Favorite MLB ballparks

[Trevell]

Petco Park - San Diego Padres

San Diego, CA 2004

Nothing beats an evening of baseball in Southern California. This park is really nice. That warehouse structure seems just a bit contrived though.

It's funny you should say that about the warehouse, because it's actually the one part of the park that wasn't contrived at all. It's been there for over 100 years. They built the contrivance around the warehouse (beautiful contrivance as PETCO Park is).

I know the warehouse was already there. I meant the way they built around it was contrived. I could just imagine the designers thinking, "Hey, Camden Yards has a cool, turn of the century warehouse incorporated into their park. Instead of tearing this one down, why don't we do something similar?"

It's really more of a nitpick on my part. It really is a beautiful park.

[tubby34]

Actually, they attempted to tear it down, an the local historical society's filed suit. They were forced to leave it as is, until they found a loophole that said the only thing that is protected is the building, not the inside. So they renovated it.

Petco Park - San Diego Padres

San Diego, CA 2004

Nothing beats an evening of baseball in Southern California. This park is really nice. That warehouse structure seems just a bit contrived though.

It's funny you should say that about the warehouse, because it's actually the one part of the park that wasn't contrived at all. It's been there for over 100 years. They built the contrivance around the warehouse (beautiful contrivance as PETCO Park is).

I know the warehouse was already there. I meant the way they built around it was contrived. I could just imagine the designers thinking, "Hey, Camden Yards has a cool, turn of the century warehouse incorporated into their park. Instead of tearing this one down, why don't we do something similar?"

It's really more of a nitpick on my part. It really is a beautiful park.

[Proc]

Parks I've been too the past several years and thoughts about 'em...going to Cincy's Great American Ballpark in June...

Tiger Stadium - I have great memories here. It was the first place I ever saw a ballgame. The sight of the green grass after you came up the tunnel, ah, what a sight. The upper decks were great. However, as I wax nostalgic, I can say without reservation, the concourses sucked. They were dank, dark and kind of smelly. But, the Red Pelican mustard on the Ball Park hot dogs was delicious and priceless. Last week, on what would've been the 100th anniversary of the stadium, I went to the site and stood on the mound. Here is the current and old view.

Comerica Park- A very, nice, modern park. The park has a ferris wheel and a merry go-round, which is fine if you have small kids, but I prefer to watch the games. Nice skyline, great new scoreboard. Very nice park to watch a game. My season seats are over the wall in rightfield where the original bullpen used to sit. Much better since the bullpens were moved and fences moved in leftfield.

PNC Park - Beautiful stadium. The views of the river/bridges are gorgeous. If you are a baseball fan, you need to see this park. Outstanding.

Wrigley Field - A gem that is enhanced by the neighborhood around it. Classic. Modern? Hell no. Comfortable? Hell no. Pure baseball? Hell yes.

Safeco Field- I really enjoyed this stadium. The color green seems to be everywhere. The concessions are second to none. The garlic-enhanced, "Rally Fries" and craft beers from the Pacific Northwest worked for me, while my wife had salmon, wine and chocolate dipped strawberries. As for the stadium, I loved how it was laid out. Unique and a perfect fit for Seattle.

[Halian]

I've only ever been to Tropicana Warehouse, but my favourite ballyards are Wrigley, Fenway, Camden Yards, and PNC Park.

[John in KY]

Did anybody go to Dr. Pepper Ballpark in Frisco, TX? It looks awesome.

I have and its's great how they made the sky boxes look like they are on the second floor of homes. The place is set up great. Also if you want to save a buck, you can sneak buck hot dogs from the IKEA across the street.

Very cool ballpark - it kind of reminds me of the clubhouse area at a horse track like Churchill Downs or Keeneland.

Been to around 100 minor league parks, so I'll just keep it to the majors

Ones I've attended a game in:

11. Cinergy Field: wasn't a bad view when they took out the outfield to build Great American, but it was crumbling by time I saw it; the different colors of the decks were strange considering they were home to the Reds (only the upper deck had red seats)

Those seats were a holdover from the old days of multipurpose stadiums - Riverfront had a different color for each deck (red upper deck, yellow and green for the middle decks, and blue for the lower deck). Cincinnati just never changed the colors out (if they ever did put new seats in the place before it was torn down). It was just dumb luck that they chose red for the uppder deck; they didn't try to match the Reds or Bengals colors. It seems like the original seats in Three Rivers were also colored somewhat like Riverfront (as in not really trying to match the Priates or Steelers colors) but I could be wrong.

