Three Florida State League venues and one Carolina League venue make the cut, setting up an exciting High A Best of the Ballparks voting round — and we want to hear from you!
Three of the four matchups went according to seed, and they were all contests within Florida State League ballparks. The sole upset of the round came with fans choosing Frawley Stadium (Wilmington Blue Rocks) 0ver BB&T Ballpark (Winston-Salem Dash).
But that round is history. Below you’ll find a form for submitting your votes (desktop users see the entire slate; mobile users see one poll question at a time). The second round of voting generated more than 12,000 respondents. So vote!
We have seen some fans aggressively register their preferences for the Best of the Ballparks by voting over and over. Don’t bother: we filter by IP address, so only your first vote counts.
Voting ends Friday at 10 p.m., with the next round going up Saturday morning.
About Best of the Ballparks: we structured the voting by classification, so the competition is broken down into Triple-A, Double-A, High A, Low A, short season A and rookie. 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 our marketing/user research 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.
Here’s our ranking of High Class-A ballparks, combining Carolina, Florida State and California League facilities:
1. Bright House Field (Clearwater Threshers; FSL)
2. Hammond Stadium (Fort Myers Miracle; FSL)
3. BB&T Ballpark (Winston-Salem Dash; CarL)
4. McKechnie Field (Bradenton Marauders; FSL)
5. Banner Island Ballpark (Stockton Ports; CalL)
6. Rawhide Ballpark (Visalia Rawhide; CalL)
7. Charlotte Sports Park (Charlotte Stone Crabs; FSL)
8. Ticketreturn.com Field (Myrtle Beach Pelicans; CarL)
9. Loanmart Field (Rancho Cucamonga Quakes; CalL)
10. John Thurman Field (Modesto Nuts; CalL)
11. Frawley Stadium (Wilmington Blue Rocks; CarL)
12. The Hangar (Lancaster Jethawks; CalL)
13. Steinbrenner Field (Tampa Yankees; FSL)
14. Municipal Stadium (San Jose Giants; CalL)
15. Jackie Robinson Ballpark (Daytona Tortugas; FSL)
16. Joker Marchant Stadium (Lakeland Flying Tigers; FSL)
17. Roger Dean Stadium (Jupiter Hammerheads, Palm Beach Cardinals; FSL)
18. The Diamond (Lake Elsinore Storm; CalL)
19. Five County Stadium (Carolina Mudcats; CarL)
20. Nymeo Field at Harry Grove Stadium (Frederick Keys; CarL)
21. Tradition Field (St. Lucie Mets; FSL)
22. Space Coast Stadium (Brevard County Manatees; FSL)
23. San Manuel Stadium (Inland Empire 66ers; CalL)
24. Lewis-Gale Field (Salem Red Sox; CarL)
25. Florida Auto Exchange Stadium (Dunedin Blue Jays; FSL)
26. Mavericks Stadium (High Desert Mavericks; CalL)
27. Sam Lynn Ballpark (Bakersfield Blaze; CalL)
28. Pfitzner Stadium (Potomac Nationals; CarL)
29. Calvin Falwell Field (Lynchburg Hillcats; CarL)
The results of the voting are shown in percentages.
