The Front Row with MARK NELKE August 19, 2012

Yakima County Stadium has been the home of the Yakima Bears baseball team for some two decades.

Unless you have no clue where anything is in Yakima, and you try to find Yakima County Stadium by using one of those GPS gadgets, which has apparently never heard of a stadium with that name, then apparently it is not. So you mutter a few choice words and wonder what to do next.

Then you hop on the freeway anyway, and you see a dome off to the right and you hope that maybe, just maybe, if there is a dome, perhaps there is a baseball field nearby that shares the same parking lot.

Then, by some fluke of luck, you turn out to be right - which is a good thing, because game time is nearing and you're running out of options.

Of course when you get there, you find out the baseball park is called State Fair Park, or something like that, which it says on a sign at the entrance, as well as being called Yakima County Stadium, which is written across the back of the stadium.

Of course. No wonder the team is moving.

On a whirlwind tour through scenic central Washington recently, we took in a couple of minor league baseball games, scratching two more Northwest League ballparks off the list.

IT WAS reported earlier this summer that the Bears, the short-season class A affiliate of the Arizona Diamondbacks, were moving to a shiny new stadium being built in Hillsboro, Ore., just southwest of Portland.

A visit to Yakima County Stadium/State Fair Park/Ballpark near the SunDome, and you can see why. No offense to the good people of Yakima - the sparse crowd that did show up was friendly, and the Bears staff kept the fans entertained throughout the game.

But the ballpark looked like it had seen better days. There was dead grass on the field, which apparently makes sense since the field was built on top of a parking lot.

In fact, the stadium reminded me of Memorial Stadium in Boise, where the Hawks play — a decent yard, but bypassed by more recent stadiums with more to offer.

No wonder it came down to between Boise and Yakima when it came down to which team was going to move to Hillsboro. Yakima won — though its fans lost.

Then again, only an announced crowd of 1,720 showed up on this night, about par for the course in Yakima these days. Still, you can’t blame the fans for not supporting a team in its final days, especially in a town where the team has been losing money for years.

(If for some reason you also feel like going for a walk in Yakima, its version of the Centennial Trail is called the Greenway. However, it’s not quite as scenic — more like a paved strip through a desert — but it is a place to walk. And the best thing of all is, a nice older gentleman drives up and down the trail in a golf cart, offering free refills of nearly-cold water. That might make a nice touch on the trails around here.)

GESA STADIUM in Pasco looks like it was built out in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by fields and with a backdrop of I-182 traffic far beyond the outfield fence.

Opened in 1995, it looks much newer than that. One of the best things about the park is a 137-foot sunshade that keeps the setting sun from beating on the fans in the left field seats. Which was a good thing on this night, with temperatures in the 90s and the wind refusing to blow.

So now we have seen games in seven of the eight current Northwest League parks — with only a visit to Everett remaining.

My updated NWL ballpark rankings — 1, Avista Stadium, Spokane (no brainer). 2, Volcanoes Stadium, Keizer (sorry, I grew up in Salem. But still, a nice new park, maybe too much aluminum in the bleachers, but hearing the truckers toot their horns as they roar down I-5 behind the outfield fences is a nice touch. Plus, it might be the only park in the league with “luxury” boxes, which we were able to enjoy on one of our trips). 3, Nat Bailey Stadium, Vancouver, British Columbia (lots of covered seating helps keep fans cool during their many afternoon games). 4, Gesa Stadium, Pasco (still looks fresh and clean, and the sunshade is a nice touch on hot summer nights). 5, Yakima County Stadium. 6, Memorial Stadium, Boise (should actually be tied with Yakima’s stadium, but Boise knows better — the city should get on the stick, fix its park or build a new one, or it will be without baseball soon as well).

I did not include PK Park in Eugene, where the Emeralds play, because it was built for the University of Phil Knight baseball team and the Ems seem to have just benefited from it. They moved there recently from ancient Civic Stadium. But if I did I would probably rank it below Vancouver and above Yakima’s stadium — nice and new, but a tad plain.

OTHER THAN that, other than the fact they were the Olympics, they also made for nice TV filler over those two weeks. I didn’t even mind watching stuff on tape delay each night — besides, some of those sports — like track and field and gymnastics — make for better TV when they’re edited down anyway.

And I see the Seahawks didn’t stop acquiring former aging 49ers receivers with the great Jerry Rice — this year they have gone overboard by bringing in Antonio Bryant, Braylon Edwards and, most recently, Terrell Owens.

Makes me wonder if we’ll see Michael Crabtree in Seahawks blue and green in a decade or so.

Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached at 664-8176, Ext. 2019, or via email at mnelke@cdapress.com. Follow him on Twitter at CdAPressSports.