I was asked by USA TODAY Sports to participate in a project to rank the 30 ballparks in Major League Baseball. I was one of eight panelists who provided a ranking from 1 to 30. Those responses were tabulated and a final ranking was released on USATODAY.com. This article was picked up by a number of publications around country, usually to report on how their local ballpark fared.
Before providing my own ranking, I decided to take a fresh look at how I felt about each of the 30. For instance, massive renovations on Rogers Centre caused me to move it up. The announcement that the Royals are looking to move to a brand new park in downtown KC (meaning Kauffman Stadium is no longer receiving improvements) prompted me to move it down.
If you look at the USA TODAY post, there is a blurb about each of the 30 parks. I wrote all of those. I’ve included those blurbs in my updated rankings here on BaseballParks.com, as well as how the overall panel ranked the park. I think you’ll find it interesting reading.
By the way, the park in this photo was not only my #1, but it was voted #1 by the overall panel.
So … check out my updated rankings!
Widely regarded as the best of MLB’s 23 spring-training complexes, Salt River Fields might never have been built if it weren’t for the Salt River Pima Maricopa Indian Community. They provided the land on their reservation, and paid for the construction. But how did the relationship between the tribal council and the two MLB teams (Rockies and Diamondbacks) come about?