Drumroll please …

There were five new ballparks in 2026, but only one could be our Ballpark of the Year. The selection committee (Joe Mock, Doug Greenwald and Graham Knight) voted, and the winner is ONT Field, home of the Cal League’s Ontario Tower Buzzers.

Read the announcement article that first appeared in USA TODAY Sports Weekly here.

Check out the press release sent to the media about the award here.

Our in-depth review of this exceptional park can be found here.

The voting for the honor was quite close, with ONT Field garnering 14 points, including two first-place votes, and Erlanger Park in Chattanooga getting 12 points, including one first-place vote. Not far behind was Hops Ballpark in Hillsboro, with 10 points. “Most years, any of these top three would’ve won our award, as they represent three of the very best parks in the Minors today,” said webmaster Joe Mock.

The city of Hillsboro, Oregon and the Hops baseball team faced an enormous problem. To become compliant with the new standards that MLB had imposed on Minor League ballparks, it was going to cost over $100 million to do the necessary renovations on their existing park — a park that was only 13 years old. That’s when the decision to pivot occurred. Why throw that much money at a facility that still wasn’t going to have all of the amenities that today’s fan desires?

Instead, they pivoted to building a brand-new ballpark.

And the perfect spot to build it was on an oddly shaped parcel of land just a ground-rule double away from the old park.

That new stadium is called (for now) Hops Ballpark, and one can scarcely believe that the old and the new facilities were built for the same sport, as the new version has a mind-boggling array of amenities that would never have been possible at the old place. And number 1 on the list of new amenities is food-preparation capabilities that place their concessions at the very top of the Minors.

So check out how this new showplace came to be, and how its features meet the big-league demands of fans in the Portland area. It’s all in our in-depth review of Hops Ballpark.

With a theme centered around aviation, ONT Field is a marvelous example of everything that can be done right when designing and building a new ballpark.

The city of Ontario planned this perfectly. They went to the voters to seek permission to raise the sales tax, and got approval. They bought the perfect land on which to build an otherworldly sports complex. They went with the biggest sports architects in the world (Populous) to design the main stadium in it. They went about things the right way to obtain a team to play there, making sure the market where that team came from (Rancho Cucamonga) was able to attract another team to play there. They filled the front office with exceptionally talented people who knew how to give fans what they wanted. They charged reasonable prices for tickets, food and souvenirs, and on Wednesdays let fans buy reserved seats for just $7 … and give them a fireworks show to boot!

And the people responded. As of this writing, the Ontario Tower Buzzers lead the California League in attendance.

Talk about a success story!

So settle in and read my in-depth review of how ONT Field came to be, how it got its name, how it was designed and what it’s like to attend a game there. And leave a comment at the end to tell me what you thought of my review.

I recently visited Tropicana Field to write about everything that it took to repair the stadium so the Rays could return there this season. My article appeared in USA TODAY Sports Weekly and a longer version (with more photos) appears here. Check it out!

I was overjoyed to get to cover the Men’s College World Series (MCWS) for USA TODAY Sports. One of my assignments was to describe the ten lessons I learned in Omaha. That article runs in the June 24 issue of Sports Weekly. An expanded version of that article appears here … so check it out!