Accessibility Seating
If you peruse the detailed seating chart for SunTrust Park… you can find handicap access seating in multiple places.
For those for whom stairs are an issue, note that there are 3 means of combating that problem:
- Seating at the back of the ‘100’ level… the same level at which you enter the park. No stairs required.
- Escalators and ramps: these get you to the 200/300 levels
- Elevators: same thing.
The 400-level seats (way up high) do require steps to be navigated.
The official ballpark site also reports:
"There are seven elevators available to guests at SunTrust Park. All seven elevators are accessible to guests with disabilities. These elevators are located at: 1st Base Gate, 3rd Base Gate, Left Field Gate, Terrapin Taproom and Hope and Will’s Sandlot (by the Home Depot Clubhouse)."
You can expect lots of people waiting for the elevators, though the escalators tend to move quickly enough to keep crowds to a minimum.
More About the Seating
Wheelchairs obviously occupy their own space, so the Braves have a nice solution for them. The ‘WC’ seating areas are merely a fenced-off section that has a few individual padded chairs in it.
If you use a wheelchair, then you simply have an usher (they were very nice) pull a padded chair away and the wheelchair takes the space. If you need the chair yourself (like me) or if you’re the companion of a wheelchair user… then you still sit right there along with your wheeled friend.
The only ‘gotcha’: In the lower bowl 100 section (I was in section 118), this WC area is at the back of ‘regular’ seating. That’s necessary to avoid stairs, but it also runs afoul of the stadium’s design.
The upper decks are mounted virtually on top of one another – it definitely shrinks the stadium footprint and gives a great look for those in the 200/300/400 levels. However, it also hides the scoreboard from those in the WC seating areas. Unfortunate, but it’s a necessary trade-off.
The Game
This was truly a weird one. Sean Newcomb‘s nickname should be ‘Houdini’ since he managed to escape from so many entanglements. FOUR double-plays will certainly help erase the pain of 4 walks and 6 hits over 4 innings.
On the flip side, Kyle Hendricks deserved a better fate. The Cubs were charged with 6 errors, though 7 was probably the right number and an 8th was just out of reach.
Cubs fans near me wanted Hendricks thrown off the team (yeah, they left early), but it was the Little League-caliber play behind him that was the problem… not his pitching.
It fact, while the Braves cashed in those errors repeatedly, it would also have been possible for Atlanta to have gotten 10… 12… 14 runs without great difficulty. There were 11 runners left on base!
It was a great moment to help welcome Brian McCann back, and even better to see him punch the first pitch he saw into right field to score 2 runs.
So that’s a wrap from SunTrust after the home opener of 2019. The Braves put one on the board and they got another big win on Tuesday. Great to see!