The ballpark, to the baseball obsessed, is sacred ground. We are on a current tour of America hitting 8 ballparks (plus the Field of Dreams and the Negro Leagues museum in KC), 5 national parks, and 2 amusement parks. At the end of this trip I will have visited 23 ballparks (for Keegan and Reese it will be 18, for Beckett and Nash it will be 13). We love baseball. We love going to ballgames - going early to try to catch a home run ball in batting practice, trying fun food, sitting in the sun eating seeds, keeping score the old fashioned way, cheering for relish during the ubiquitous hot dog race. We love it. The ballpark is as much a part of the team as the manager. But the ballpark is so much more than just steel and concrete. The ballpark has a life of its own. And because baseball is a game, we are keeping score of ballparks.
We are going to use a scoring system that encompasses more than just architecture. There are at least six factors we will consider.
1. History - What are the stories the place tells.
History is disproportionately important in baseball. This is where baseball hardcores get real romantic (dorky?). Baseball history is American history, for better and for worse. It was born out of the Civil War. Baseball tells the story of race, westward expansion, the economy and capitalism, war, greed, corruption, globalism. Some teams have more history than others. The Dodgers have been a team since 1883 and have 7 World Series titles. The Rockies have been a team for 30 years and have 0 World Series titles. Many old teams have new stadiums. The Reds are the oldest professional baseball team (1869), but Great American Ballpark was built in 2003. The team tells a story of one and a half centuries, but the Reds haven’t done much in their current home. Fenway Park in Boston, was built in 1912. Dad’s can point to the foul pole in left field and show their sons exactly where Carlton Fisk’s home run stayed fair, and can point to the other foul pole and talk about Johnny Pesky and why that pole bears his name. That very field and that very wall tell over 100 years of stories. And for baseball fans, that matters.
2. Stadium Aesthetic - How is the stadium to look at.
The baseball diamond is a work of art. And unless you are in Oakland or Tampa, the baseball stadium is a display of beauty and craftsmanship. One of the things we love about baseball is that the field and the stadium are all different - and often times the stadium affects the way the field is constructed. Many of the old stadiums had to fit on a city block, so right field, for example, could only be so far from home plate, thus the builders had to make a very tall wall to make home runs not incredibly easy. Not all baseball fields are symmetrical. All the new stadiums have interesting and unique features - Pittsburgh building their outfield stands low thus keeping the yellow bridge and the downtown skyline across the river visible. San Diego adding the old brick warehouse into their left field construction. Ballparks and ball fields are beautiful, and for baseball fans that matters.
3. Vibe - What is the feel inside the stadium.
Vibe is a difficult one because it is very fluid. A team in first place is almost always going to have a better vibe in the stadium than a team that has been losing for years. But some places are going to full and passionate even when the team is struggling. Ballparks are now attractions in and of themselves so they are full of people who are spending $150 on beer and food and don’t even know the score of the game. Some people love that. For baseball fans, it can be annoying. But also, baseball is different than any other game because each team plays 162 regular season games every year. It is different than football. The vibe is different. It’s more casual, has a different pace, follows a bit of a cadence, allows for peanut eating and beer drinking and conversation. Baseball fans love the conversation.
4. Location and Surroundings - What is the vibe around the stadium.
Every stadium has a context. This is a difficult one because there are 2 different categories of stadium - the one that is built in the middle of town and the one that is surrounded by an enormous parking lot. There are advantages and disadvantages to each. Coming early for lunch or dinner, staying late for a good time - this is why cities all want to build downtown ballparks. It adds to the vibe, it enhances the experience, it allows friends and family to make an entire day of it.
5. Weather
This one is unfair, I know. The Tigers don’t get to choose the weather. But weather completely affects one’s enjoyment of a 3 hour ballgame. The season begins in April and ends in September (weather doesn’t matter in October because the playoffs are a different category altogether). This can be rough for some northern teams. It is a summer season, which can be rough for some southern teams. And here is where we tackle the issue of indoor stadiums. Phoenix doesn’t have weather, they have air conditioning (and thank God for it). But, baseball is a game that is meant to be played outside. In Cleveland the weather is going to stink for much of the season, and that’s part of the deal playing baseball in Cleveland. In Dallas, the game is going to be played indoors (which stinks), and that’s part of the deal of playing baseball in Texas in August. Because of this, we are going to score all indoor teams a 5 for this category.
6. Accessibility - Getting in and out.
There is nothing better than taking public transit to the game. There is nothing worse than trying to find downtown parking or paying $30 plus to park your car. Getting to and from the ballgame matters, especially if you are a season ticket holder and do it often. It also affects the vibe. Traffic matters (Sorry Dodgers). Bike paths to the stadium are cool (Bonus Rockies). We are also going to put cost into this category.
7. Extras - What else ya got?
As some factors carry more weight than others, we are going to weight our scale. I care more about history than a pool in right field, so the history score will count more. Each ballpark will scored on each factor on a 10 point scale. The factor’s number is what we will use to determine a final scale. We will use, as a formula:
(10-factor number) x factor score
For example - San Diego will certainly have the best “Weather” score in the league. It will get a 10. Weather is the 5th most important factor. Therefore, (10-5)x10 = 50. We will do it 7x and add ‘em up.
We are going to try our best to be objective in our judging. Full disclosure - we are Dodgers fans and the place includes generations of personal and family history. We will try and not let that affect our scoring (but it certainly will). We are on our current ballpark tour as a family so we are going to collaborate on our scores. So as not to clutter up this blog (consideritrubbish.blogspot.com) I will post our results on my sports blog (limpinggibby.blogspot.com). We hope you enjoy the results and would love to hear your comments.
