Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. That fabled line, a simplification of a more complicated quote by Plato, is simplified yet more when discussing ballparks. People love their ballparks, but the achitecture, form, and function can be appreciated by people who hate the team that plays there and can be admired by people who don’t know the first thing about baseball…but love a ballpark hot dog.
Ballparks have stood in many of America’s major cities since the 19th century. Fenway Park will celebrate its 100th anniversary in 2012. Wrigley Field will do the same in 2014. Many new parks celebrate the ballparks of old…with modern amenities added. And each new park tries to surpass the one built before it, or at least the one that housed the team previously.
Big League Ballparks looks at every ballpark built over the last century, plus many built before that. The book examines trends in ballpark architecture and breaks down the periods of ballpark building: The Pre-Ballpark Era, Classic Field, Stadiums, Superstadiums, and the current era that brought us Citi Field: the Retro Parks period. The book also includes reactions to the stadiums, key events that took place there, seasons to remember, unforgettable games, and photographs culled from dozens of different collections to make this the ultimate book on the subject.
The beauty of the ballpark is in the eye of the beholder, but Big League Ballparks lets the reader behold all the beauty of these parks and make their own judgments as to which is truly the best.