ARLINGTON — It’s been a challenge to watch the Rangers on TV this season. But now that the AL Championship Series is here, the team has been freed and is accessible for all thanks to the ever-benevolent national TV gods.
So, it’s time to introduce some of those folks you’ll finally be seeing a lot of when Game 3 begins in Arlington. Like: Hot Dog Girl.
No, that’s not Corey Seager’s nickname.
Amber Leigh Martinson wishes it hadn’t become hers either, but these are the hazards of living life in the ultra-luxury suites situated directly behind and below home plate at Globe Life Field. Sure, the food’s fantastic. The service is spectacular. And the views are unmatched. But beware: The cameras are unforgiving. Their denizens end up on TV — and the mammoth in-stadium monitor — more than the players.
“I learned the hard way,” said Martinson, senior director of marketing for Daltile, the ceramic tile and stone manufacturer which supplied pretty much all the tile in the stadium. “I won’t eat in the front row of the suite anymore. Lesson learned.”
Story goes this way: Martinson, with the rest of the Daltile crew, showed up for the home opener in 2021, the first time the suites were open to fans. Sat down in the front row. Indulged in a time-honored tradition of a hot dog. Just so happened a left-handed hitter was up at the time and there was Martinson, just to the right of catcher Jose Trevino’s glove. Since Seinfeld remains relevant to every element of ordinary life: Picture the scene where George Costanza is caught by cameras eating a hot fudge at the U.S. Open. Only Seinfeld existed before smartphones and social media. George didn’t go viral. Amber Leigh kind of did.
“I was fully enjoying my opening day feast,” she said. “And the way the camera was set up, it basically zoomed in on my face eating the hot dog. I just got immediately blown up on Facebook, Instagram, all my social media. I got a very hard time. I became ‘Hot Dog Girl’. I decided I will not eat in the front row anymore.”
If you’ve been able to watch Rangers games, you’ve probably noticed Martinson. She said she’s probably attended 30 games this year in the suite that Daltile’s senior vice president for sales Scott Maslowski and wife Amy agreed to buy “about 30 seconds after we walked in,” he said.
The suite is sunken below the field, putting most visitors eyes relatively level with the catcher’s mitt. The front row is 42 feet from home plate, making it officially the closest seat in the majors to the action, according to the Rangers.
Yeah, before you ask, they are as expensive as you’d expect. The eight suites that ring the area roughly from on-deck circle to on-deck circle run $9,000 a night when vacant. At full price, that’s over $700,000 for a full season. Don’t worry about trying to book for your next block party. All of them are under contract, most for multiple years. Maslowski and Daltile also split their suite with a partner. Even for those who can afford them, the sweet suites are pretty costly.
“I tell customers that this is the best I can do because I couldn’t get them in the dugout,” Maslowski said. “It creates a really unique experience, something that they will never forget. We also tell them the only ‘negative’ is you are going to be on TV every single pitch. Everybody is going to see you. But we also encourage it. We tell them to let family and friends know. You just have to kind of time the eating of the hot dogs.”
Maslowski’s been victim, too. At a game earlier this year, he looked down at his phone to see a text from his brother: “Don’t you think that’s a little much with the ice cream?”
At a late September midweek game, for example, Maslowski actually brought some friends from Frisco. It was their first time in the suite. Before the first inning was over, they were getting screen shots and texts from multiple acquaintances. Even a hapless reporter who dropped by the suite to conduct a few interviews was greeted postgame by multiple Rangers players who’d seen his mug up close.
Take poor Amber Leigh Martinson again. As a marketing executive first and a baseball fan second (her husband is Jason Martinson, who played at Birdville High School and then spent nine years in the minor leagues, including one in the Rangers organization), she’s still at work when entertaining clients.
And that can lead to lots of shots of her engaging with folks in the suite, especially when she’s wearing her white satin Rangers jacket, rather than locked in on every pitch.
“I’ve kind of leaned into it,” she said. “There have been multiple posts with people posting me not watching the game, not participating like a true fan. So, if something good happens while I was talking to somebody or on the phone, I’m superstitious and say: ‘Well, I’ve got to do that again.’”
The experience, though, is as priceless as the suite itself. In July, Martinson’s husband was among those in the suite when Aroldis Chapman unloaded a wild 102.8 mph fastball to Harold Ramirez that eluded the glove of Mitch Garver and hit the net just between two fans. It left them ducking in reaction and with their mouths wide open in response.
There have been “bunker” level suites at many stadiums. Super agent Scott Boras was a regular on TV at Angels games for several years, occupying the suite directly behind home plate before moving over just a bit. There are suites at field level at AT&T Stadium for Cowboys games, as well. At football stadiums, though, field level suites usually sit behind a sideline. When architectural firm HKS designed Globe Life Field, though, it saw an opportunity to take the idea to the next level.
With the plan for a more “vertical” lower seating bowl, it gave the firm the opportunity to create “two” front rows. What they did not want to do, however, was create the feel of a bunker, something that was totally enclosed. The front of these suites is open to the light that shines through the translucent panels in Globe Life Field’s roof. And, on those rare occasions when the roof is open, they sit in the sunshine, too.
“We had a chance to work on a next-generation kind of project and create an experience that was unique and intimate,” said Fred Ortiz of HKS. “This just amplifies the experience in a way you’ve never felt before. People don’t feel like they are as part of the game as you do in these seats. It amplifies the connectivity. The only thing between you and the game is a net.”
And, for some, the only thing between them and going viral is a hot dog or a hot fudge sundae.
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