Ranking the top 10 ballparks in baseball based mostly on aesthetic appeal.
The ballpark is to baseball what the Constitution to the United States. In other words, without one, the other, as we know it, would not exist. Ballparks were the iconic marker by which America’s Pastime developed and by which it still evolves.
You can surf the internet in today’s digital world and find ballpark rankings based on everything from “bang for your buck” to some mathematical formula determining which is best.
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I aim to offer something different—something more whimsical and romantic, sentimental and classic. As much as today’s game of baseball is analyzed by numbers—and I’m in full support of this trend—there remains an element of beauty by which the game is played. One which cannot be overlooked and must not be omitted.
The beauty of baseball is never more obvious than when all else is stripped away, and the field and its surroundings are left bare. Of course the fever pitch of a crowd on Opening Day, or in a September postseason chase, or during an October playoff game, when the game’s best players take center stage under the bright lights, are all beautiful too.
But what about in November, December or the early months of the calendar year when no games are played? Baseball remains relevant during that time for several reasons, chief among them because the ballparks still sit, occupied by no one but a few groundskeepers and the birds chirping, “Come on, let’s play ball!” to one another.
Yet even so, not every stadium in baseball is of equal beauty. Certainly not Oakland’s run down wreck of a facility, which has gone through as many different names as it has facelifts from football to baseball and back to football.
No there are some stadiums which fail the eye test for beauty. But by a grace unique to baseball, most parks today possess aesthetic value pleasing to any eye open long enough to take it in.
This unique grace allows us to say we could reasonably rank the top 20 parks in baseball today, and it would be difficult to argue any is undeserving. Yet we power through, just as the players who play this wonderful game do in “the dog days of summer.” Them for a chance to win a ring, us to find the right 10 parks—the ones which most powerfully describe, only in pictures and picturesque beauty, what makes baseball the greatest game in the world.
The following parks could easily make the aforementioned top-20 list, but for varying reasons miss out.
Just Missing the Cut (Not necessarily in this order):
- Petco Park (couldn’t have the entire NL West in there)
- Minute Maid Park (perhaps too gimmicky)
- Rangers Stadium (whatever it’s called)
- Great American Ballpark (frankly just not enough room)
- Yankee Stadium (only on this list because it’s “Yankee Stadium”)
- Kauffman Stadium (refurbishments have done this yard good)
- Nationals Park (though not cookie-cutter, too much like those it’s modeled after)
- Target Field (beautiful but a bit bland)
- Comerica Park (the most difficult park to leave out of the top-10)
All of these are worth top-20 status, and perhaps some of them would make someone else’s top-10. I’ve watched games in all but two of them (and I had the pleasure of taking in a game at the old Yankee Stadium).
With these beautiful stadiums missing the cut, we move to the best of the best—the most picturesque and comely, the ones which ultimately make baseball the most aesthetically pleasing game known to humankind.
You’ll see I am a bit biased, but then again aren’t all rankings at some level biased? The number rank is not as important as simply a stadium being among the top-10.
Next: Home to one of the most memorable World Series Game 7s in recent memory
10. Chase Field
As far as I know, Chase Field is the first major league stadium to ever feature a pool—for humans—to swim in during the game. And while it is not the first stadium to ever feature a retractable roof, it is seemingly the one which has made the feature the coolest.
It is also one of just two stadiums in modern times (Comerica Park being the other) which has a dirt path landing strip making its way straight from the end of the pitcher’s mound to the cut of the batting circle surrounding home plate.
Chase Field brings uniqueness with the pool, and the exterior—from above, when the roof is closed, it looks more like a hangar used for housing fighter jet planes than a baseball stadium. The roof is used mostly to keep the hot, dry heat of the summer out, since it rarely rains in Arizona during the season.
The pool sits in the right center field stands seemingly to remind us baseball is above all a game meant for the summer. And it is a game, meant for children and families to enjoy, much the same way a pool is meant for swimming in the heat of summer while enjoying family time and barbecues.
Formerly known as Bank One Ballpark (or “The Bob” for short), Chase Field gives us so much of what is right about the ballpark—the indelible symbol of the game’s greatness—while keeping us on our toes with unique innovations, which also is an important element of what a baseball stadium should do.
Again, unique and cool, yet classical in much of its design. It could easily fall out of top-10, and would likely be replaced by Comerica Park or Petco Park. If you were to do such a thing, you’d have no arguments from me, but someone has to be 10th, just as someone has to be on the outside looking in . So there you go.
Next: This park has seen plenty of championship baseball recently
9. AT&T Park
A common denominator among the majority of the stadiums that made the top-10 list is the ability of the ballpark’s designer to include facets of the surrounding area—i.e. the city itself—into the ballpark. In some cases, the ballpark becomes a sort of shrine to the city in which it resides.
