We’ve moved on to the Elite Eight round of the 2022 MLB Summer Leagues Best of the Ballparks fan vote, featuring teams from the Appalachian League and MLB Draft League.
Our top five seeds all made it into the Elite Eight round. Receiving the most votes in the first round: Trenton Thunder Ballpark (Trenton Thunder), Pioneer Park (Greenville Flyboys), Motor Mile Field at Calfee Park (Pulaski River Turtles), Hunter Wright Stadium (Kingsport Axmen) and Medlar Field at Lubrano Park (State College Spikes).
We divide the summer-collegiate fan vote between the MLB-sanctioned leagues and the much larger category of summer-collegiate baseball. The Appalachian League and MLB Draft League are officially sanctioned by Major League Baseball and feature former Double-A, High-A, Short Season A and Rookie level pro ballparks. Voting in this category starts today. Tomorrow begins the play-in round for the general summer-collegiate category, with 64 ballparks in play.
We know from marketing stats that 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.
This was a challenge to seed: ballparks formerly in four levels of play were hard to compare. There is no uniformity at this level yet, and we will be eager to see what our readers think of the new MLB Summer Collegiate lineup. These seeds are based on previous rankings and performances in prior Best of the Ballparks fan votes.
Some things to note. First, you are allowed to vote multiple times, but you can only vote once per day. Second, you don’t need to fill out a full slate: partially filled lineups will count. A running tally of the vote will be presented at the bottom of this page in the form of brackets. And yes, we will be running a vote for summer-collegiate ballparks not sanctioned by MLB. Vote below:
