Ranking the Stadiums, Part 3

And now we're getting to my favorite baseball stadiums.  Here we go with 1-7 in reverse order:

7.  Citizens Bank Park (1 game).  You go here and you get why Mets fans don't like Citi Field.  You walk in and you know this is where the Philadelphia Phillies play baseball.  They have the Phillies Hall of Fame out in center field.  It's what Citi Field should be like, except for the team that plays there.  It's a very solid stadium, but I wouldn't describe it as elite.  I would call these next six stadiums elite.

6.  PNC Park (1 game).  I always heard good things about PNC Park and I wondered what was so great about it.  I guess I just assumed it wouldn't be great because the team that plays there has been so bad for the last 20 years.  But it is great.  It's got a very Pittsburgh feel to it.  You have Primanti Brothers and Quaker Steak and Lube as food options.  You have a great view of the river and the skyline.  And Pittsburgh is a great city.  The team that plays there should be better.  If you had a better atmosphere, that would make the stadium even better.

5.  Wrigley Field (1 game).  Wrigley Field is great.  The area around the stadium is great.  You have the ivy on the wall (I went in April, so it hadn't grown in yet).  It's really hard to compare Wrigley Field to the new stadiums, but I can compare it to old Yankee Stadium and Fenway Park.  I'll explain why I have them ranked ahead of Wrigley when I get there, but one reason is the lack of history.  Unfortunately for Cubs fans, two of the greatest moments there are Babe Ruth's called shot in the 1932 World Series and the Steve Bartman game (great 30 for 30, I feel legitimately bad for him, the Cubs still could have won and there's no guarantee that they would have won even if he didn't interfere).  But this is a stadium I would definitely want to get back to.

4.  Petco Park (1 game).  This is my favorite new stadium.  I always thought it looked good on TV.  I had very high expectations when I went there and it probably exceeded them, despite the bad San Diego weather when I went (I wore shorts and a sweatshirt and I was legitimately cold).  It has a great location and a great view of the city.  They honor former players who served in the military.  That had plants that were growing and hanging down in the concourses (I thought that was really cool).  What would make it better would be a better atmosphere.  San Diego is a great city and it's the 8th biggest city in the country.  The Padres are good occasionally, but they should be consistently good.  That would make it even better.

3.  Old Yankee Stadium (at least 13 games, maybe as many as 20).  Like Shea Stadium, I wish I knew how many games I went to at the Old Yankee Stadium.  I'm pretty sure I didn't go to any Yankee games from 2000-2004.  From 2005 to the last year of the stadium in 2008, I think I went to seven games.  Before that, I can think of at least six games that I went to.  I sat everywhere.  I was in the left field and right field bleachers.  I was way up high.  I even went to at least three games sitting in the first row behind the visitors' dugout when I was young (my friend's father had connections).  I have some fun memories.  There was the time Rafael Palmeiro lied to me about giving me a ball (I never liked him).  There was the time one of the Royals actually did give me a ball (I've never caught a foul ball or a home run, so that's the only ball I've ever gotten).    There was the time John, Liz, and I saw a Chien Ming Wang get five outs away from a perfect game and Liz knew something was going on, but didn't know what.  And John and I did the whole superstitious thing and wouldn't tell her.  You can compare Yankee Stadium to the other really old stadiums that are still standing.  That's the biggest argument against Yankee Stadium.  There are no plans to get rid of Wrigley Field or Fenway Park any time soon, but Yankee Stadium was replaceable (I think they should have stayed at the old stadium, but George Steinbrenner's ego was not going to allow the Mets to be the only New York team to get a new stadium).  The biggest argument for Yankee Stadium is the history.  They've had a little more success there than the Cubs have had at Wrigley Field.  It doesn't have a feature like the ivy or the Green Monster, but it was Yankee Stadium.  It was the House that Ruth Built, except the post-renovation Yankee Stadium really wasn't the same stadium that Babe Ruth played in.  If it had still been the house that Ruth built with the facade and and everything, it might have been number 1 on my list.  Still, pretty good history with Reggie Jackson (fortunately I wasn't alive for that), Mariano Rivera, and Derek Jeter.  It had a great atmosphere.  I'd definitely take it over the new stadium.

2.  Dodger Stadium (2 games, 1 stadium tour).  Yes, a very biased choice.  However, Dodger Stadium is the one great stadium from a terrible era of stadiums.  It was built before Shea Stadium, but it's a million times better.  If the Dodgers had stayed in New York, they would have ended up with a terrible stadium (it would have been Shea Stadium but worse, O'Malley wanted a dome).  Unfortunately for me, they ended up 2,500 miles away, but they built a gem of a stadium.  If you look behind the stadium from the top deck, you can see downtown Los Angeles.  From the seats, you have mountains in the background.  You can park on your level.  You can be sitting way up high in the top deck and park up there and enter the stadium at that level.  I didn't understand how this worked until I went there.  It's built into a hill so you can park at each level.  Also, I remember thinking about how you drive on the Long Island Expressway or Grand Central Parkway and at some point you see Shea Stadium or now Citi Field.  You can't see Dodger Stadium until you're there.  On one side you have the hill and beyond the outfield is a parking lot and then mountains.  I thought it was cool how it's hidden.  Also, you can walk around the concourse and still see the field.  The stadium was built in 1962.  Being able to see the field from the concourse was definitely not common until the last 15-20 years.  It's now the last symmetrical ballpark in the National League.  Symmetrical ballparks used to be boring, but now Dodger Stadium is unique.  And there's great history.  Ten no-hitters, two perfect games, eight World Series, Pope John Paul II, and The Naked Gun.  One of the things I enjoyed about the tour was figuring out what was impossible in The Naked Gun.  The woman who fell on Reggie Jackson would never have fallen on him (she fell at an angle instead of straight down).  And Vincent Ludwig's fall probably wouldn't have hurt him too badly (it was from the top deck, but it wasn't that high).  I used to say that there were two places that I absolutely needed to get to.  One was Australia (I still hope I get there someday).  The other was Dodger Stadium.  And Dodger Stadium was as awesome as I thought it would be.  I can't wait to get back tomorrow.

1.  Fenway Park (3 games).  I was first there in 1995.  I saw Mo Vaughn hit a grand slam.  I saw games in 2009 and 2010 there with John.  The best thing about Fenway is that you just go there to watch baseball.  None of the other nonsense that you get at the new Yankee Stadium.  It's all about baseball.  You have the green monster.  You have the weird dimensions.  The best thing about it compared to Wrigley Field is the atmosphere.  The Red Sox have had a lot of success lately (I know, last year was terrible, but still).  You always have a packed house and you have fans that really care about baseball.  You can go to Fenway Park and kind of imagine that you've gone back in time to when Ted Williams is playing.  You can't really do that anywhere else except for Wrigley Field.  If there was a baseball equivalent of the Super Bowl, Fenway Park is where I would want the game to be played.  And that's why I'm ranking it number 1.