In other cases, as is the case with AT&T Park, it does some of that, but more importantly uses its surroundings to enhance the stadium. For example, on the exterior of AT&T Park is the hustle and bustle of a downtown-like area.
Architects recognized from the early developmental stages they could take advantage of the many different transportation options available to commuters to AT&T Park. As such, like any great stadium—minus one on this list—AT&T is right in the heart of an area where there are mass transportation crossroads.
Cable cars can take passengers to the game. There are bars and restaurants immediately outside the stadium where fans can eat and drink beforehand, and then walk to the stadium.
Or if they really want a unique experience, they could arrive to the game by sea. With the outfield overlooking the San Francisco Bay—and right field being prime “Splash” landing area for towering home runs—the Bay provides a different avenue for travel to the stadium. Not to mention it offers a beautiful view from above home plate looking out, especially during a day game when the skies are clear.
A spectator sitting high above can not only catch the sport’s best team from three of the past five seasons, but can also look out at the sea and see ships, surfers and people on canoes, rowboats and the like all hanging by the ballpark waiting for a gargantuan home run or just enjoying a beautiful San Francisco summer day.
AT&T Park is unique also in that it is one of the few modern ballparks which pits both team’s bullpens within the playing surface, stashed along either foul line and giving again an aura of yesterday.
AT&T, though, is anything but cookie-cutter. Right field is far enough away with the heavy, thick marine layer prevalent on the California coast, while the right field wall is taller than in most every other park, a mini monster. Under the monster-ish wall, is a fence where bystanders can stand occupied by only a chain link fence to keep them from entering the field.
As the wall moves closer to centerfield it moves farther away from the hitter’s grasp. At its farthest dimension, right center shoots out to 420 feet before jetting back in to 400 in straight away center, creating a kind of triangle feel—seemingly an ode to San Francisco’s oddities as a city.
In left field, high above the playing field, where no hitter without Kris Bryant herculean type right-handed pull power could hit it, sits a large, intimidating glove sculpture—perhaps a reminder to hitters the Giants are a team who thrives on pitching and defense. It’s as if the Giants are saying to their opponents, “You can try to hit it here, but you won’t.”
The park is also one of the few which distinctively separates the outfield bleachers from the rest of the stadium, with no way to get from one section to the other—something also common in the past, though not the present. Only Dodger Stadium and Wrigley Field are separated in quite the same way.
Next: This park is probably more well-known for its humidors
8. Coors Field
Coors Field is known as a hitter’s park—as, for so many years, it was the place where pitchers’ ERAs went to die and home runs were aplenty. It is not a stretch to say that the reputation brings some mystique to downtown Denver’s ballpark. So too does the steely urban architecture with the outside brickwork making it hardly stand out—aside from its girth—from the rest of the city’s downtown area.
Back inside the stadium, designers of the park also made Coors reflect its city and the surrounding area. Denver is an urban center within the most wonderfully beautiful nature I have ever seen. Riding into town from the west, driving through Utah into Colorado, the Rocky Mountains in the summertime are lush with greenery and beautiful streams of clear, crisp water.
Coors Field captures the essence of Colorado in general—providing a link between the city and its surrounding nature. In the right field bullpen area are beautiful pine trees, not unlike the ones seen on the city’s western outskirts.
But Coors continues the rustic look too. It is harder to capture than in many parks, because true beauty is better seen than explained. Pictures are worth a thousand words. And reall, pictures of Colorado and Coors Field do far more justice than I ever could in writing about it.
One oddity about the park which can be written about is the mile marker in the third deck of right field. A strip of purple extends straight across one row of seats where paying customers are literally “a mile high.” A few home runs have been hit up there in the park’s history, meaning a few batters have actually hit the ball “a mile high.”
Even more than viewing a photo of Coors or the landscape of the Rocky Mountains, one should, if at all possible, take a trek to this area to experience it. In it, one cannot help but lose him or herself in the majesty.
One of my favorite authors says of the Grand Canyon, “You don’t go to the Grand Canyon and think about your problems or think about how great you are. You think about its beauty and you get lost in it.”
Next: The wonders of the Pacific Northwest
7. Safeco Field
Sadly, Safeco Field is one of the parks on this list I have not had the pleasure of visiting. But I have seen enough games on television to know that my absence shouldn’t keep it from making the list.
As is the case with really all but one of the stadiums on this list, Safeco is nestled right in the city. Just outside of field sits the CenturyLink Field where the “12th Man” rains terror on opponents eight-plus times per year during the football season.
