Best stadium in baseball

PNC should be on the tops list as well.

 

I believe at least 60 of the 73 posts on this thread have mentioned PNC as probably the best.
Typical D_B

 

Impossible to find? It's right on I-70.

Great ballpark.

 

I'm about to add everything west of Texas minus Seattle in the next 10 days, so this list will change but so far the ones I've seen.

1. Old Yankee
2. Fenway
3. Wrigley
4. St. Louis
5. Texas
6. Houston
7. Pre-renovated Kansas City
8. Cleveland
9. Cincinnati
10. Shea
11. Florida
12. Metrodome

 

Coors Field and Safeco are both excellent places to watch games. The BOB, or whatever they're calling the stadium in Phoenix, made me feel like I was watching a game in a garbage can with the cover off because unlike Safeco, when they clsoe the roof it completely encloses the stadium.

As for minor-league fields, Buffalo's Coca-Cola Park was one of the first downtown stadiums, and remains one of the best. There is not a bad seat.

 

PNC is easily the best. Kinda surprised there hasn't been a lot of love for Coors Field.

 

Y'all are making me homesick. It has been far too long since I went to a game there.

One thing I haven't seen mentioned (maybe I glossed over it) is the sight lines in PNC, which are outstanding. Every seat offers a great view of the field. The only real exception is the press box, where most of the seats make it tough to see the home plate umpire without standing.

 

I was thinking the same thing. Those '70 stadiums are just another example of the worst era in North American architecture---Brutalism (yes, that's an architectural term). One of the most egregious examples is the Robarts Library at University of Toronto which was almost instantly named "Fort Book"



Of course Wrigley & Fenway are dumps. They were built 100 years or so ago. It's the same as Maple Leaf Gardens or the old Boston Garden.

Most of HOK's stadiums are baseball versions of North American Irish pubs. Terrific experience for the fan/beer drinker but mostly formulaic. Nothing wrong with either concept but it's a lot of cookie cutter architecture

Edit: Went to a WS games in Detroit in '84. Still one of my most memorable baseball experiences. Two rows up in the deck overhanging third base. Awesome Second would be Fenway.

 

I'll give you this, out of all the clone multipurpose stadiums from that era (Riverfront, Three Rivers, Veterans, RFK, Fulton Co., etc), Busch did seem like the nicest. They all had almost the exact same cookie cutter design, but Busch appeared a bit more spruced up and colorful than the others, and the view of the Arch over the top helped too.

But I'm used to seeing that family of stadiums cursed as the ultimate sterile soulless evil in these type discussions. Takes some stones to admit you liked one of those more than the holy Fenway/Wrigley duo.

 

It was actually Sports Illustrated who tabbed Indy's Victory Field as the "Best Minor-League Ballpark in America". Since they haven't given the honors to any other Minor League stadium since, the Indians just keep using it.

 

I've been to 14 current parks. Wrigley is the clear, unchallenged No. 1 in my book. Never been to Fenway yet, but it'll be the only one that could possibly unseat Wrigley on my list.

To me the neighborhood is a giant part of a stadium. For this reason, I hate every parking lot ballpark I've ever been to. Give me a dump in a neighborhood over a gem in a parking lot.

Parking lot parks have no soul. Feels like I'm going to Walmart or something. Don't get me started about leaving a parking lot park after the game. Instead of hitting the nearest bar, like you do at an urban park, you get to enter the never-ending converging lines of the most barren, soul-crushingly large parking lots on the face of the earth.

Coors Field is awesome, mainly on location (all the new parks are essentially the same).

AutoZone in Memphis is great, too. Right near all kinds of nightlife.

 

No matter how many parks I go to, I keep comparing them to Citizens Bank Park. The Phillies did a tremendous job in designing that park to fit the game day atmosphere.

I went to Rangers Ballpark last year and it was pretty cool.