[evanmaldonado]

Great American is a beautiful field. I love how it's right on the Ohio River, and Cinicinnati is a nice city

Though my favorite ballpark is Huntington Field, home of the Columbus Clippers. You can watch a game from the sidewalk, the green space is nice, and the old time structure of the walls looks great. It was named best ballpark of 2009 too, which was especially cool to me since it beat out the billion dollar museum that is Yankee Stadium (though as a diehard Yankee fan living in Columbus I need to see it)

[PhantomDreamer]

Safeco Field- I really enjoyed this stadium. The color green seems to be everywhere. Unique and a perfect fit for Seattle.

The color green adds to the generic feel of Safeco Field. Calling it "unique" really isn't accurate.

[uuh70]

Unpopular opinion but I loved the Cookie Cutter Stadiums and Domes of the 70's-90's

[tv15]

Minor league ballparks

Fox cities stadium

Major league ballparks

Miller park

[SJAnfield]

Unpopular opinion but I loved the Cookie Cutter Stadiums and Domes of the 70's-90's

Maybe unpopular, but I certainly have the nostalgia bug. I have to admit I miss the old cookie cutters, but that probably stems from growing up in the late 80's-early 90's. many of the new "retros" are cookie-cutter-esque themselves, just cleverly disguised by bricks, whimsical extras and enhanced luxury amenities.

[Rays]

Sigh........

[ror1997]

Depends. I love Yankee stadium because the fences are close, and it's a nice ball park. Fun to watch on TV. But most of the seats are obstructed and the good seats are crazy expensive.

I love going to citi field, but it's not fun to watch your team play there on TV because of how big it is. But going to the game is nice

Petco is beautiful but huge. I like the left field building though.

Fenway is awesome because of the monster, and the monster seats is the best ticket I've ever bought

Chase or whatever it's called in Arizona is beautiful too

I hate Toronto, white sox, and Oakland. They are all dumps and Torontos field just kind of depresses me when I watch

[Tygers09]

Tiger Stadium - The double decking of the stands made you feel right there and close to the playing field, sans if you sat behind the posts . Not like the ballparks today, if you ask people today whats their biggest complaint about stadiums today is that you sit too far away.

I only have been to three MLB stadiums in my life, Tiger Stadium, Comerica Park,and Exhibition Stadium in Toronto. So Tiger Stadium beats them hands down. Comerica Park has all the attractions, the beautiful view of the Detroit skyline, but never can be what Tiger Stadium was.

[Tygers09]

When the Seattle Mariners came to play the Tigers on their first opening day of Comerica Park, Someone had asked the Mariners manager at that time, Lou Piniella what he thought of the new stadium in Detroit, He said "It's an [expletive] circus or carnival" ..(he said it was one of the two, I can't remember

[wonderbread]

I've only been to 3 mlb parks and one of them i was too young to reqlly remember but Fenway is by far my favorite ballpark, the trop i actually found very enjoyable and dont understand all the hate for it now that I've actually been there and expirienced it. Camden yards i barely remember but i dont think i liked it too much, there was no atmosphere like at the other parks, Fenway had a fun atmosphere that centered around traditions, and tropicana had a fun score board and pay that made it fun, i dont remember anything like that at camden

[ohryan]

Of the 25 MLB parks that I've been to, I'd rate them like this:

1) Wrigley (Chicago)

2) Fenway (Boston)

3) Old Yankee (New York)

4) PNC (Pittsburgh)

5) Kauffman (Kansas City)

6) Skydome (Toronto, 1993)

7) AT&T (San Francisco)

8) (new) Busch (St. Louis)

9) Great American (Cincinnati)

10) Petco (San Diego)

11) Coors (Colorado)

12) Shea (New York)

13) Camden Yards (Baltimore)

14) Progressive (Cleveland)

15) Dodger (Los Angeles)

16) Miller (Brewers)

