Best stadium in baseball

Citi Field is definitely an improvement over Shea, and the Jackie Robinson Rotunda is very impressive in honoring a player who didn't even play for the Mets.

The park in Philly is also nice, especially the food area in the outfield.

Worst ever was Olympic Stadium. Talk about your dumps.

 

I think the Olympic stadium seated close to 80,000. It was panned by the media in 1996 because it was built with the home plate corner. Whatever. Close to 30,000 seats were removed in the conversion. I've been all over it, and there really isn't a bad seat in the place. Atlanta doesn't have the best skyline, but you can see a lot of it from the Ted.

The biggest problem is there's no rail station nearby, so for the most part you're stuck with parking at the stadium, which is both expensive and a pain in the ass.

They do everything they can to make it entertaining for the fans. Schuerholz, when the park was being developed, said he wanted it to be a baseball theme park, and that's pretty much what it is. Some of the stuff, I could live without, but I'm the rare person who is fine with the game and maybe a little organ music.

 

Here's my list of current parks where I've been: Wrigley Field, US Cellular Field, Miller Park, Comerica Park, Progressive Field, PNC Park, Great American Ballpark, Citizens Bank Park, Nationals Park, Busch Stadium, Turner Field, Kauffman Stadium, Tropicana Field, Rogers Centre.

Like many others here have said, PNC is amazing. It's my favorite. I'm not a Pirates fan, nor have I been there all that many times (4, I believe). But, I love it more and more each time I go. I've sat in different locations too...outfield in LF once, club seats in the upper level, down both baselines. It's just perfect.

Wrigley is sort of in a different category. It's amazing for what it is...seeing that "same" experience that your grandfathers saw in the 1940s. Meanwhile, I got really spoiled when I lived in Chicago and didn't have to worry about my car or parking. But, even as a Cubs fan, I never really find myself getting that excited to go up there. For the first time in a decade, I didn't make one trip there last season and I have zero intention of heading up that way this year (which is fine, because the Cubs really suck this year). I guess I've just become accustomed to being able to park my car for a decent price, actually being able to stretch out my legs and not pissing in a trough. Sitting in your unobstructed seat, looking out at the field on the nice day....there's no place better. None. But, all the headaches leave me saying it can't be my favorite ballpark to see a game.

Back to Sonner's initial post, Nationals Park struck me as the most non-descript of the new ballparks. It's a really nice place, which ultimately is the point with these parks where local citizens are going there repeatedly to watch games and not heading there as a destination to check off of a list. Still, in those pre-Strasburgian days, it was just sort of dull. Great American Ballpark struck me the same way, but it's the closest MLB stadium to me, so I guess I give it a little bit of a pass.

 

Among the parks I've seen:

1. Kauffman Stadium. Yeah, I'm biased. But I don't give a shit. Now that the renovations are complete, you've got all the amenities of the newer parks. The important part is that those changes didn't come at the expense of the elements that made the park 25 years ahead of its time when it was built. And it gets bonus points for not selling its soul for naming rights.

2. Safeco Field. Rolling roof... garlic fries. Sweet.

3. Wrigley. Love the history.

4. Camden Yards. Bonus points because I got to see the Royals play (and win) there. Loved the area it was in. It falls to No. 4 because of the truly annoying sugar-high 8-year old screaming in our ears the whole game.

5. Old Yankee Stadium. Again, the history. I'd have loved to seen the place before the renovations though.

32.. The Cell. Complete waste of a new park. A dark, dank bandbox.

 

The one problem with new Comiskey/US Celluar is the very steep angle of the seats in the upper deck.

And Comerica is nice because it's not uniform. You have the deep centerfield (420), short RF down the line, but goes out pretty quick in the gap. Plus, I don't think there's a bad seat in the house and plenty of room on the concourses.

 

It is out of the way, absolutley. But it's at the intersection of I-435, which loops around the city, and I-70, which ain't exactly a county backroad.

 

Yeah, the freeway system in Kansas City is the shits, and there's almost always construction, but I-70 and I-435 seems like an easy find to me.

The comment about amenities around the stadium are spot on. It's a clusterfuck if you try to find anything without getting back on the freeway. And there are places in Raytown I wouldn't want to break down at night. But if you hop back on the freeways, you can find just about anything within a few minutes drive -- any direction.

'Course, I grew up in the area.

 

Fenway will always be dear to me, and they have done a real nice job fixing it up the past 10 years. The place is an amusement park compared to what it was in the early '90s.

Camden is just ... Camden. I love how the field is below street level. You walk in the Eutaw Street gates and it just looks cozy.

Philly's also pretty sweet, especially in comparison to the Vet. PNC Park is really nice, but it didn't do anything extra for me. And I'm sad they tore down old Yankee Stadium, that place even post-renovation still had the nostalgia factor going for it.

 

I grew up with Shea Stadium, so my standards are low, I guess.

But I loved the three old parks I've been to -- Wrigley, Fenway and Yankee Stadium -- even though they have their "dumpy aspects."

My wife is not a big baseball fan at all, but she took my kid to Safeco while they were out there on a trip and loved it.

Neither of the two Texas parks are special. It's like one of those chain restaurants where you put up olde-timey stuff on the walls to try to impart some character.

Minute Maid's not a bad place to see a game (downstairs is much better than up), but it's not memorable.

 

So you don't like Fenway or Wrigley, but you really loved a stadium that was built in that much maligned 1970s circular "multipurpose" clone design?

Now that's a viewpoint you don't see much on these threads.

 

Scenery? You want scenery?
Anaheim and San Diego on a warm summer afternoon. You might miss the game.

 

Indy's park is to minor-league yards what Camden was to the retro-themed big-league stadiums. Indy tabbed it as the "best minor-league ballpark in America" for years, but it's essentially been copied so much that it's nothing special now, although it is a nice place to see a game (although I have a soft spot for the dumpy old ivy-covered stadium it replaced).

Drove by Slugger Field in Louisville the other night ... looked like the exact same park as Victory Field in Indy.