After a Sweet Sixteen round that saw several close votes and a rarely seen tie, the MiLB Double-A Best of the Ballparks 2022 fan vote moves to an Elite Eight round. As the tie shows: your vote counts!
First: we saw a tie between Trustmark Park (Mississippi Braves) and FirstEnergy Stadium (Reading Fighting Phils). Under the rules of our contest and embodied in our polling software, the winner is the higher seed. Second: two contests were decided by margins of 12 votes or fewer. Receiving the most votes in the Sweet Sixteen round: Toyota Field (Rocket City Trash Pandas), Blue Wahoos Stadium (Pensacola Blue Wahoos), Peoples Natural Gas Field (Altoona Curve, in a losing but noble effort), ONEOK Field (Tulsa Drillers, in a losing but noble effort) and Whataburger Field (Corpus Christi Hooks). Sometimes it’s not the turnout, but the matchup.
This was a challenge to seed. This isn’t the result of a formal grading system, but rather recommendations based on years of attending games, seeing how the ballparks function behind the scenes, how these ballparks have made an impact in their communities, performances in previous Best of the Ballparks competitions, and noting how ballparks are regarded within the industry. One of the reasons we love working in baseball is that many industry folks, including many on the player side, are ballpark geeks, and we think this list reflects broad sentiment among those who know ballparks best. This is a wide-open competition. Last year’s winner, Dunkin’ Donuts Park (Hartford Yard Goats), is the #1 seed. In terms of MiLB ballpark quality, this is one of the most balanced competitions.
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.
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. Vote below:
