It’s hard to argue against either of the two finalists chosen by fans in our Best of the Ballparks voting for former MLB park, as the matchup features Ebbets Field versus the Polo Grounds.
Voters selected Ebbets Field (Brooklyn Dodgers) over Sportsman’s Park (St. Louis Browns/St. Louis Cardinals) and the Polo Grounds (New York Giants/New York Mets) over Forbes Field (Pittsburgh Pirates). This sets up an all-New York City final between two of the more fondly remembered ballparks in the history of baseball. Generations of baseball fans grew up listening to games broadcast from these MLB cathedrals, whether it be Jackie Robinson breaking the MLB color line at Ebbets Field or Willie Mays patrolling center field for the Giants.
We started with a list of 32 former MLB ballparks featuring facilities of recent vintage, as well as notable ballparks of the past. It is not a definitive list of former MLB ballparks. We don’t go back to the turn of the century and include ballparks like the Cincinnati Reds’ Palace of the Fans, nor do we include temporary facilities like Colt Stadium, Wrigley Field (LA) or Seals Stadium. (We did make one exception: we included Sick’s Seattle Stadium if only for the extreme nostalgia exhibited by Seattle Pilots fans. They decided not to vote.) Not every one of these ballparks is a classic, and some generate some pretty extreme feelings on both the best/worst sides of the equation. Most are gone, though some (Astrodome, Braves Field, Jack Murphy Stadium, LA Coliseum, RFK Stadium) live on in one form or another.
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). Only one vote from a device or PC counts; you’re welcome to vote over and over and over again, but the system filters out multiple votes from an IP address, so that effort will be for naught. By the way, the MiLB/indy/summer collegiate voting in previous Best of the Ballparks competition was successful, drawing in more than 71,000 voters.
Voting for this final round is now over.
We know from our marketing/user research 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.
Here’s our list of ballparks in the brackets. This is in alphabetical order. The brackets above were randomized; they are not the results of seedings on our part. So there are no upsets in this competition: Just an attempt to determine the old ballparks most treasured by fans. It is, in every sense of the word, a popularity contest.
Arlington Stadium (Texas Rangers)
Astrodome (Houston Astros)
Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium (Atlanta Braves)
Braves Field (Boston Braves)
Candlestick Park (San Francisco Giants)
Cleveland Municipal Stadium (Cleveland Indians)
County Stadium (Milwaukee Braves/Milwaukee Brewers)
Comiskey Park (Chicago White Sox)
Crosley Field (Cincinnati Reds)
Ebbets Field (Brooklyn Dodgers)
Forbes Field (Pittsburgh Pirates)
Griffith Stadium (Washington Senators)
Jack Murphy Stadium (San Diego Padres)
Jarry Park (Montreal Expos)
Kingdome (Seattle Mariners)
LA Coliseum (Los Angeles Dodgers)
League Park (Cleveland Indians)
Memorial Stadium (Baltimore Orioles)
Metrodome (Minnesota Twins)
Metropolitan Stadium (Minnesota Twins)
Municipal Stadium (Kansas City Athletics/Kansas City Royals)
Polo Grounds (New York Giants/New York Mets)
RFK Stadium (Washington Senators/Washington Nationals)
Riverfront Stadium (Cincinnati Reds)
Shea Stadium (New York Mets)
Sick’s Seattle Stadium (Seattle Pilots)
Shibe Park (Philadelphia Athletics/Philadelphia Phillies)
Sportsman’s Park (St. Louis Browns/St. Louis Cardinals)
Three Rivers Stadium (Pittsburgh Pirates)
Tiger Stadium (Detroit Tigers)
Veterans Stadium (Philadelphia Phillies)
Yankee Stadium (1927 original)
Results are listed by percentage of votes cast. This is not a seeded competition: the ballparks were randomly inserted into their brackets and placed by automated software.
