herd is the best consistent place to go for national analysis of the Arizona Cardinals and Phoenix Suns.

Best Speed Racer

Danica Patrick

Not only is IndyCar driver Danica Patrick super-hot — she landed in Sports Illustrated's swimsuit issue twice — but she's super-fast, too. The Scottsdale resident was named Rookie of the Year for the 2005 Indianapolis 500, finished fourth at the Indy 500 that same year (the highest Indy 500 finish ever for a woman), and she became the first woman to ever win an Indy Car race last year, at the Indy Japan 500. Patrick also finished the 2008 IndyCar Series in sixth place, the highest ranking for an American driver in the series that year. She's even brought her speed-demon ethic to the streets of Scottsdale, where she's received two speeding tickets. You go, girl!

Best College Team

Phoenix College women's softball team

It may seem odd to select the Phoenix College Bears fast-pitch softball squad as the Valley's best team in a year when they didn't win the national championship. After all, the school had won five previous nationals in a row, a remarkable feat by any measure. But, heck, they finished second (to a team from Normal, Illinois) and destroyed the local competition for the 10th straight season. The Bears consistently rank high in academics, which counts for something in our book. For a body of work that grabbed our attention years ago and continues to shine, Phoenix College softball hits a home run in our park.

Best College Coach

Herb Sendek

The former coach of the North Carolina State Wolfpack and 2004 Atlantic Coach Conference Coach of the Year has done the impossible, if not unthinkable, by putting ASU's beleaguered program back on the rails in recent years. Still, some contend he's not even the best skipper on his own campus, citing ASU baseball's Pat Murphy and ASU women's basketball's Charli Turner Thorne. Still others, gazing enviously southward, believe Sendek's star has been somewhat eclipsed by the University of Arizona's coup earlier this year in snagging recruiting whiz kid Sean Miller from mid-major powerhouse Xavier.

Nothing against Murphy, Turner Thorne, or former Sendek acolyte Miller, but in terms of pure coaching ability, Sendek rules the Arizona roost. There's no better whiteboard guru in the country, and his track record with the X's and O's in Tempe — hardly a basketball school — bears that out. Taking over for the hapless Rob Evans in 2006, Sendek led the Devils to the National Invitational Tournament in 2007 and the promised land, the NCAA Tournament, last year.

If Herb can keep a few of those blue-chip recruits from falling into Sean Miller's greedy hands — and ASU athletic director Lisa Love can keep other programs' greedy mitts off Sendek — this guy's got the hardwood chops to transform ASU into a perennial NCAA Sweet 16 entry.

Best Of Phoenix®

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