And the park is situated close enough to the Amtrak station nearby that during games the loud choo-choo sound rains a similar kind of terror. This can be especially trying whenever an unassuming outfielder is trying to rein in a pop fly, or when a pitcher in a tense moment is working to find his control.
Looking out from behind home plate, far above the field of play, is a picturesque scene of downtown Seattle. The Space Needle—high above all other buildings—seems like it’s within grasp of the baseball watcher, or at least close enough for a player to throw a baseball at.
But the other part of Safeco Field which is intriguing, and at least somewhat unique, is its feel of being inside a hangar. We already mentioned how Chase Field from above looks like hangar for jets, but inside feels more like an indoor Habana.
Safeco is designed to actually feel like a baseball field has been brought into a hangar. And it makes sense given Boeing—one of the world’s largest aviation companies—is originally a Seattle creation, not unlike Starbucks.
Thankfully, Seattle did not integrate too much of its coffee history into the stadium, since as George Will says in his little book, A Nice Little Place on the North Side, baseball goes with beer and beer with baseball, and thus by extension not coffee.
Next: The original 'modern' stadium
6. Oriole Park at Camden Yards
Oriole Park at Camden Yards—generally shortened to Camden Yards—was really the genesis of the modern stadium. Its existential idea was to go back into history and recover some of what had been lost in the 60s and 70s revolution of two-dimensional, cookie-cutter multiple-sport facilities.
When the park’s head architectural consultant Janet Marie Smith was hired to design Baltimore’s new baseball stadium, she had the idea to do two things: 1) Maintain an urban environment, which so many ballparks at the time lacked and 2) Delve back into the past.
Along with the Orioles’ head of the project, Larry Luchino, Smith decided to build the new stadium with the 19th century brick warehouse as a backdrop for fans behind home plate looking out at right field. Doing so gave the new ballpark an aura of old-time urbanity completely lost on a generation of baseball fans.
With Wrigley Field and Fenway Park as a model, she aimed to bring lush greenery and urban hardness together within a downtown area. Though now 23-years-old, Camden Yards still maintains a youth and child-like enthusiasm. To say that about a structure may seem odd, but again baseball stadiums become their own kind of living organism.
Most famously, Camden Yards has seen Cal Ripken tie and overtake Lou Gehrig for most consecutive games played in Major League Baseball history, as well as Eddie Murray’s 3,000th hit.
In recent years, it’s hosted a number of playoff games and this season, sadly, was also—because of where it rests in the city—a center point and hazard for the riots which took place in April.
Baseball and its ballparks are not generally assumed to be landmarks of great American history, but then again, try explaining American history without baseball. It cannot be done. Smith succeeded in bringing the past and present together to create one of the most dynamic stadiums in baseball.
And by extension she sparked a model that many future parks would emulate.
Next: This one's been redone with same name multiple times
5. Busch Stadium
Busch Stadium—the third such baseball park with the same name in St. Louis—is home to one of baseball’s proudest franchises. The park has its picturesque elements—like in Seattle with the Space Needle, a fan sitting above home plate can look out beyond the outfield and see what was for so long the tallest structure east or west of the Mississippi River, the Gateway Arch.
Busch, though, is of course an ode to the Busch family—the founders of Anheuser-Busch. Again, and it cannot be stressed enough, baseball and beer are an unbreakable pairing. While we could argue about the quality of beer Anheuser-Busch provides, we cannot argue about the success it has had marketing its product.
If you go to Busch Stadium and you’re 21-years-old or older, you almost have to buy a Budweiser or Bud Light. Not to do so would be to miss out on the complete experience of attending a game at Busch Stadium.
But it isn’t only the connection with Busch and beer that makes the stadium a good time for watching a baseball game. Cardinals games are fun because the locals are as knowledgeable, friendly and loyal as any bunch in baseball.
A Cubs fan like myself can—and has—watch a Cubs-Cardinals game at Busch and perhaps be ribbed a bit. But it does not get out of hand. Cubs and Cardinals fans may not be natural friends, but they’ll put up with one another. It is a good ole Midwest, good-natured, well-mannered rivalry.
And it carries over to the way Cardinals fans treat all opponents. They of course want their team to win, but they also appreciate good baseball.
About a mile walk from the Arch and the river, Busch Stadium is another ballpark in the downtown area of its city. The only way to really describe the downtown area and the park is to say it has a southern-Midwest feel. And it works.
Next: There isn't a more naturally beautiful site in all of baseball
4. PNC Park
Is there another park in baseball that can match PNC Parks’ sheer beauty? All of the stadiums on this list are beautiful in one way or another. Some use rustic architecture, while some are a bit quirky (in a good way). PNC is the only one, though, where everything just seems 100 percent natural.
