By ERIC GOOLD
Fairbanks Daily News-Miners

With all due respect to David Letterman, these are the Top 10 Reasons Why Watching a Baseball Game in Fairbanks is Better Than Watching a Game in Denver:

10. Can it really be said that they play baseball at Coors Field? The two season-opening games played by the Rockies and Padres this week saw a combined 42 runs scored and 54 hits churned out in more than seven hours of play. Call me a purist, but I think baseball should have at least some semblance of pitching and defense to be legit.

9. You can take your family to an Alaska Baseball League game at Growden Memorial Park and not have to mortgage your house to pay for it.

8. There are no hecklers at Coors Field. At Growden, you've got your Fairbanks originals who aren't afraid to razz the umps, opposing teams or whoever just happens to be in their view at the time. Now that's adversity.

7. There are no true baseball fans at Coors Field. Whenever the public address announcer would try to fire up the crowd, the fans' flaccid response usually petered right out. The fans are corporate clones, one and all, who show up in the second inning and leave in the seventh.

6. Major League Baseball players make an average $2.3 million per year, regardless of the quality of play on the field. ABL players still have the enthusiasm of boys who would (and do) play the game for free.

5. After you get used to the infield carpet at Growden, it's hard to feel at home in a park that is as immaculately manicured and coifed as Coors Field, where the infield is so neat that there's no such thing as a "bad hop."

4. The press box at Coors Field is secure, clean and safe. At Growden, where the box shakes and trembles in even a slight breeze, you take your chances every time you go up there. Covering a game during which your life is in danger surely changes your perspective.

3. At Coors Field, they turn on the lights in the second or third inning during evening games. Wusses. They will never know or understand the purity and joy that is the Midnight Sun Game.

2. At Growden you actually have to hit a ball to knock it out of the yard. At Coors Field, a mosquito could flap its wings and propel a baseball over the fences.

1. The cheapest beer price at Coors Field is $5. Enough said.

By the way, I can't wait to get back to Fairbanks and for the Goldpanners to play their first game on June 10.

Staff writer Eric Goold can be reached at egoold@newsminer.com or at 459-7591.