Ballpark quest - 60 ballparks

  The drive to Cheney Field, home of the Tacoma Rainiers, often has spectacular views of Mount Rainier. Actually, Mount Rainier, the highest peak in the Cascades (and within 100 feet of elevation of the highest in the contiguous 48 states), gives you a good start on describing a field that is extreme in many ways, and feels unique in others. Cheney Field is the oldest stadium in AAA baseball by far. It was built in 1960; Buffalo’s Sahlen Field, built 28 years later, is second. Cheney Field doesn’t feel that old, though, probably because it was remodeled about 15 years ago. It has the smallest seating capacity in AAA. Actually, at 6500, it is tied with the newest stadium in AAA, in Salt Lake City. The Rainiers’ average attendance last year, at over 5700 per game, was the highest percentage of the seating capacity (88%) of any AAA team. Of course, several teams averaged more attendees than Tacoma’s capacity, so they only end up 14 th in overall attendance. But a smaller stad...

I really don't know how I feel about Great American Ball Park. To me the view, both from the ballpark and of the ballpark, matters. A lot. The view from the upper deck in Great American Ball Park is spectacular. It is designed such that the structures with the steamboat motif in centerfield look as though they are floating on the Ohio River, and the bridge over the Ohio (it's called the Taylor Southgate Bridge, but I don't know the significance of the name) appears to be an extension of the Jumbotron in left field. I think the only view comparable is the view of San Francisco Bay from Oracle Park.  From the lower deck, you can't see the Ohio, or (from most seats) the bridge. You can see the buildings on the other side of the bridge in Kentucky, but they're not as spectacular as a city skyline, something you get with many downtown parks.  However, the view OF the ballpark matters, too. Coming off the L and seeing Wrigley Field, seeing the tiger statues of Comerica Pa...

  Pete Rose should not be in the Hall of Fame. I think that Barry Bonds should be , but not Rose. Both Bonds and Rose had spectacular careers. Bonds finished his career with more home runs than any other player in MLB history, Rose with more base hits. Rose was not as good as Bonds (Bonds was named the Most Valuable Player seven times, Rose only once), but both were great. And Rose is still popular in Cincinnati, more popular than Bonds is in San Francisco -- although he last played nearly 40 years ago, there are far more people wearing jerseys sporting Rose's number than any other player except current star Elly De La Cruz. Although it’s not official, it’s almost certain that Bonds is not in the Hall of Fame because he took steroids in the later part of his career. Rose is not in the Hall because he was officially banned from MLB after it came out that he had been betting on games while he was a manager. I’m inclined to give Bonds, and the other steroid users, a break, bec...

  What do you do with problematic team nicknames? The Cleveland Indians became the Cleveland Guardians before the 2022 season, one of the latest events in a long-running controversy over teams in all sports with nicknames based on Native Americans in one form or another. I want to explore that, but first, it’s worth noting that three major league teams have changed their names because of political correctness during my lifetime, and the Indians/Guardians is the first one related to the Native American issue. Some history The first team name change during my lifetime was in 1959, and was a change back to the long-time name after a political controversy had run its course. The Cincinnati team had been the “Reds” for decades, but in 1953, they changed it to “ Redlegs ” because “Reds” had become a politically sensitive word, used by U.S. Sen. Joe McCarthy and others as a slur for people they thought were Communists, or were not anti-Communist enough. The movie (more recently a...

  Cleveland’s Progressive Field (“The Jake”) has a reputation as being one of the best ballparks in which to watch a game. I won’t disagree. The stadium is old, by major league standards. It opened in 1994, which makes it the 10 th oldest of the 30 MLB stadiums. However, at the time it was ground-breaking, the second stadium (after Baltimore’s Camden Yards) to be built in the “ Retro-Classic ” style, a style that many parks since have tried to emulate. In many ways, it remains one of the best. It is situated in the heart of a rebuilding downtown. In fact, the NBA arena across the street was hosting a second-round playoff game as we walked to the game from our hotel. It has wide concourses, so you don’t feel like you’re going to get crushed trying to get to your seat. Note the amount of space in the outfield concourse around the statue of Jim Thome in the picture above. It has the fewest permanent seats of any team’s park, 34,820 (not counting Florida stadiums that clos...