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This came up in the new stadium thread. I thought it would be a good discussion among people here who have been to multiple MLB parks outside of Chicago to get everyone's thoughts, likes, dislikes, observations, etc. about other ballparks. I'd like to limit this to MLB ballparks only (past and present). Discussing stadiums in other leagues (including minor league baseball) will end up with apples to oranges comparisons. I've been to a dozen of the current MLB ballparks. I think it'd be too arbitrary for me to simply rank them 1 to 12. Instead, I'm going to give some general observations. I'm going to start off with the ballparks that I think are top-tier. Oracle Park: Nice ballpark, but location, location, location. The backdrop view is incredible and from the concourse, I got a great nighttime view of the Bay Bridge. The outfield concourse is pretty good too. I was able to take light rail from my hotel right to the park, so transit access was good in my experience. PNC Park: The best designed ballpark of all the parks I've been to. Nice simple layout with only 2 decks, great views of the field from the lower concourse (much better than at Rate Field) and great outfield concourse with a view out onto the Alleghany River. Food was really good with some local favorites: pierogis, Primanti Bros sandwiches, and a a concession stand operated by Manny Sanguillen. Backdrop is top-notch with the Clemente Bridge and the city skyline. Location is great with the riverwalk right there and downtown right across the bridge. I was able to walk from my downtown hotel to the ballpark. The area around the park seemed fine with some bars, restaurants, hotels, and residences, but it wasn't nearly as bustling as i've seen around other ballparks. Too bad the Pirates are so perpetually bad. This place could be electric if the organization could field a more competitive team. I think they've made the playoffs only 3 times (3 years in a row) in the 25 years since this place opened. Petco Park: I'd say this one is the best overall of the ones I've been too. Great ballpark. The backdrop isn't as stunning as the other two above, but the historic warehouse in the LF corner is a nice touch. There's a city park just beyond CF that is part of the gated ballpark area during games, but then it appears to be a public park all other times. Hard to beat that beautiful San Diego weather. Location is great in the Gaslamp District. Food was really good too. It's no surprise to me that the Padres draw 3M a year here. I was able to take light rail from my hotel in Old Town to the stadium, so again transit access was good for me.

And watching Porky Pig cartoons.

Maybe they have some history together? Barfield also has ties to the area.

They should just take Getz.

Barfield? Take him.

Curious if there are any others here who play this. If you aren't familiar with it, its a statnerd's dream of a baseball game. If you like excel spreadsheets, simulations, and baseball I recommend grabbing the game on Steam since its 50% off. I played through 2026 and 2027 so far. In this parallel universe, the White Sox lost to the Phillies in 6 games in the World series in 2026, and narrowly were defeated by the Red Sox in the 2027 ALDS. If there is any interest I can break down how 2027 played out including how individual players performed.

I used to go to the Club Level for years - before and after they enclosed/climate-controlled the concourse. Not every game I attended, but once in a while as a splurge and I thought it was worth it. While the food at the 100 level has always been good, the 300 level was just that much better. But then, IMO, the quality went downhill. It's not that the food was bad, but the food/experience wasn't really any better than the 100 level to be worth the extra cost and I haven't been there since Covid. I don't know if it's improved since then. They also didn't have enough tables and chairs such that it was often hard to find a seat in the concourse if the weather was bad. I went to the Club Level in at PNC Park and there were plenty of places to sit inside their larger concourse. Since the heat index was around 100 that evening, it was a good place to go in for a half inning to cool off and watch the game on a big screen TV before returning to my seat. Also, since the club level at PNC (Busch Stadium too) are bigger, I felt like I was still there with a sizable number of fans and I didn't feel as cut off from other fans as the 300 level at Rate Field.

I know there are only 30 of these jobs, but why would anyone want to work for Crane? He's worse than George Steinbrenner when it comes to firing.

