Our search for the Best of the Ballparks continues this afternoon with voting for the best Low Class A facilities in the Midwest and South Atlantic Leagues — and we want to know what you think.
Our Best of the Ballparks competition kicked off with Triple-A voting yesterday and continued with Double-A and High Class A voting today. We’ll be running the contest with seeded brackets, so there will be plenty of action in coming days. The first round will be a play-in (thanks for the inspiration, NCAA!), followed by three additional rounds before winners are announced. For MiLB, we’ll be structuring the voting by classification, so the competition is broken down into Triple-A, Double-A, High A and Low A, followed by short season A and rookie on June 17. The summer collegiate and independent brackets will encompass what we consider to the top 32 ballparks in their classifications. And, of course, the MLB parks stand on their own.
We know from marketing stats a third of our readers work in the baseball industry, so we’re tapping into that collective expertise. And we know from our research that a third of our readers sell to the baseball industry, so that expertise will be valuable as well. The remaining third — fans, media, government — will certainly have a different view on things as well. We can’t wait to see what our readers — whom we consider to be the smartest folks in baseball — say about the best of the ballparks.
First-round voting ends Friday at 6 p.m., with the second round beginning Saturday at 9 a.m.
Here’s our ranking of Low Class-A ballparks, combining the Midwest and South Atlantic Leagues:
1. Parkview Field (Fort Wayne TinCaps; ML)
2. Modern Woodmen Park (Quad Cities River Bandits; ML)
3. Fluor Field (Greenvile Drive; SAL)
4. NewBridge Bank Park (Greensboro Grasshoppers; SAL)
5. Fifth Third Field (Dayton Dragons; ML)
6. McCormick Field (Asheville Tourists; SAL)
7. Fox Cities Stadium (Wisconsin Timber Rattlers; ML)
8. Dow Diamond (Great Lakes Loons; ML)
9. Fifth Third Ballpark (West Michigan Whitecaps; ML)
10. FirstEnergy Park (Lakewood Blueclaws; SAL)
11. Four Winds Field (South Bend Cubs; ML)
12. Joseph P. Riley, Jr. Park (Charleston RiverDogs; SAL)
13. Appalachian Power Park (West Virginia Power; SAL)
14. Whitaker Bank Ballpark (Lexington Legends; SAL)
15. Cooley Law School Stadium (Lansing Lugnuts; ML)
16. Perfect Game Field (Cedar Rapids Kernels; ML)
17. L.P. Frans Stadium (Hickory Crawdads; SAL)
18. Bowling Green Ballpark (Bowling Green Hot Rods; ML)
19. Fifth Third Bank Ballpark (Kane County Cougars; ML)
20. Classic Park (Lake County Captains; ML)
21. State Mutual Stadium (Rome Braves; SAL)
22. Perdue Stadium (Delmarva Shorebirds; SAL)
23. Dozer Park (Peoria Chiefs; ML)
24. Lake Olmstead Stadium (Augusta GreenJackets; SAL)
25. CMC-Northeast Stadium (Kannapolis Intimidators; SAL)
26. Ashford University Field (Clinton LumberKings; ML)
27. Community Field (Burlington Bees; ML)
28. Grayson Stadium (Savannah Sand Gnats; SAL)
29. Municipal Stadium (Hagerstown Suns; SAL)
30. Pohlman Field (Beloit Snappers; ML)
VOTING IN THIS FIRST ROUND HAS ENDED.
