The second and final part of this ranking series, I take a look at the seven ballparks I deem to be the best of those that have gone out of MLB action since the turn of the century.
Part 1 can be found here.
As a lifelong baseball fan in the midst of a quest to see every MLB stadium, I’ve long held a deep fascination with the various ballparks that teams have called home over the years, especially since I grew up in an era of new ballparks opening on a relatively frequent basis.
The wave of new ballparks throughout the 1990’s and 2000’s turned out to be an extremely welcome one, as multi-purpose stadiums that also hosted NFL teams began to fall out of favor as baseball-specific stadiums with retro-inspired designs gained popularity.
The result is a league with very few duds across the 30 ballparks in use today by MLB teams. Sure, fans in Tampa Bay are still waiting on a replacement for the much maligned Tropicana Field, but the vast majority of ballparks aren’t just satisfactory – they’re excellent.
Things weren’t always that way though, with an era not all that far in the rearview mirror being one of half of the league’s ballparks largely looking indistinguishable from one another, constantly adorned by empty seats and quiet, spaced out crowds.
That has made this ranking difficult, combined with the fact that I personally only ever visited two of the 15 defunct parks that hosted teams on a permanent basis since the turn of the century.
- Yankee Stadium I – New York Yankees
- Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome – Minnesota Twins
- Rangers Ballpark in Arlington – Texas Rangers
- Oakland Coliseum – Oakland Athletics
- Turner Field – Atlanta Braves
- Veterans Stadium – Philadelphia Phillies
- Pro Player Stadium – Florida Marlins
- RFK Stadium – Washington Nationals
- Shea Stadium – New York Mets
- County Stadium – Milwaukee Brewers
- Three Rivers Stadium – Pittsburgh Pirates
- Busch Memorial Stadium – St. Louis Cardinals
- Riverfront Stadium – Cincinnati Reds
- San Diego Stadium – San Diego Padres
- Olympic Stadium – Montreal Expos
Judging off of pictures, videos and my own experience watching televised games at these stadiums, I tried to take the seating layout, park theming, location and history into account when ranking these ballparks of yesteryear.
Here’s how my top seven shook out:
7. Busch Memorial Stadium – St. Louis, Mo.
St. Louis Cardinals (NFL): 1966-1987
St. Louis Rams: 1995
St. Louis Cardinals (MLB): 1966-2005
One of the two parks on this list that I got the chance to personally visit, I took in a game with my family during a trip to St. Louis in June 2004, getting to catch what turned out to be an NLCS preview between the Cardinals and Houston Astros.
Although a cookie cutter stadium of the same ilk as many of the parks listed in the first part of this list, Busch Memorial Stadium had some noticeable redeeming factors that other similar parks simply didn’t have.
Most noticeably, the seats were not nearly as far away from the field as they were at most multi-purpose ballparks, with Busch Memorial actually featuring a good deal of outfield seats well into home run territory and on top of the action. This was undoubtedly further enhanced by the Cardinals usually having a pretty damn good team, with a loyal St. Louis fanbase routinely filling up the stands to create an amped up gameday environment.
Despite the park’s cookie cutter nature, there is a visible taste of St. Louis within the park’s design thanks to the arch-shaped awnings integrated into the top rim around the stadium – a small but tasteful feature that made the park feel distinct.
While its successor is far superior in every way, Busch Memorial Stadium was undoubtedly among the better cookie cutter stadiums of all-time.
6. County Stadium – Milwaukee, Wis.
Milwaukee Braves: 1953-1965
Green Bay Packers: 1953-1994 (part-time)
Chicago White Sox: 1968-1969 (part-time)
Milwaukee Brewers: 1970-2000
Despite the fact that I’m a Cubs fan who can’t stand the Brewers and the park’s less than stellar reputation during its lifespan, County Stadium appeared to be one of the last no-frills ballparks in the league, sporting a classic, no-nonsense look from a generation far gone.
An early multi-purpose stadium that didn’t fully have the cookie cutter appearance, seats at County Stadium were mostly close to the action, enhanced by rows of bare bleachers in the outfield that look more like something you’d see at a high school football game.
Initially meant to close after the 1999 season, a crane collapse at the construction site of American Family Field on July 14, 1999 led to the deaths of three ironworkers while also delaying the opening of the new ballpark until 2001 – meaning County Stadium stayed in use for an extra season in 2000.
Although I never got to see a game there (and it wouldn’t have mattered much if I did, considering the park was demolished prior to my fifth birthday), I’d like to imagine there was a unique charm to County Stadium, the rare multi-purpose facility that felt and looked like it was made for baseball through and through.
