Baseball!

Goal: See every major league team live.
Progress: Only missing one team, the Oakland A’s.

Goal: See every major league ballpark.
Progress: Added two this weekend, Comerica Park in Detroit and Jacob’s Field in Cleveland. This brings me up to 10 parks total.
1. Wrigley Field. By far the best of any of the parks on the list, also the second oldest. Of course, I’ve been going to games at Wrigley since I was a toddler. The atmosphere is the best, and would stand the most repeat visits. It’s a loud park because the fans are vocal and attentive to the game, not because the Jumbotron plays commercials and goofy promotions every few minutes. The hot dogs are my favorite, though objectively, they are pretty average. A plus, though, is the onion machines, only found at 2/10 parks so far. It is also one of only two parks to have anything resembling a neighborhood and not a forest of parking lots around the stadium. Wrigleyville is an essential feature of the park—it could never stand alone.
2. US Cellular Field, a.k.a. “The Cell” or, affectionately and outdatedly, Comiskey. Home of the White Sox, I’ll admit I’m a bit biased. However, the stadium is one of the new looking new parks. Built right before Camden Yard united old-school design with modern amenities. So, it only has the semi-modern amenities of a not-so-new-anymore park. The food is good, and since they removed a few rows from the upper deck seating areas, going up there doesn’t feel as much like climbing a mountain. Still has the trademark ugly candy-firework launchers in the scoreboard, but now home to a World Series trophy.
3. Old County Stadium, Milwaukee. An old park that needed to go. A homey, close feel, but with lots of obstructed views and a bad sound system. Still, good brats and bad baseball.
4. Miller Park, Milwaukee. A very nice park with good bratwurst. Retractable roof opens every night to the sounds of Also Sprach Zarathustra. Excellent atmosphere, at least when the Cubs are in town. Lots of stairs, it’s a tall park. To compensate for the weak 7th inning stretch rendition of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame”, there is a special German themed song and the sausage race of legend. Also, excellent radio broadcasting.
5. Old Busch Stadium, St. Louis. A beer can of a stadium. Short and ugly, an eyesore on the face of downtown St. Louis. It got very hot in the summer, with swirling winds and no real circulation. Very loud, but then that was during Cubs vs. Cardinals series.
6. Fenway Park, Boston. Oldest stadium in baseball, and the second best. Very loud, owing to small dimensions and brick backing walls, and really enthusiastic fans. Great atmosphere, and no hot-dog buns. The Green Monster is a baseball legend, and pretty amazing. The ballpark is all old-school gimmicky, as opposed to most of rest of the parks on the list, which are new-school gimmicky. The fans are great, very knowledgeable and rowdy. Also surrounded by a neighborhood, the Fens, that gives the old park the character that it has. Nothing makes a park better than the crowds outside complementing the crowds inside.
7. Shea Stadium, New York. Ugly. Slow. Bad baseball. Not great fans. Nothing good to say about the stadium, though the rain when we were there may have something to do with it. This is why New York has two baseball teams.
8. Cincinnati. Try the chili dogs. A Cincinnati favorite, the chili covers up the rest of the dog nicely. It’s a very vanilla stadium, pretty standard and somewhat character-less. All the conveniences of a modern park, with somewhat old-fashioned stylings. It’s a middling park in every respect except overall, where the lack of outstanding features to recommend it puts it 6th, ahead of Busch, Shea, and County.
9. Comerica Park, Detroit. A lovely 6 year-old park in downtown Detroit. Nicely designed, well thought out. Comfy seats, and good views. Pleasantly decorated, and not just with ads. There are a lot of tigers around, on top of the façade, on top of the scoreboard, acting as gargoyles outside…. Radio broadcasting is poor, and they don’t announce players as they come up or announce pitching changes. Food is expensive, but pretty good. Italian sausage seems to be the specialty. Many booths run by charity organizations (churches… almost all of them churches). Has a carousel for the kids, which were plentiful in the park. More kids there than anywhere else, which is good for baseball.
10. Jacob’s Field, Cleveland. A lovely 12 year-old stadium in downtown Cleveland. Lots of gimmicks, and pretty disinterested fans. But the seats were all pretty good. Bullpens were invisibly tucked into the outfield walls, which makes it hard to follow managerial strategy (what little there is in the American League…). Every type of food and amenity imaginable, with broad isles and good traffic patterns (except in the parking garages). Lots of ushers and security around, which is comforting and usually superfluous.