Baseball Travel: Lewis and Clark Park, Sioux City

Sioux City Explorers / Lewis and Clark Park

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Rating

Specifics

Address/Directions: 340 Line Drive, Sioux City. Take exit 143 (the Industrial Road exit) from I-29 and head east. Follow the signs; you can approach the ballpark from the south or from the west.
Phone: 712/277-9467.
Web: www.xsbaseball.com
Online ticket sales? No.
Online broadcasts? No.
Capacity: 3,800.
Year Built: 1993.
Last Visited: August 1998.
League: Northern League.
Affiliation: None.

Description

Louis and Clark Park pretty much typifies everything Iowa: solid, a good value, plenty of parking, nothing too flashy, and poised on the edge of a cornfield. It was built for the arrival of the Explorers, and most of the seats provide good views of the action, especially the grandstand seats. (Just avoid the bleachers down the third-base line.) The grandstand features theatre-style seats and cupholders. Players apparently love playing at Louis and Clark: it's been voted as the best-maintained field in the Northern League three years in a row.

It's hard to get too enthusiastic about Lewis and Clark Park as a ballpark. It does fit the needs of the Explorers rather well, with luxury boxes and several well-stocked concession stands. But it was built with efficiency and practicality in mind, not to remind anyone of the great minor-league parks in the Midwest.

Concession Highlights

Mixed drinks -- gin, run, whiskey, and whatever you can mix with them. Otherwise, the food is standard stadium fare.

Smoking

You can smoke in the outer concourse or the picnic area, but not the seats.

Parking

There's parking for $1 in the adjoining parking lot. It seems rather criminal to pay for parking that's literally surrounded by corn fields.

Before the Game

Try your luck at the Belle of Sioux City Casino, a riverboat casino on the Missouri River opposite downtown Sioux City (take exit 147A from I-29). You'll find the standard casino games, including blackjack, slots, craps and poker.

After the Game

The downtown Fourth Street historic district features a cluster of restaurants (Luciano's, The Victorian Opera Company), coffeehouses (The Wide Awake Coffee Bar) and bars (Fourth Street Brewing Co., Buffalo Alice). The beers at Fourth Street Brewing Company are quite good, with the medium-weight (like the red ale) beers proving to be the class of the joint. It's also a cigar-friendly bar, so smoke 'em if you got 'em.

Where to Stay

The Days Inn (3000 Singing Hills Blvd., 712/258-8000) and the Budgetel Inn (3101 Singing Hills Blvd., 712/233-2302) are within walking distance of Louis and Clark, if you don't mind a longish walk next to a corn field. Within the general area are the Comfort Inn (4202 S. Lakeport Rd., 712/274-1300) and the Fairfield Inn (4716 Southern Hills Dr., 712-276-5600). Downtown there's the Hilton Inn (707 4th St., 800/792-7734), which is within walking distances of the Fourth Street district.

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