Of course, the drawbacks are plentiful. April in Milwaukee is far from enjoyable, and while American Family Field is among the worst ballparks in today’s MLB, the park’s retractable roof was undoubtedly a step up for the Brewers and their fans. The park’s rather monotone and colorless appearance led many to call it boring, but in an era where these stadiums no longer exist, few old ballparks spark my curiosity quite like County Stadium.
5. Turner Field – Atlanta, Ga.
Atlanta Braves: 1997-2016
One of the more forgettable and puzzling parks in recent MLB history, Turner Field was initially built for the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta before being converted into a baseball-specific facility for the 1997 season, replacing Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium. Despite being a relatively young park, Turner Field served as the home of the Braves for just 20 years before Truist Park in suburban Cobb County took over in 2017.
There ultimately is not much to say about Turner Field, a park I never visited but watched via countless games on television as a young child and teen. My opinion as a kid largely remains the same today – there just didn’t seem to be a whole lot of distinct features to Turner Field.
Sure, it’s a slam-dunk improvement over a cavernous cookie cutter stadium that’s impossible to sell out for the average baseball game – Turner Field largely fielded competitive Braves teams and therefore typically had solid crowds throughout its lifespan, though it felt like the fans were doing some heavy lifting.
The park isn’t particularly compact and is also gimmick-free throughout, distinguishing it from cookie-cutter parks but not giving fans much of a reason to remember it otherwise.
So why is it so high on the list?
Its legacy ends up being a confusing one that sparks curiosity in me looking back a decade after the final MLB games were played there. Built amid the boom of retro-inspired ballparks like Coors Field and Oriole Park at Camden Yards, Turner Field had to take a different direction due to the Olympics – with its baseball conversion being reflective of what baseball stadiums should look like, but still limited by how the park was originally built.
Not to mention, this park had a good deal of history for just 20 seasons, and the thought of seeing a game at the park at any time from 1997-2005 sounds like an absolute blast.
Following the Braves vacating the park, Turner Field has found a second life as Center Parc Stadium, a football-specific facility that has served as the home of Georgia State football since 2017 – meaning you can still visit the park today, albeit in a much different form.
4. Rangers Ballpark in Arlington – Arlington, Texas
Texas Rangers: 1994-2019
Another relatively newer park that had a pretty short lifespan, Rangers Ballpark in Arlington was unmistakably Texas through and through – but it’s one big drawback was too much for the team to hold onto it as its home stadium.
Opening in 1994 to replace the old Arlington Stadium, Rangers Ballpark followed the trend of early-to-mid ’90s ballparks being quite large, with a seating capacity that eclipsed 48,000. The park had an unusual amount of outfield seating for a new park, featuring a pavilion with two decks of stands in right field with a three-tiered set up beyond the left field boundaries.
The grandiosity of Texas is further emphasized with a grass hill in center field to serve as a batter’s eye in front of a four-story office building decorated with a white steel facade throughout – making this park look and feel as large as something in Texas should.
The park had an abbreviated lifespan as an MLB stadium due to the lack of a retractable roof – which was still relatively new technology at the time of the stadium’s 1994 opening, with only the SkyDome in Toronto (now known as the Rogers Centre) having an operational one at the time.
With the oppressive heat and humidity of the Dallas-Fort Worth area only getting more severe over the years, the Rangers moved into Globe Life Field ahead of the 2020 season – a retractable roof stadium that remains the newest permanent ballpark in MLB.
Outside of the brutal weather, this looked like a fun, unique ballpark to take a game in that packed a good amount of history into 25 years, hosting two World Series while also serving as the home of MVP players such as Juan Gonzalez, Alex Rodriguez and Josh Hamilton.
3. Shea Stadium – Queens, N.Y.
New York Mets: 1964-2008
New York Yankees: 1974-1975
New York Jets: 1964-1983
New York Giants: 1975
A bizarre, quirky stadium that was equally beloved and hated by fans, Shea Stadium was truly unlike any other ballpark – looking to be a “dump” in the best way possible.
In addition to the eye-catching orange seats and old-time box seating layout prevalent throughout much of the lower seating bowl, Shea Stadium had a conspicuously small amount of outfield seating – particularly in an era where most parks had far too much of it.
Outside of a small bleacher section in left field and small parts of the main seating bowls that extend just past the foul pole, the outfield is completely vacant – featuring a scoreboard, batter’s eye and the trademark Mets home run apple that also lives in center field at Citi Field.