There isn’t a gimmick at PNC Park. The designers were simply blessed with the most beautiful sight to look out on in all of baseball. It really was their job to just not mess it up. And they nailed it.
The park allows the Allegheny River and the bridge above it to provide all the view – all the beauty one could ask for while watching a baseball game.
As for the park itself, it is thankfully not cookie-cutter, yet it also doesn’t try to be something more than it is. As such, the outfield stands jet out and in just as a baseball stadium should. An extreme pull to left field down the line can be an easy home run if the hitter is able to just keep it fair.
Left center field is a mammoth shot, as is right center. Like at AT&T Park, if a left-handed hitter really gets ahold of one, he can jack the ball in the water. But it takes a bomb. PNC doesn’t have a quirky “splash shots” meter like AT&T (nothing wrong with it, but there’s an innocence to PNC Park).
Instead, PNC Park is a good ole baseball stadium in the heart of Pittsburgh with some of the most picturesque scenery any city could ever possess. Who knew the Steel City was so beautiful? Most people probably did not, at least not until PNC Park showed up.
Next: The last three are also the oldest stadiums in baseball
3. Dodger Stadium
In some senses Dodger Stadium at Chavez Ravine is the most cookie-cutter, generic ballpark on the list. It was designed more symmetrically—as was common at the time it was built in 1958—than most parks today. But none of that should be taken as a diss towards Dodger Stadium.
Instead, it should say that, like PNC Park before it, Dodger Stadium is a place for baseball. The beauty of the stadium is its fresh cut grass, the occasional organ playing, and the fact it reminds us of baseball in the 1950s and 60s.
And that’s actually perfect, since like that era, baseball today is a pitcher-friendly game where low scoring is the norm. Dodger Stadium is one of the more difficult parks to hit a home run in, not so much because of the dimensions, but because of the marine layer air at night. The ball simply doesn’t travel.
And as much as chicks dig the long ball, and the home run chase of 1998 was necessary for baseball to regain its spot in the hearts of America, the sport was never meant to be played by Thor-like specimens. It was meant to be played with skills like running the bases, bunting, fielding, throwing, pitching and timely hitting.
Dodger Stadium requires all of those things. It’s good old-fashioned baseball. There’s nothing wrong with that.
Next: Fenway or Wrigley?
2. Fenway Park
Fenway Park has made noticeable upgrades to its hundred-plus-year-old facility over the years. But none of them have taken away from the chic look of the ballpark. If anything, adding seats to the top of the Green Monster has only made the tourist attraction within a tourist attraction that much more fascinating.
The Green Monster is No. 1 on the features which make Fenway such a landmark. But one cannot forget about Pesky Pole on the right field side—the nearly impossible pole to hook a fair ball by, because of and in spite of the fact it is only 297 feet from home plate.
Then there’s the original triangle in center field, where hitting a ball to will assuredly gain a triple for the batter. And there’s the waist-high outfield wall all the way from Pesky Pole to centerfield.
Or how about the curving foul territory, which gives plenty of room between the bases, but almost none once expanded beyond the first 90 feet.
And don’t forget about the almost inhumanly small dugouts for both teams. Fenway is quaint and old and historic. And thus lovely. It is home to a franchise which was cursed until 2004, and the New England baseball fans were often crabby because of it.
It made for an interesting atmosphere, one which no longer exists in Fenway, though the fans there are now intense in a different way. The expectations are daunting for the Red Sox.
Next: Truly a nice little place on the North Side
1. Wrigley Field
Again, I fully admit in advance a bit of bias towards Wrigley Field. It is the home of the Lovable Losers. Starting there is as good a place as any to begin.
Fans of the Cubs haven’t been terribly enthusiastic about the four-year renovation plan put in place by the Cubs. But redoing the bleachers, adding scoreboards and improving space in the outer hallways should not be seen as infringing upon what made Wrigley so great for so many years. The first and third were at least necessary changes.
However, the centerfield scoreboard, operated by hand, is not being removed or changed. The ivy will continue to grow on the outfield walls in the same natural order it has for decades. The organ will still play. And so many of the things that have made Wrigley Field great for so long remain just as steady as they’ve always been.
If there’s something to be said in the negative column, it could be the insertion of lights into the stadium. But that was done in 1988. We’re almost 30 years past that development. There’s no sense in dredging that up now. The lights exist at Wrigley, for better or worse. It’s done.
And while night games are now common at Wrigley, day baseball is still what makes Wrigley Field special.
It is as George Will says, “a nice little place on the North Side.”