Ranking the Stadiums, Part 1

I think I explained in my first blog post how I want to see every Major League Baseball stadium (although there are two or three that I'd be fine with never getting to).  I love going to baseball games and one of the reasons is the uniqueness of the stadiums.  If I could go back in time, one of the things I would definitely do would be go to baseball games at Ebbets Field, Yankee Stadium before it was renovated, and the Polo Grounds.  Last year I went to games in eight different stadiums, including six that I had never been to before.  I've been planning on doing this post for a long time, but I never got around to it.  With the season starting tomorrow, it seemed like a good time to finally write this.  I'm ranking the 16 stadiums I've been to (14 current stadiums and 2 New York stadiums that don't exist anymore).  I'll be going to number 17 on Tuesday.  That will mean I've been to half of the current Major League Baseball stadiums.  I hope to get to a few more before this season is over, but I don't have anything planned yet.  Anyway, it's hard to do this because you can't really compare Fenway Park to new Yankee Stadium.  They have nothing in common except for the fact that baseball is played in both stadiums.  This list is going to be completely biased and I'm sure I'll get some disagreements from people that have been to some of these stadiums.  Feel free to share your thoughts if you disagree with my rankings.  Let's start with numbers 10-16 on my list, with the number of times I've been there in parentheses:

16.  US Cellular Field (1 game).  There's nothing interesting about this stadium.  The best part of going there was Kyle's cell phone antics on the bus on the way back (which I think I was blamed for at first).  Good times.  But yeah, US Cellular Field was built before Oriole Park changed the way stadiums were built.  Of the stadiums I've been to, it's the one I would least want to go back to.  I think that's enough for it to take last place on my list.

15.  Marlins Park (1 game).  I covered this in my first blog post about going to a stadium last year.  I'm sure it's a million times better than playing in the football stadium that they played in until last season, but I don't like indoor baseball.  I don't like the colors (too weird).  And the dimensions are too big.  They have fish tanks behind home plate.  That sounds really cool, but you can't really see them.

14.  Chase Field (1 game, 1 stadium tour).  If you took the roof off of Chase Stadium and made Phoenix 15-20 degrees cooler on average, Chase Field would probably be higher on my list.  It was a really nice stadium and I know they need the roof in Phoenix, but again, I don't like indoor baseball.  The pool is a nice feature, but the desire to be in a pool is reduced when you're indoors with air conditioning.

13.  Coors Field (1 game).  Coors Field is very nice.  I liked it.  But I can't rank it any higher because baseball doesn't work at that elevation.  There's no good way to build a stadium there.  The humidor has helped, but it was by far the easiest stadium to score runs in last year.  That's been true three out of the last four years and it's consistently in the top 5.  The dimensions are actually very big.  That still doesn't make up for how the ball carries.  But it's not just home runs.  If you're an outfielder, you can play deep and give up more singles.  Or you can play shallow to take away some of those singles but take a chance on the ball going over your head for a double or triple.

12.  Shea Stadium (probably at least 30 games, maybe as many as 50).  I was going to games at Shea Stadium from 1989-2008.  That's 20 years.  There might have been a couple of years when I didn't get to any games there, but most years I probably went to at least two games.  I wish I knew how many games I went to.  I know Shea Stadium is objectively the worst stadium I've ever been to and it's not even close.  But it was the stadium I grew up with.  I remember going to my first game in 1989.  I even remember going there in 1988 in the rain only to have the Dodgers-Mets game that would have been my first game ever rained out (I was 4 at the time). Citi Field is obviously better, but it's not the stadium I grew up with.  I remember going to Mets-Cardinals in July 2008.  I knew it was the last time I would be in Shea Stadium.  I'm not going to lie, it got a little dusty as I was leaving the stadium.  I'll never forget Shea Stadium.

11.  Oriole Park at Camden Yards (1 game).  I know, everybody loves this stadium.  It is historically significant because as I mentioned, it changed the way stadiums were built for the better.  You get a nice view if you're sitting behind home plate.  You have the warehouse in right field and a nice view of the city in center.  I'm taking points off because you can't walk around the concourse and see the field (except for right field and center field).  And it's not like nobody had come up with that architectural concept until after Oriole Park was built (we'll get there in the last installment of my stadium rankings).  It's a solid stadium, but I think it's overrated.

10.  Nationals Park (2 games).  This was the first new stadium that I went to (I'm counting US Cellular Field as the last of the old stadiums).  I was there in 2008 and 2010.  It was very different from what I had known after years of going to games at Shea Stadium and old Yankee Stadium.  It's kind of bland compared to the other new stadiums I've been to.  It's hurt by the fact that the Nationals don't have any history.  But you can walk around the concourse and still see the field.  There's nothing wrong with Nationals Park, but there's nothing all that exciting about it either.