This autumn marks the 30th season of the Arizona Fall League, the premier developmental league for MLB prospects.
For USA TODAY, we took a close look at the people and parks that make this such a special place to spend some of your time during the fall each year. Check it out!
While TV network executives might not be thrilled with the matchup, the 2023 World Series should be a good one!
As we do every year, we break down the two ballparks being used. Which one is more of a hitters’ park? What architects designed them? What non-baseball events have been held in them? And more!
So check out our “tale of the tape” of these two heavyweight ballparks! It’s gonna be a slugfest!
One thing is for sure: there won’t be any rainouts this year, since both stadiums feature retractable roofs!
We’ve been presenting our Ballpark of the Year award since the year 2000. It’s been an annual affair, except in 2020 when COVID wiped out the Minor League season, and last year when there weren’t really any new, fully finished parks. So we pushed the unfinished parks from last year (Glacier Range Riders and Lake Country DockHounds) to 2023, when a completely rebuilt park opened for the New Jersey Jackals. So following no award for 2022, that meant that there were three parks in the running for the 2023 plaque.
We visited all three, and wrote in-depth reviews of them all. At the top of this page are links that lead you to those reviews.
For years, we’ve used a committee of three (webmaster Joe Mock, broadcaster Doug Greenwald and author Graham Knight) to select the winner of the award. This year, there was no disagreement among the three: the winner is Glacier Bank Park in Flathead Valley in Montana, home of the Glacier Range Riders of the Pioneer League.
Read the press release announcing the award, then check out our review of the park to see all it has going for it!
The National Trust for Historic Preservation has a special category for places like Hinchliffe Stadium. They call them “National Treasures.”
It’s easy to see why. This ballpark has a fascinating, unparalleled backstory: it was built just up the hill from one of the most scenic and historic waterfalls in the country (you can see its light towers high up on the hill beyond the falls in the photo) … it was used by Negro League teams in the 1930s and ’40s … then for high school sports … then it fell into such a state of disrepair that it was condemned … it was scheduled for demolition … but it was saved from the wrecking ball by the valiant efforts of some heroic people … and it was rebuilt to look as beautiful as it did in the 1930s.
Such is the story of Hinchliffe Stadium, which now is within the boundaries of the Paterson Great Falls National Historic Park in Paterson, New Jersey. Your first directive is to read all about this wonderful, miraculous stadium. Then your directive is to visit it.
Our in-depth review weighs in at over 5,000 words and includes 26 pictures you won’t see anywhere else. So what are you waiting for? Start reading …
Check out our in-depth review of Wisconsin Brewing Company Park located in the heart of Lake Country. We take you back to the Ice Age when glaciers carved up the landscape, creating depressions that are now lakes, and bring you back to the present where Wisconsin baseball fans are flocking to Oconomowoc.
This new park, not completely finished in 2022 but now hitting on all cylinders, is the home of the Lake Country DockHounds of the American Association, an independent MLB Partner League. We take you behind the scenes to see how the park’s design was developed over decades, and why it was necessary for the design to change even after construction began. There was even input from a current Major Leaguer.
And we tell you about the costs of attending a game, and the wonderful gameday experience you’ll find there. So take a refreshing dip in Lake Country by reading our review and viewing all 37 photos.
Following two tumultuous years on the baseball landscape, baseball park news was fairly quiet in 2022. That didn’t stop us from doing our annual look at The Ballpark Year in Pictures. See what was new and which parks celebrated major anniversaries, all right here.