1. Boston Red Sox - Fenway Park
2. New York Yankees - Yankee Stadium
3. Chicago Cubs - Wrigley Field

4. Milwaukee Brewers - the new Miller Park
5. Colorado Rockies - Coors Field

I'm in general agreement with the venue suggestions so far, but would add the Ballpark at Arlington and Safeco Field in Seattle, based on how favorably they're regarded. (I've been to the latter, not the former.)

Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh is one of a spate of round, multi-purpose, stadia built in the 60's, none of which are now particularly well-regarded for either baseball or football. Aside from the Kingdome, which of course was blown up, and which was the only such abomination to haunt the American League, the others are the Astrodome (now in disuse), Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia and Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati (both nearly identical to Three Rivers), Shea Stadium, Busch Stadium, and the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum.

I will exempt the Metrodome in Minneapolis from this diatribe; although round, it seems to have been much better designed than the others.

The 'Johnny' (ok, Rosenblatt stadium-they hate when people call ith the johnny) in Omaha for the CWS. Great town, great baseball, great party!

Cheers,

'toad

JonToner: No problem, I really don't care either way. I don't feel nostalgia for old buildings, sports or not http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif Just know it's being torn down and my tax money is being wasted on two new stadiums.

dg1:
To be a major city is to subject yourself to the extortion of sports franchises.

"Build us a new $500m stadium, lease it to us for $1 a year or we'll go to Tuscaloosa, AL and take our 1,000 minimum wage jobs with us!"

Of course all of this is paid for by hotel taxes, so it is the traveller that pays for this blackmail. And the politicians get their kickbacks, so what could be wrong with that?


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"I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own."

Interested. If it's on the weekend...I usually can't make it, but I'm crossing my fingers and seeing how things develop here.

Linda

Jon Toner -- I spent Saturday at Pac Bell Park (in San Francisco), a new ballpark built with no public money at all!

A couple of weeks ago, I saw the new Cleveland Browns statium (publically funded) that is used 9 times a year.

Jon has hit on my moral dilemma: as much as I love ball games and ball parks, the insidiousness of the big league ball business is a real turn-off. To see cities subsidize millionaires and wealthy business-owners [including those who sit in the luxury boxes, etc.] the way they have to get pro sports teams is false economics at its best. While living in YEG over the past 20-years, we had a great little Pacific Coast League team [the Trappers] and it was just the right scale of things to appreciate the game. In the last few years, we even got one of those new/old-style ballparks. [It was a shame to lose the ramshankled old one, but it was really showing its age and structural problems. While that was built with city money, C$15 million was not an exorbitant amount -- one-tenth of what they were talking about for a new ballpark in Montreal! -- and tickets at C$7 -- with lots of give-aways -- was not unaffordable to working class families.

Actually, I think discussions like this can only add to the interest of a weekend or two visiting some of these classic ballparks. I will be doing the new Cominsky Park when in Chicago over the weekend of the 15th, as only the Sox are in town. Any suggestions of the best, mid-priced seats? (While the ticket prices look reasonable, they are in US$, and I am one of those poor Canucks whose dollar is only worth about 60-cents!)

Skinny Canadians can sit in 2/3 of a seat for a loony. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

Well, what a GREAT trip. Have always wanted to do one of these. With fellow FT'ers would be simply awesome. Will probably spend the week saying, "This is GREAT!"

In no particular order here is my short list:

1) Yankee Stadium: (Bosox fan but you have to visit the "House That Ruth Built." Besides, Old Fenway will be gone but the Green Monster Will live on in the new yard.

2) Wrigley Field: I cried when they put the lights in. Used to visit ChiTown every year in May for the restaurant show and always did a Cubs game!

3) Kansas City: I am surprised nobody else mentioned the first of the "modern era" yards built for the fans to enjoy the game. If you've never been, you are missing out.

4) Baltimore: Have NEVER been to Camden Yards even though it has been #1 on my list since it opened. First new stadium to incorporate local architecture, i.e. the red brick, that is now followed by most new construction projects (Coors Field, BankOne Ballpark, etc.)

5) For nostalgia reasons would love to visit new stadiums that replaced old ones in cities I have enjoyed ballgames: Cleveland Jacobs, New Comiskey, PacTel (still have my Croix de Candlestick pins, the one's they gave you when you stayed for an extra-innings night game!), Safeco (always hated the Kingdome for baseball). Detroit and Milwaukee, as well.

6) Is San Diego getting a new stadium? Would love to see that. Murphy has always been a joke, IMHO. Can't stand to see the Dodger blue bleed, so I left off Chavez Ravine. Maybe we need two or three different options, East, Midwest and West?

7) Now that Charlotte has become the latest location mentioned when owners threaten to move, I'll host here if the Expos come (or anyone else, for that matter). We could always tour Ericsson Stadium, where the Carolina Panthers play, the brainstorm park that created PSLs (seat license sales).

So, let's just go for it!!!

Why screw around? Let's have a Flyertalk meeting at the World Series! I'm sure one of us will have connections at one of the cities.

I need to book a hotel in Chicago soon as I'm hoping the Sox make it. What week is the Series this year?

Other than that, I'd like to do Fenway as it's going away. Three Rivers is going away too, but I was there a month ago.

Stimpy- You may actually want to book a room in NY! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

Just for good measure! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

BTW- Overall a great idea, IMHO, even though it may be a bit tough to pull off! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/cool.gif

With the ALDS and NLDS coming up, I thought I'd bring this back to the top.

Any more ideas folks?

I just got the 2001 Red Sox schedule, so they must be available for all teams. I can try to put together some kind of scheduling dates so we can get tickets when they become available in December.

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"I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own."

Jon Toner:

The last home games for the Pirates was played last weekend in Three Rivers here in PIT and there was a lot of nostalgia and articles about it. Everyone agreed that Three Rivers is the epitome of cookie-cutter generic stadiums -- boring but functional for many different things. No one will miss the concrete, just the memories http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

The worst part is that most people feel the stadium still had many years of useful life in it-- and here they are tearing it down for a losing team. At least the new baseball park will be of reasonable size and used often.. I don't think anyone in Pittsburgh understands why we're building a new football stadium however for what ten games a year? Not to mention taxpayers subsidizing UPitt to play there too.. sheesh.

Yeah, it's extortion and its in every big city but it doesnt mean I have to like it http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

Just wanted to bring this up to top, and also ask:

Does anyone have a schedule for the NYY yet?

I have a spreadsheet put together with the home schedules of most of the teams/parks we talked about, and would be happy to send that to anyone who asks, I'm just missing the Yankees' schedule and cannot find it anywhere.