What are some of the best baseball cities?

[OnWis97]

honestly Milwaukee surprised me being on top

Milwaukee is a absolutely great major-league city. They've supported the Brewers through a lot of very terrible years. And every game's a party - tailgating might not have been invented there, but you wouldn't know that for looking. Which certainly helped during those very terrible years.

I tend to agree. My Dad, uncle and I went there to see the Twins every year (except 1991) from 1986 to 1992. We stayed in an urban neighborhood and always had a sense that it was a great baseball town in terms of the bars, the people, the pre-game and the ballpark atmosphere. At the time there were more people around with memories of the Braves short, but great existence in Milwaukee. I don't know how much it matters now, but it was an original AL city and always had a sold minor league tradition before being the destination of the first franchise move since the deadball era.

I cannot quantify it, but Milwaukee, as much as any place I've been (and I've been to most MLB cities/ballparks), comes across to me as a "baseball town." I don't know that the rest of Wisconsin is a "baseball state", (as Milwaukee seems to the be only place that cares about more than the Packers), but the city fits the bill.

[OnWis97]

Chicago is a Bears town with baseball in 2nd. The Sox and Cubs are huge draws but nothing compares to the Bears and football in that city.

I don't know if I can agree with that. Bears fandom is very real, but football support is a united front amongst the entire city, which is huge. There are tons of baseball fans, but loyalties are split, making it seem as though there's less passion.

Chicago is a great football town, but if baseball is truly second it's only by a hair.

Well I kinda judged that by the way the city reacts to the Bears vs. either baseball team. Seems like all the baseball talk combined is pretty far behind all the football talk. You don't hear much talk about the cubs or sox in the winter but you hear about the Bears year round on the radio, in the paper, and person to person. That could be a comment on the popularity of Baseball vs. Football more than anything.

I'd say this. National coverage is all about the NFL. I cannot pretend to know what everyone's local coverage is, but my sense is that in most cities, the NFL team comes first for overall year-round coverage. Though I have had the impression, including in the early 2000s, that the Sox come first in Boston, so maybe Boston is near the top of the list.

As for Milwaukee...I don't let the fact that the Packers rule that state be a detractor anyway...they still love, and know, baseball in Milwaukee.

[illwauk]

Also, this is the bad one, the downtown area of St. Louis (unless its changed in the last 3 years) is a vibrant and wonderful downtown... when the cardinals are in town and playing. Its a freakin' ghost town when they are out of town or not playing. Without the cardinals the downtown area is even worse than it is. I know there are other cities and areas that depend on their local teams, but without the Cardinals downtown St. Louis sucks.

No offense, but St. Louis' downtown is no different from the downtown of any decent-sized Midwestern city... full of cookie cutter bar & grills and out-of-towner-pandering chain establishments... and it sucks whether or not the Cardinals are in town. Granted, it wouldn't surprise me to find out that St. Louis has other, cooler neighborhoods that make up for the crappy downtown (which is the case with Milwaukee and Minneapolis), but my experience with downtown St. Louis couldn't have been more underwhelming.

honestly Milwaukee surprised me being on top

Milwaukee is a absolutely great major-league city. They've supported the Brewers through a lot of very terrible years.

The Brewers were drawing 1.5 million in the Selig-Prieb years when they'd probably only have drawn 6-figures in any other city.

[MDC]

Chicago is a Bears town with baseball in 2nd. The Sox and Cubs are huge draws but nothing compares to the Bears and football in that city.

I don't know if I can agree with that. Bears fandom is very real, but football support is a united front amongst the entire city, which is huge. There are tons of baseball fans, but loyalties are split, making it seem as though there's less passion.

Chicago is a great football town, but if baseball is truly second it's only by a hair.

Well I kinda judged that by the way the city reacts to the Bears vs. either baseball team. Seems like all the baseball talk combined is pretty far behind all the football talk. You don't hear much talk about the cubs or sox in the winter but you hear about the Bears year round on the radio, in the paper, and person to person. That could be a comment on the popularity of Baseball vs. Football more than anything.

I've always thought of Chicago as a baseball town slightly more than the other sports, but not enough to actually DEFINE it as one. Seems like there's almost an even dispersal among the Cubs, Sox, Bears, Bulls and Blackhawks to really call put any sport so far ahead of the others to specifically call it that particular sport town.

Chicago was pretty damn infatuated with the Bulls this season, you can't forget about them, especially since there is still a strong Jordan-buzz here. I would say that in an ideal situation where all Chicago teams were doing well, the ranking would look like this:

1. Bears

2. Bulls

3. Cubs

4. Blackhawks

5. Sox

I dunno, there was a topic on this earlier, and I actually changed my mine from that time until now. But yeah, thats a Chicagoan's take.

[illwauk]

I cannot quantify it, but Milwaukee, as much as any place I've been (and I've been to most MLB cities/ballparks), comes across to me as a "baseball town." I don't know that the rest of Wisconsin is a "baseball state", (as Milwaukee seems to the be only place that cares about more than the Packers), but the city fits the bill.