17) Angels (Anaheim of Los Angeles)

18) Rangers whatever (Texas)

19) US Cellular (Chicago)

20) County (Milwaukee)

21) (old) Busch (St. Louis)

22) Metrodome (Minnesota)

23) Tropicana (Tampa Bay)

24) Mile High (Rockies)

25) Dolphins whatever (Miami)

[ptay]

Some of the responses on here have really surprised me, I guess the cool thing is that our tastes in ballpark design/atmosphere/amenities are very diverse across the board. I never thought I'd ever hear someone say they enjoyed Tropicana Field over Camden Yards.....or over any other ballpark for that matter. So what does everyone value the most in their ballpark experience? For me, it'd have to be the ballpark design combined with atmosphere/feel.

Here's my ranking of parks I've been to:

1) San Francisco (pure awesomeness, what else is there to say?)

2) Boston (what a baseball park should feel like--heard the same about Wrigley)

3) Baltimore (I would like to invite wonderbread to this place again esp when it's sold out)

4) Pittsburgh (haven't been there since they started winning, probably should be higher on list, best view of downtown in MLB)

5) Seattle (surprised how nice the view and design were here, one of the best in baseball)

6) Colorado (nothing wrong with this park, love the mountains)

7) Washington, D.C. (the ideal park/setting for DC)

8) Anaheim (haven't been there since they remodeled the 2nd time around)

I really have to get out and see all the ballparks in the midwest, I've heard great things!

[Tigers6884]

I've only been to Progressive Field, PNC Park, Camden Yards, Rogers Centre, and Comerica Park. To ovoid bias, I'll leave out Comerica.

1. Camden Yards- I know, it's pretty unpopular to not have PNC first, but I really liked the bigger and more spacious feel of Camden Yards.

2.PNC Park- One of the nicer and more inviting ballparks in the MLB. The only con I can think of was how small it felt compared to the other ballparks I've been to so far.

3. Rogers Centre (A.K.A.: Skydome)- I don't remember much about this ballpark, but I do remember the giant retractable dome and how huge the stadium was (I also remember how the Yankees got crushed by the Blue Jays, which is always fun witnessing).

4. Progressive Field: Another case of my young age at the time letting me forget a lot about the feel of the ballpark. I do remember that my mom and dad paid a lot for our tickets, but we didn't get very good seats for that amount. In addition, the ballpark didn't really have any fun little quirks and felt rather dull (though my brother and I did score some free baseball cards from a nice employee of the ballpark while the game was on rain delay).

I've only been to 3 mlb parks and one of them i was too young to reqlly remember but Fenway is by far my favorite ballpark, the trop i actually found very enjoyable and dont understand all the hate for it now that I've actually been there and expirienced it. Camden yards i barely remember but i dont think i liked it too much, there was no atmosphere like at the other parks, Fenway had a fun atmosphere that centered around traditions, and tropicana had a fun score board and pay that made it fun, i dont remember anything like that at camden

Camden has the giant warehouse looming over right field.

[tigerslionspistonshabs]

Only been to Tiger Stadium and Comerica Park. I loved Tiger Stadium just because it was where I first fell in love with baseball. It was charming and very old-school. But, the concessions were a dump. I've still got dirt from the field and a paint chip from the bleachers.

I drove by it a couple weeks ago for the first time since it's demolition. Even though I thought they should've kept it around and partially restore it, it's cool that they kept the playing field, flagpole and the outer fence along Michigan Ave.

Comerica is great all around.

I mean I have nothing to compare it to, but I've got no complaints.

I'm hoping to check out PNC Park this summer.

[epper]

My ranks of parks I've been to:

1) PNC Park

2) Progressive Jacobs Field

3) Busch Stadium (1966-2005 Version)

4) Rogers Centre Skydome

5) O.Co Oakland Coliseum

6) Cleveland Municipal Stadium

Updating my list since 2 years ago:

1) PNC Park

1a) AT&T Park

3) Progressive Jacobs Field

4) Angel Stadium

5) Busch Stadium (1966-2005 Version)

6) Rogers Centre Skydome

7) O.Co Oakland Coliseum

8) Cleveland Municipal Stadium

Hope to add Dodger Stadium to the list this year!