Everybody knows I am a baseball fan. Baseball has been part of my family for as long as I can remember.
I remember watching my uncle at softball practice, watching my dad and uncle play catch outside the house, and gathering kids from the street for makeshift baseball games in the post office parking lot in front of my house.
When my dad, uncle, and grandfather watched the Cleveland Indians, I was the official beer fetcher. I was always especially excited when they wanted their beer poured into a mug because I could leave a little bit in the bottom of the can and steal a couple of sips for myself.
Today, my family has a Diemer baseball group chat where we either celebrate or lament the Cleveland Guardians. We send reels and clips, talk about trades and statistics, and share our memories and hopes for our favorite sport.
Since moving back to the United States, I have gone to a lot of games at Progressive Field. In 2021 and 2022, I probably went to around 30 games. Over the past couple of years, however, I have gone less and less.
It is not because I like baseball less. It is because of what I have been seeing at the ballpark, what I have learned about the ballpark, and the experience I am getting for the money.
I want to put my thoughts out there and see if other people are feeling the same way.
TL;DR: The ramblings of a middle-aged baseball fan, or has the enshittification of baseball arrived? Centralized food, $15 beers, grab-and-go concessions, questionable tipping practices, touchscreens, digital-only tickets, and fewer human interactions. Is Progressive Field losing what made going to a baseball game feel like baseball?
The food has become ridiculously expensive
Over the years, Progressive Field made a real effort to bring local restaurants and Cleveland food into the ballpark. Especially during the renovations in 2015 and 2016, the organization added places like Melt, Barrio, Sweet Moses, Momocho, Fat Head’s, Dante’s Inferno, and the Brew Kettle. The team promoted those local additions when they were introduced.
Cleveland was becoming known as a foodie city, and Progressive Field was trying to put something new and novel into the ballpark. Generally speaking, I thought the food was good.
In recent years, however, everything has gotten ridiculously expensive, and the quality has gone down dramatically.
I have been told that more of the food operation has been centralized.
An $8 hot dog that has been sitting in a warmer for hours, dried and shriveled on a hard bun, is not uncommon. At this point, it feels like that is simply how they make a hot dog.
The popcorn is not always freshly popped. I have watched workers take popcorn from giant plastic bags sitting behind the counter, fill the display machine with it, and then scoop it out in front of customers as if it came directly from the machine. The popcorn machine has become a prop.
A local craft beer from somewhere like the Brew Kettle or Fat Head’s can run around $15. Buy two and add a tip, and you are spending well over $30.
There are still some gems around the park. The food at 5 Star the hotdogs are made fresh to order and can still run around $12. Dante’s Inferno Pizza is probably the best deal in the ballpark. The last time I bought one, it cost around $11 for a personal pepperoni pizza.
But the overall food quality has fallen to the point where I barely eat at the stadium anymore.
I have been to Major League and Minor League ballparks around the country. Some have had special food and special experiences. New York was overpriced, but the food I bought was at least decent. At Comerica Park in Detroit, I had one of the best smash burgers I have ever eaten from some random concession stand in the upper level.
Progressive Field’s overall food experience has dwindled into highway robbery without anything close to your money’s worth.
It has been disappointing.
The park feels less maintained
The ballpark itself also feels less maintained.
I have increasingly encountered dirty bathrooms with no toilet paper or paper towels. I have found broken soap dispensers. I have seen dirt and trash left around the ballpark without maintenance or cleaning staff coming through as the game continues. I am not saying every bathroom is dirty or that nobody cleans the stadium. I am saying I have noticed it more and more.
My experience at Progressive Field used to be so good that when I visited other ballparks, I would tell people how amazing Cleveland’s park was. I talked about the standing-room areas, the family-friendly atmosphere, and everything the ballpark offered kids.
Now I find myself hoping visitors do not judge Cleveland based on how parts of Progressive Field are maintained during a game.
That is a massive change from how I used to feel.
The personal experience is disappearing
The interpersonal experience inside the park is also slowly being taken away.
Grab-and-go concessions might be faster, but they do not give you much bang for your buck.
For some reason, it does not feel right to grab a plastic bottle of soda from a refrigerator and pay $8 for it. I would rather pay the same ridiculous price to have somebody pour me a fountain drink with crushed ice and hand it to me over the counter.
Yes, I understand that they may make even more money from a fountain drink. That is not my point.
There is something different about getting a fountain drink with crushed ice, drinking it through a straw, and walking around the ballpark after somebody has taken your order and served it to you.
Many of the places around the team store and terrace where people used to gather and grab concessions have been converted into grab-and-go markets. You stand in line, pull what you want from a refrigerator, scan it, tap your phone, and leave.
The Guardians have openly expanded this model. For 2026, the organization announced more self-checkout and grab-and-go areas, including the Arcade Marketplace, the Landing, Guardians Classics, and additional self-checkout inside the team store.
More and more, I see one employee controlling the line and checking identification for alcohol. Another person stands near the end in case somebody has a problem with the touchscreen.
That is the extent of the interaction.
There is no getting to know the concession worker. There is no small talk. There is barely a transaction between two human beings.
It is sterile.
People go to baseball games for a shared experience. It is the smell of popcorn, peanuts, and Cracker Jack. It is the camaraderie around the team. It is everybody yelling, “José, José, José, José.” It is talking to the ushers and hearing somebody come through the section yelling, “Hot dogs!” or “Beer here!”
That version of baseball is slowly becoming a distant memory.
A new generation may remember baseball as a wall of giant refrigerators filled with Pepsi, Gatorade, and alcoholic beverages. You grab something, scan it, tap your phone, and walk away without talking to a single person.
I understand that the world changes. I understand that businesses use technology to become more efficient.