Much like everything else from Milwaukee, the rest of Wisconsin only claims the Brewers when they're doing well. Although they seem to have more of a following in the Green Bay/Appleton areas since they affiliated with the Timber Rattlers. Then again, that affiliation came right around the time when the Brewers stopped being a glorified AAA club too, so who knows?

[vmd9]

How long until the MLB fans from canada start claiming that the DBacks or Braves should move to Winnipeg?

We'll wait until Akron has a winning record in football.

Good answer. Not sure what that has to do with anything though.

[vmd9]

DP

[The_Admiral]

Chicago is a great football town

no, Chicago is a "talk about the Bears with your head up your ass" town. There's not a great deal of passion for or knowledge of the sport for the sake of the sport. Chicago sports fans I know grasp baseball better than football. Maybe I just don't socialize with good Bears fans. "If we can't convert on 4th down, why doesn't Lovie play Urlacher at running back?" Great town my ass.

[McCall]

How long until the MLB fans from canada start claiming that the DBacks or Braves should move to Winnipeg?

We'll wait until Akron has a winning record in football.

Good answer. Not sure what that has to do with anything though.

About the same as your original comment.

[Lights Out]

Akron won't be relevant in any sports discussion until they can win more games than the Vandals.

[illwauk]

Chicago is a great football town

no, Chicago is a "talk about the Bears with your head up your ass" town. There's not a great deal of passion for or knowledge of the sport for the sake of the sport. Chicago sports fans I know grasp baseball better than football. Maybe I just don't socialize with good Bears fans. "If we can't convert on 4th down, why doesn't Lovie play Urlacher at running back?" Great town my ass.

Y'know, the more hardcore Bears fans I talk to, the more I realize the Superfans sketches weren't that much of an exaggeration.

[The_Admiral]

Yeah, maybe it's because I'm not a gridiron guru, but every time I find myself playing So How About Local Sports Team with some stranger during Bears season, I encounter an opinion or observation that even I can tell is completely stupid. I think the Superfans thing has made everyone think they have to be boorishly and irrationally obsessed with the Bears, kind of a life-imitating-art-imitating-life spiral. It's seriously not this bad with any of the other teams. Go baseball.

[infrared41]

Akron won't be relevant in any sports discussion until they can win more games than the Vandals.

You dare to diss the mighty Zips?

[The_Admiral]

Just go out there and win one for the Zipper.

[illwauk]

Yeah, maybe it's because I'm not a gridiron guru, but every time I find myself playing So How About Local Sports Team with some stranger during Bears season, I encounter an opinion or observation that even I can tell is completely stupid. I think the Superfans thing has made everyone think they have to be boorishly and irrationally obsessed with the Bears, kind of a life-imitating-art-imitating-life spiral. It's seriously not this bad with any of the other teams. Go baseball.

I must say, talking to other Packers fans has gotten much easier since His Favreness departed and showed himself to be an A-1 d'bag thereby all but killing off the "HOW BOUT DEM PACKERS EH?!!!" factor. It no doubt helped that the team won a Super Bowl so quickly afterwards, thereby putting the accomplishments of Jesus Favre (and St. Vince... who many of the old-timers still see in a similar light) into some much needed perspective. I can only imagine how bad it must be south of the border where the local football club has been so irrelevant since the Superfans era that it's so easily forgotten that they've actually been to a Super Bowl in the past 5 years.

[RyanMcD29]

Akron won't be relevant in any sports discussion until they can win more games than the Vandals.

2010 NCAA Men's Soccer College Cup Champs!

For best baseball cities, I'd go with New York, Boston, St. Louis, and probably Cincinnati in terms of an underrated baseball city. You can make a decent case for Milwaukee, too. So yeah, probably those 5.

[Milo Meningocele]

Both Baltimore and Kansas City are just waiting for a team to support.

Sorry, waiting for a good team to support precludes you from being a great baseball town. If you're a great baseball town, you support the team you have. Otherwise, you're bandwagon/fair weather.

[pmoehrin]

I was really surprised how many Blue Jay fans I ran into while I was up in Canada.

They do get a decent amount of support and it makes sense that they were drawing 4 million+ fans a game at one point.

Problem is I think alot of fans have just resigned themselves to the notion of the Blue Jays being the AL East bridesmaids and therefore aren't as passionate about the Jays as they used to be. The foundation is there though and I think if they ever started doing well again attendance would be booming once more.

Similar situation I think has happened with the Orioles. Baltimore used to be a great baseball town, but ever since Ripken left it has been dead down there.

[The_Admiral]

Isn't it weird how the Memorial Stadium era has now ended up being worlds better than the Camden Yards era? After all the hoopla about how it changed the way people think about baseball, who'd have guessed.

[infrared41]

Here is my not supported by any data to back it up opinion on this is matter. The first city that comes to mind when I think of a "great baseball town" is Chicago. No idea why I think that, but I do.