What is everybody's favorite ballparks? I made a system to rank the parks. It's definitely not perfect, but it is a system. And I ranked all of my MLB, MiLB and NCAA parks that I've seen from best to worst. I came up with several different categories that I take into consideration when ranking parks and came up with a points range for each of them. The more important things had higher points maximum, for example: The structure of the park is what I considered most important, so I score it from 0-50. I'm also intrigued by the actual stadium signs for each one, so I counted that as a category, however it is obviously not nearly as important, so I score it from 0-5, so even a "perfect" one still only adds 5 points to the park's score, whereas an "average" structure would give it 25 points, you follow? Anyway, I will post mine here shortly. I did all 3 levels (MLB, MiLB & NCAA) completely independently, so a 50-pointer in MiLB doesn't necessarily mean I like it better than a 50-point MLB, it is just in comparison to the other parks I've seen in each level, still follow?

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Love the ranking system! One of the things my wife and I consider in our rankings is the fan base. How into the games are the fans? Large crowd? Interest in the team around the city? Is it a baseball town?

Thanks! That would be a good addition to the system! The only bad part about that is that since most of these parks I'll only ever see once it may not be fair if some of them I happened to see on a Tuesday afternoon against an irrelevant team and others I may have seen on a Saturday night against their arch-rival or something. Fan-base definitely should matter, but just might not get a fair example of that if only seeing it one time.

I was thinking of doing something like this too.  My categories would be food, aesthetics, layout, location (I really like ballparks that are downtown or at least in a main area), atmosphere (things like whether or not the fans seem into the game, between-innings entertainment), and special features (a great example would be the Reds HoF at Great American Ballpark). 

I haven't gone through and scored the parks I've been to yet.  After my trip to Cinci last week, I've been to 25 stadiums recently enough to at least put them in tiers.  I've also been to Toronto but I was only 4 or 5, and Citi Field but that was in 2010 so too long ago to really remember it that well.  

So out of the 25, I'd put them like this.

1st Tier - my favorites - SF, SD, LAD, Boston, St. Louis

2nd Tier - Pitt, Atlanta, Baltimore, Cubs, Minnesota

3rd Tier - Detroit (my home park), Cleveland, Cinci (came away liking it much better this time than I did when I went in 2015 for whatever reason), Arizona, Colorado

4th Tier - Washington, Miami, Philly, LAA, KC

5th Tier - White Sox, Tampa, Oakland, Yankees, Milwaukee

These aren't in any particular order within each tier, i.e. I'm not saying Milwaukee is my least favorite park.  Also, I like them all, just some more than others!

My girlfriend and I will be going to Fenway & Citizens Bank Park next week and I might go to Target Field the following week so good times ahead!

I know exactly what you mean about sometimes liking a park way more or less when you see it a 2nd time. Cincy is actually my home park and Detroit is actually my favorite team! (Haha, just some irony). I find it very difficult to rank Cincy's since I've been to it 50+ times and most of the others just once, so I feel like I don't appreciate Cincy's as much since I've seen it so many times.

That makes sense - I think the same thing has happened to me with Comerica Park.  I must have been to almost 100 games there by now.  Also, the drop from first place in the AL Central/in contention every year to basically a AAA squad makes it harder to appreciate, ha.

Haha. Yeah, I get that. I think the Tigers are heading in the right direction. Their farm system is getting pretty good and it should be getting even better soon. Boyd, Greene & Castellanos should bring in more good prospects and they should get a top 2 or 3 pick in the draft next year again as well. A couple more years and they'll be good again.

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