But removing people from the experience is still removing something.
Where do the tips go?
A couple of years ago, I learned something about the tipping system.
One of my favorite parts of going to games regularly was getting to know the ushers and concession workers. If you had season tickets, you recognized the same people. You knew where you liked to get food and who usually poured your beer. You made small talk, and if somebody treated you well, you tipped them well.
Then workers started telling me, “Stop tipping me. I don’t get those tips.”
That pissed me off.
I had been tipping people for years under the assumption that the money was going to the person standing in front of me.
I also heard the allegation that concession tips were being directed to a Guardians-related charity and then treated as charitable donations for tax purposes. I could not verify that claim, so I am not going to state it as fact.
I could not find a public, stadium-wide explanation of exactly where every touchscreen tip goes. Actual bartenders operate under different rules. You can find them at the corner bar or the terrace.
If the screen asks me to leave a tip, I should know whether that tip goes to the person helping me, a nonprofit group, the concession company, or somebody else.
People should not have to walk around the stadium questioning workers to find out.
When I visited Great American Ball Park in Cincinnati, I told my friend what workers in Cleveland had told me. She did not believe it, so we asked people working there. We were told something similar.
That is not proof of a universal policy in Cincinnati or Cleveland. It is what workers directly told us.
If people have been tipping concession workers year after year and those workers have not personally received the money, people have every right to be pissed off.
Everything is digital now
Then there is the MLB Ballpark app.
Everything is digital. Tickets are bought online and downloaded into a digital wallet. The Guardians’ own ballpark guide says tickets must be purchased digitally through the team website, Ballpark app, or phone sales.
Where do you keep your ticket stubs now?
My dad has a scrapbook filled with tickets from old games. Some are from games he took us to as kids. Others represent memories that were important enough for him to save.
We do not even have the ordinary experience of walking up to the box office, getting a printed ticket, having somebody tear it at the entrance, and then using it to find our seats.
Now you need a phone, an app, a login, an email address, and a digital ticket just to get into the ballpark.
It is convenient until your phone dies, the app logs you out, the internet does not work, or the ticket refuses to load.
Maybe it is more efficient.
But we lost something when the ticket disappeared.
There are still some positives
One of the biggest positives at Progressive Field is that you can still bring your own food into the park. You can pack yourself a soft-sided cooler, make a sandwich, bring food, and set up shop for a ballgame.
That is one of the best perks at Progressive Field, and not enough people take advantage of it.
Someone could argue that allowing outside food is part of the reason the stadium streamlined its concession operation. If fans can bring their own meals, perhaps the team decided it needed fewer workers and a simpler food system.
I do not believe that trade-off is necessary. But allowing people to bring their own food is still a real positive, and it should be acknowledged.
P.S. Where the hell are the chopped onions?
Why has everywhere gotten rid of onions? You have Onion running in the Hot Dog Derby, but you cannot get chopped onions for an actual hot dog.
It makes my dad so mad that he brings his own onions into the park.
He brings onions from home so he can put them on the same shriveled, crappy hot dog they sell for $8.
Maybe this is nostalgia, but I do not think that is all it is
Baseball is changing.
Maybe this is just the rambling of a man in his mid-40s who feels nostalgic and wants the same feeling he had as a boy or younger man. The world is changing. Baseball is changing. People are changing. Culture is changing.
As much as I consider myself progressive, future-focused, technology-focused, and culturally tuned in, I am starting to lament some of what we have lost.
But I do not think this is only nostalgia.
I think this is enshittification.
It is cutting costs, reducing staff, making customers serve themselves, charging more for worse products, and slowly stripping the humanity out of an experience when more and more people are going out to find that human experience outside of screens and phones.
The Guardians are not an unprofitable organization. Forbes estimates that the team produced $337 million in revenue and $53 million in operating income during the 2025 season. Forbes valued the franchise at approximately $1.66 billion in 2026.
The team also entered 2026 with the lowest Opening Day 40-man payroll in Major League Baseball at approximately $75.5 million.
Meanwhile, public officials continue looking for additional taxpayer money to maintain the stadium.
There are two different sales-tax proposals in the county discussion. One would use money left over from an existing quarter-percent county sales tax after obligations for the new jail and courthouse are covered. Another proposal reportedly being drafted by County Executive Chris Ronayne would increase the county sales tax by 0.15 percentage points to create a fund for repairs at Progressive Field and Rocket Arena.
So we have a profitable baseball team cutting staff, making more of the experience self-service, overcharging for shitty products, and benefiting from repeated public spending on the stadium where it makes its money.
Then the entire region is effectively told to shut up, take what it is given, and be happy that it still has a baseball team.
I do not accept that.
What are your thoughts? Is Progressive Field a better experience than it used to be? Am I out of touch? Is this simply my nostalgia coming through?
Or do I have a point that enshittification has hit the Cleveland Guardians and Progressive Field?
There’s a lot about the experience of going to a game now that just seems antiseptic. It’s has taken away most of the fervor that I used to have in following pro and major college sports.
If I go to game once in a while, I’m typically good any more. I follow a lot of pro and college sports, from here in Cleveland and around the country and the world.
But the teams themselves have taken much of the fun away from attending and experiencing the event. When I do attend a game, I like to take the team out of the equation and support the businesses surrounding the venue. When I’m inside the gate, it’s all about the game. I pay enough for my food and beverage tab outside of the venue and paying twice as much for an inferior product and non-existent service seems utterly silly to me, presently.
Food is crappier everywhere now. Order by DoorDash and it's not even edible. Eat at the restaurant, other than the most expensive, and it's all microwaved and merely adequate. So I think the ballpark is representative of what's happening at restaurants. It's really sad.