The fans have spoken, setting up a final all-Southern League round between Regions Field and Riverwalk Stadium in the Double-A Best of the Ballparks finals. You know what to do: Vote!
Regions Field (Birmingham Barons) was our #1 seed entering the competition, but Riverwalk Stadium (Montgomery Biscuits) won by a few upsets to make it to the finals. Lots of publicity surrounding Riverwalk Stadium these days, as it hosts the Southern League All-Star Game next week.
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 last round of voting generated more than 13,000 respondents. So vote!
Voting ended Monday at 10 p.m., with the winner to be announced Wednesday.
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 Double-A ballparks, combining Texas, Southern and Eastern League facilities:
1. Regions Field (Birmingham Barons; SL)
2. Pensacola Bayfront Stadium (Pensacola Blue Wahoos; SL)
3. Dr Pepper Ballpark (Frisco RoughRiders; TL)
4. Dickey-Stephens Park (Arkansas Travelers; TL)
5. FirstEnergy Stadium (Reading Fightin Phils; EL)
6. Smokies Park (Tennessee Smokies; SL)
7. Whataburger Field (Corpus Christi Hooks; TL)
8. ONEOK Field (Tulsa Drillers; TL)
9. ARM & HAMMER Park (Trenton Thunder; EL)
10. Riverwalk Stadium (Montgomery Biscuits; SL)
11. Canal Park (Akron RubberDucks; EL)
12. Metro Bank Park (Harrisburg Senators; EL)
13. Hammons Field (Springfield Cardinals; TL)
14. Bragan Field at the Baseball Grounds of Jacksonville (Jacksonville Suns; SL)
15. Northeast Delta Dental Stadium (New Hampshire Fisher Cats; EL)
16. Arvest Ballpark (Northwest Arkansas Naturals; TL)
17. Trustmark Park (Mississippi Braves; SL)
18. Peoples Natural Gas Field (Altoona Curve; EL)
19. MGM Park (Biloxi Shuckers; SL)
20. Hadlock Field (Portland Sea Dogs; EL)
21. Security Bank Ballpark (Midland RockHounds; TL)
22. The Diamond (Richmond Flying Squirrels; EL)
23. The Ballpark at Jackson (Jackson Generals; SL)
24. AT&T Field (Chattanooga Lookouts; SL)
25. Wolff Stadium (San Antonio Missions; TL)
26. Jerry Uht Park (Erie SeaWolves; EL)
27. Prince George’s Stadium (Bowie Baysox; EL)
28. Henry Aaron Stadium (Mobile BayBears)
29. New Britain Stadium (New Britain Rock Cats; EL)
30. NYSEG Stadium (Binghamton Mets; EL)
The results of the voting are shown in percentages.