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For the fourth ballpark I checked off of my list, I made the hour-thirty drive to Milwaukee to American Family Field, a park that has been called Miller Park by every person I've talked about the experience with. This is the first park that I started standardizing the photos I would take at each park: a panorama from my seat, a photo of the food, and a photo of myself with the scoreboard visible.

I know some sports fans are strictly loyal to their team and despise all others within their division (or even their league), but I don't fall under this archetype. When it comes to football, I like the Bears and Lions despite being a Vikings fan. In baseball, the only team I dislike in the NL Central are the Cubs--the Pirates, Reds, and of course, the Brewers, are fine with me. My perception of the Brewers is that they're a decent team with no real reasons to dislike them.

Spoiled by the ease of parking when I went to Guaranteed Rate Field, I expected parking at American Family Field to be relatively simple. Instead, I missed the exit for the stadium, missed the exit when making the u-turn back, and then missed the exit for the stadium a second time. The odd back route I took lead to me finding a lot adjacent to the stadium that wound up having 2-hour parking on Milwaukee Rd., which felt like enough time to not get ticketed considering my inability to navigate had me arriving late to the stadium.

Despite missing the first inning of the game, I took the time to amble about the stadium before heading to my seat. The first floor of American Family Field was a notably neat spot, with one of the more expansive team stores I've seen sitting right next to a few brewing machines. I picked up a blue and yellow floral Brewers cap, some food in the form of loaded nachos and a hot dog (the former was quite good, the latter was pretty average but the hot dog station had onion and sauerkraut topping--I'd give it a 7.5 or 8 out of 10), and sat down. American Family Field is one of the few stadiums in MLB with a dome, which was closed for this game. It created an interesting feeling for me, as the large-feeling stadium felt even larger by being under this massive metal structure.

The game itself was relatively interesting, as the Angels came to town this was my first time seeing Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani play. We got half of a Tungsten Arm O'Doyle game, with Mike Trout hitting 2 home runs and bringing 5 runners in as the Angels fell to the Brewers 5-7. Ohtani wasn't pitching, but went 3 for 5 and turned in two stolen bases. The rest of the Angels combined for 5 hits (less than Trout and Ohtani) and couldn't turn any of those into runs without Trout's help. While it's a bummer I didn't witness Shohei in a pitching start, I'm glad I was still able to witness part of the Tungsten Arm O'Doyle meme in person. The Brewers concentrated their offense in a 3-run third and 4-run fifth inning ballooning their lead to 7-1, much to the dismay of the Angels fans sitting next to me, which was able to carry them to a win.

Another interesting bit of this game was that both Brewers' shortstop Willy Adames and manager Craig Counsell were ejected in the seventh inning due to arguing a pitch clock violation, something new to the 2023 season. Adames apparently asked for time from home plate umpire Adam Beck and was not granted it, resulting in a strike. The boos coming from the Brewers fans were unified against the team of umpires when the violation was issued, swelled when Counsell went to argue, and erupted when Adames struck out and got ejected for screaming at the home plate umpire. It was the first time I've been in a sports stadium with unified booing at that level, and was incredibly fun to witness as a neutral observer.

The Brewers, unfortunately, did not hit a home run this game. Bernie stayed locked in his cage, unable to go down the famous slide. Despite this, I still enjoyed the stadium experience a lot--and as I only live a stone's throw away from the stadium in Chicago, I could see myself visiting here for a game in the future! The Cardinals do play this team at Miller Park either six or seven times a year, after all...