by Ryan Brenner

Created on: January 23, 2009

A great ballpark is made by several different ingredients not the least important of which is the park's setting. Being a fan of the Baltimore Orioles I have walked through the turnstiles of Oriole Park at Camden Yard many times. While the team may not be that great the venue remains among the best in the game. The reason for this is simply that you feel like your stepping back into history when you walk up the ramp and get that first panoramic view of the park. It is in every way a professional facility with adequate dimensions (though many free agent pitchers would question that), luxury boxes, a high definition jumbo-tron, and of course advertisements plastered on the deep green padding around the outfield. However, Camden Yards and several other new parks have something else something that gives them character. The B&O Warehouse in right field and the outfield having a completely open design, but for a small fleck of upper deck that wraps around the left field foul pole give the park an almost "sandlot" like, "Who's going to get the ball if it goes over the fence this time guys," feel.

The fact that many batters step into the batting cage during warm-ups with an almost child like desire to pepper the old brick building that is little more than 450 feet away reminds you of your own little league days when everyone swung as hard as they could for the tall grass that marked the fields end, despite an exasperated coach telling you not to. Oriole Park and others like it are just that, they are parks where a game is played. There a great place to sit an hang out on a warm Saturday afternoon, and just enjoy the game, the weather, the family, the hot dogs. They are not stadiums the fans sit close and feel as if they are part of the action no matter where you sit. Baseball calls for a lot of audience participation with bugles prompting us to charge and score boards encouraging us to stand with an 0-2 count, and so everyone is a part of the game even the nosebleeds need to feel close. In some stadiums you feel like your a distant observer, needing to peer through binaculars just to see. Though baseball is played in large outdoor (that's another important word here) amphitheaters it is the great American pasttime and has a much more intimate feel to it than many of the other professional sports. As a result, fans should be on top of the action as they are at Fenway and Wrigley (okay so Moises Alou might not agree with that), but a great ball park allows for this.

To be a great ballpark there are two other important criteria to meet, you must have real grass, and as I already mentioned you must be outside. I understand that Minnesota and Toronto may struggle with this, no one want to play baseball in 35 degree temperatures, but Milwaukee and Seattle have adjusted very nicely. In addition, the only way to play baseball is on grass, not on carpet where we have painted lines denoting where dirt should be, and little cutouts around the bases that are apparently suppose to make up for it.

Finally, there's the intangibles. Good hot dogs is a must. Warm peanuts, and some good nachos also go along way in a memorable ballpark, and it never hurts to have one of those classic songs that fans can all sing along to after "Take Me Out To The Ballgame" during the seventh innning stretch ("Thank God I'm a Country Boy" works in Camden, and "Sweet Caroline" caught on at Fenway). If you put all this together you've got a great summer experience. Play Ball!

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