This open view that fans were treated to offered a glimpse into Flushing and the rest of New York City on the horizon, with much of the stadium’s lifespan coming in an era where the country’s biggest metropolis had a particularly grimy, rugged reputation.
The dog-eat-dog, survival of the fittest nature of 1980’s NYC in particular was perfectly represented in both Shea Stadium and the Mets teams of the mid 1980’s, who won a cocaine and alcohol-fueled World Series title in 1986 while embodying every bit of what it was to be young and on top of the world in New York City.
It’s that kind of history that breathed through the stands of Shea Stadium over the course of its 44 years in use, an unmistakably ugly ballpark that will be affectionately remembered by baseball fans for generations.
I’ve visited Citi Field, and like most newer ballparks, it’s excellent – and undoubtedly an improvement over the visibly outdated Shea Stadium. But when it comes to a sports venue that perfectly represented what a city was in a particular era, only the old Chicago Stadium could join the conversation.
2. Oakland Coliseum – Oakland, Calif.
Oakland Athletics: 1968-2024
Oakland Raiders: 1966-1981; 1995-2019
A monstrous grey stadium that was often cited as among the worst in both the NFL and MLB during its lifespan, there simply wasn’t a multi-purpose facility with the amount of history, character and charm that the Oakland Coliseum exuded during its lifespan.
Affectionately nicknamed “Baseball’s Last Dive Bar,” Oakland Coliseum is one of the two stadiums on this list I got the chance to see, attending a game there with my wife on Labor Day 2024 – merely weeks before the A’s played their final home game at the stadium.
Known for its massive size and trademark “Mount Davis” seating section that was almost always covered by tarps during baseball games, Oakland Coliseum was previously a gorgeous park with an open outfield view prior to the expansion of the center field upper deck.
That seating section, known as Mount Davis, was added in an effort to lure the Raiders back to Oakland from Los Angeles, a successful move that unfortunately greatly dampened the baseball experience at the park.
Still, if you ignore the decade-plus of sabotage from John Fisher and co., this park could get absolutely rocking – despite the insane amount of foul territory and most seats being generally far away from the playing surface.
Despite those drawbacks, the park still included a good deal of outfield seating well within home run territory, with flags named after and themed for different A’s players covering outfield fences that perfectly reflected the dive bar atmosphere of the park.
Even when it became clear that the A’s days in Oakland were numbered, the East Bay faithful remained as loud and passionate as they were during the teams’ World Series runs of the 1970’s and ’80s – finding a way to make the coliseum feel much smaller and intimate when it was.
There are few moments in sports that give me chills like this one right here – where fans who had poured their heart and soul into Oakland baseball for decades stared down the inevitability of it all being ripped away from them. For the greed of John Fisher and the rest of the parasitic billionaires who dictate the direction of this sport, this is what you took away from everyday Americans looking for a way to escape their stressful everyday lives:
1. Yankee Stadium – Bronx, N.Y.
New York Yankees: 1923-1973; 1976-2008
New York Giants: 1956-1973
A very easy choice to make atop these rankings, it still bothers me as a baseball fan that the original Yankee Stadium was ever demolished in the first place, especially considering the insane amount of history that took place within the walls of this ballpark.
Yankee Stadium was among the old crown jewels of the league that provided a truly unmistakable atmosphere that could be picked up by those watching at home. Despite the park’s massive size, Yankee Stadium was remarkably compact, marked by an incredibly steep upper deck and tightly-packed lower seating bowl throughout the infield.
While Yankee Stadium did not provide an open view, there was plenty of character and history to take in to keep yourself distracted, whether that’s the iconic facade that surrounded the top of the stadium or the original Monument Park dedicated to Yankees legends beyond the left-center field wall.
Despite the park’s age and the fact that it was clearly dated upon its closure in 2008, Yankee Stadium had a level of history and tradition that could only be compared to Fenway Park and Wrigley Field – making its demolition every bit as confusing today as it was to me as a 12-year-old when it happened, realizing that I’d never be able to see a game at the legendary stadium.
I have gotten an opportunity to catch a game at the new Yankee Stadium, which I view to be one of the more underwhelming parks in MLB – clearly trying to maintain the characteristics of its predecessor while coming off as rather sterile and lifeless as loud crowds do incredibly heavy lifting for the game atmosphere at today’s Yankee Stadium.
Shea Stadium was a historic park that clearly ran its course as an MLB park – but Yankee Stadium had another act left in it with some significant renovations. While the Red Sox and the Cubs updated their parks to be contemporary while maintaining their classic feel, the Yankees jumped ship for a new stadium altogether – and baseball is worse off for it.
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