Very happy to see the eventual downfall of the Guardians who proved very hateable. They obviously have some very talented baseball ops people and despicable ownership holding them back. We can only hope that ownership continues to refuse investing in payroll or that the talented front office proves not so good on figuring out which veteran players are worth spending money on (which IMO is quite possibly a different skill than the amateur acquisition and development skills they are clearly good at). I don't think there's all that much to learn from comparing stats between the two series, there are so few games involved you can hardly call them hot and cold streaks. DeLauter made some loud outs against the Sox that probably held his numbers down. I certainly felt more afraid of him than most anyone else in their lineup. I found it weird watching Cleveland how they went from a team that had good starting pitching to a team that seemed to believe it only had two starters. Griffin actually did fairly well in the postseason but they used him like a reliever, seemingly because they thought (maybe accurately) that he would get beat up without his matchups being carefully managed. Bibee had been bad down the stretch so that made sense I guess. Cantillo was handled even more carefully than Griffin but he kind of earned it by struggling mightily to throw strikes; of course maybe he's at home thinking his issues were due to his atypical usage. Messick proved beatable when you don't chase his changeup. Williams was a monster but in his last inning of the ALCS he had lost nearly 4mph on his fastball which makes me think he hit a wall with fatigue (or worse, that he got hurt). I wasn't even clear that Cleveland was going to use him in a Game 7. On offense, Cleveland lived by success on slappy balls in play and died by it as well. May they rest in peace! I also want to note that Detroit has some really interesting young players, starting with McGonigle who may be just one of those guys who is among the best players in the game for years. Dingler has been great even if I'm sure their fans are worried about his trajectory at the end of the season. Riley Greene is a good young hitter. Max Clark has big potential. I'm not sure if they will have pitching but that's always harder to project. Same goes for Kansas City. Bobby Witt is Bobby Witt. Carter Jensen seems like a real strong player that maybe flew a tick under the radar. The sky is the limit for Caglianone and he's managed to not be a 35% K rate guy. Not sure what exactly Maikel Garcia will be but the 2025 version was a problem and he's at worst a solid regular on the cheap. Pasquatch is also a rock solid guy IMO. I'm not sure if they have enough reinforcements on the way though. I'm not as enthused about the Twins going forward but they basically sold the whole org for parts in 2025 and still hung around in 2026, so I can't ignore that.

Getz may be back on the market for an AGM if Barfield gets poached

I was in the Club level for years. Absolutely loved it. FYI, when the stadium was first built, it wasn't climate controlled. the concourse looked like the other levels only smaller. I haven't been to the club level in Camden Yards, but it is supposed to be, or at least was, identical.

Sato is a high-chase hitter. Sox just don't target those guys and you usually don't get more patient when changing leagues. If you took Sato's chase rate in NPB, it would make him the highest chase rate player on the Sox. I think there are genuine differences of opinion in how much you should care about it (there are numerous good hitters who also chase a lot) and whether anything can be done about it, but the Sox publicly emphasize swing decisions and have really emphasized patient hitters in their acquisitions. There's more to swing decisions than just how often you swing at balls, but swinging at balls frequently is nearly incompatible with being a hitter who generally makes good swing decisions. For Sato's sake the best thing you can say is that he's not exactly in the Lenyn tier of aggression and (also unlike the Lenyn types) he's very aggressive in the strike zone so he's not wasting the aggression by taking until he's behind and then expanding. Besides that, I just don't see the Sox taking a big swing — no pun intended — at a lefty, especially a lefty-hitting primary infielder. I would wholly endorse a trade for Yordan Alvarez however.

The Sox were not one Freddy Peralta away from being a team deserving of a World Series berth. Might they have beaten Cleveland? Sure. If they played Cleveland again today with all the same players, it would be roughly a coin flip, so yeah any changes to the teams might have helped achieve a different result.

Better pitching overall was part of it, but we also kept throwing lefties at Adell and that's all he can hit.

Jose Ramirez wasn't good either. Seems like Tampa knew how to handle Adell and Ramirez much better than we did. It was the opposite for DeLauter. He absolutely killed them, whereas he was pretty quiet against us.

A look back at the last time Milwaukee won the World Series - 69 years ago. WLUKRemembering Milwaukee's only World Series Championship ba...The Brewers have swung and missed in all 56 of their tries at winning a World Series, but Milwaukee has earned one World Series title.

If PCA keeps up with this level of performance going forward....yes.

My Dad had season tix in the Club level for a few years. Great seats, but you feel cut off from the other fans too much. Personally, I prefer the lower seats at the 500 level. Feels more like a ballgame. But yeah, other stadiums have good club level seating. Sat there in Philly. Great experience even tho it was one of the worst ballgames ever. Sox and Phils extra innings when both teams sucked

Oh well.

Gotta be one of the worst trades in MLB history.

The Mets - the same team that traded away PCA for a couple of month of Javier Baez. Woof. Such a poorly run franchise for all the money sunk into their payroll.

The White Sox ran out of steam. Just like the Guardians and their pitching ran out of steam against the Rays. I honestly expected Sox to make the ALCS....but I don't think they could have won a 7 game series even if Castillo had a Peralta like turnaround. Sox pitching was on fumes and the Rays were well rested. Should be a fun world series and I am SO GLAD that schmuck Ramirez is watching from his couch just like the White Sox.

I think it's silly to call out the Sox for not making a move by just looking at what happened two months after the deadline and picking the guys who did well. Nobody was clamoring for Peralta at the deadline because he sucked. I think it's entirely fair, however, to call the Sox out for not being able to make these moves, and failing with the one they did try (Castillo).

Peralta was going to bat for Mune and Montgomery (2)?

All the more frustrating that the Sox with the advantages they have in many areas haven't been able to dominate it.