New or Newsworthy....
The 2022 Ballpark Count is 231
Two hundred thirty-one. Spelled out, that's how many ballparks are collectively being used by teams in the various US professional baseball leagues in 2022. The complete pro ballpark list lists the 231 in a state-by-state format, so you'll know where to find them in the 44 states that have at least one. From Aberdeen (MD) to Zebulon (NC), all ballparks used by the major leagues, minor leagues and independent leagues are listed, along with their capacity and year of opening, on the only page on the Internet that you'll find all the current pro ballparks detailed.
2022 Ballpark List | 2022 Ballpark Changes
2022 Big League Ballpark Schedules
Knowing when the home team is at home is of paramount importance to anyone traveling to one of Major League Baseball's 30 ballparks, so creating calendar schedules for them that show the exact dates each team is playing at their homes in 2022 is certainly a useful aid to any on-the-road baseball fan and trip planner. That's what Baseball Pilgrimages has done, and you can see the team by team and ballpark by ballpark results on the Major League Baseball Home Schedules page, which also includes links to each team's and ballpark's monthly schedule.
2022 Schedules by Ballpark
When Ballpark Gates Open in 2022
If you're heading to the ballpark, and it's a major league one, in 2022 and want to know how early you are allowed inside, then check out the page that answers the question "When do gates open?" for each of the 30 teams. From only 1 hour early to 2 hours before game time, each ballpark's gate opening time, which can vary based on circumstances, is detailed at:
Gate Opening Times at Major League Ballparks
Abandoned Ballparks: 1999-2021
Every time a team moves, a ballpark gets left behind. At the major league and affiliated minor league levels, that's happened on 110 occasions over the last 22 years. The year 2020 also included 42 teams getting contracted out of minor league baseball, greatly inflating the 2+ decade total of ballparks that have lost their teams with MLB-affiliated status to 152. Those 152 ballparks are listed and their present status is detailed on the Abandoned Ballparks page, where a recent update noted five old stadiums were demolished in 2019, thereby upping the total to 34 of them that are no longer standing. To find out what's happening with the 118 that still are, check out:
Professional Ballparks Abandoned Since 1999
Abbreviated 2020 Spring Training Draws Almost 1.8 Million Fans
As a result of having 38.9% of all games canceled due to a pandemic (173 games) and bad weather (10), only 288 of the scheduled 471 games that MLB teams were to have played in Arizona and Florida during 2020 spring training occurred. Still, there were 1,795,119 tickets sold for the games that were played between February 21 and March 12 in the 23 ballparks used by Cactus and Grapefruit League teams.
2020 Spring Training Attendance
Over 76 Million Paid to Watch Major League Baseball in Person
Combining spring training and the regular season, MLB teams sold 76,205,902 tickets in 2017 to games played in their ballparks and regular spring training facilities, of which there are 23. Major League baseball was played in 31 ballparks during the regular season and the total number of officially counted game dates from the beginning of spring training on February 24 through the end of the regular season on October 1 was 2,932. You can see how many fans each team drew to their regular season and spring training ballpark at:
Major League Attendance | Spring Training Attendance
Minor & Indy League Ballparks Draw 43,684,534 in 2017
Professional baseball below the major league level continues to be well attended, as over 43 million tickets were sold by the 201 teams playing in the 19 minor and independent leagues that reported attendance in 2017. To see how many fans each team drew to their ballpark in '17 check out the league-by-league breakdowns at:
Minor League Attendance | Independent League Attendance
2017 Ballpark Tour Guide
When you want to see a ballpark but seeing a game there isn't possible taking a tour is a great alternate option, and one that is offered by all 30 teams in major league baseball. To see when the teams' ballparks can be toured, for how much, how long, and more, check out this year's guide to MLB ballpark tours.
2017 Tour Guide For Major League Ballparks
Field Turf at Each MLB Ballpark Detailed
The specific greens for each green cathedral are revealed in our account of each major league team's playing field, where you'll learn that because not all sods are the same the grass actually can be greener at one ballpark than another. For the lowdown on the bluegrass, bermudagrass, ryegrass and even AstroTurf found on the ground of big league ballparks, read on at:
Major League Baseball Ballpark Grass and Turf
No-Hitters In Current MLB Parks Are Detailed
At baseball's highest level -- the major leagues -- the number of all-time no-hitters thrown (over the span of 140 years) now stands at 295. But just 90 of them have been thrown in one of Major League Baseball's 30 current ballparks. Those 30 ballparks have a collective 769 seasons of use, spanning from only four completed seasons at Miami's Marlins Park to the 104 recorded at Boston's Fenway Park, and 3 of them have never been the site of a no-hitter. Of the 27 ballparks that have, just six of them have hosted more than three no-hitters in their history. So despite an impressive amount of recent exceptions, as history proves there is no doubt that a no-hitter is not a common occurrence at today's ballparks.
No-Hitters Thrown by Ballpark list
Ballpark Briefs
This website has plenty to say about ballparks. But quotes about ballparks from others are in no short supply either, so we've started to compile them on the new “Ballpark Quotes” page... Being a baseball fan turned Eric Kabakoff into a first-time author. The title of his new book, Rally Caps, Rain Delays and Racing Sausages: A Baseball Fan’s Quest to See the Game from a Seat in Every Ballpark, sums up its content. The book was published in October and Baseball Pilgrimages has posted an excerpt from it... In addition to his book excerpt, Eric Kabakoff has joined Todd Gimbi as the most recent well-traveled ballpark aficionados to submit a list of their Top 5 Major League Ballparks... Hitting for the cycle is something that doesn't happen often -- it's essentially the hitter's equivalent of a pitcher throwing a no-hitter -- and our newest ballpark research feature is dedicated to chronicling the 99 cycles that have been hit in MLB's current 30 ballparks. In all, 316 cycles have been hit in 71 past and 22 present major league ballparks.
Bob Feller Museum in Iowa Recalls His Path to Greatness
Bob Feller died in 2010 but his legacy lives on in his hometown of Van Meter, IA, where his namesake museum opened in 1995. The Bob Feller Museum is the place to go to see the cancelled check of $1 that he got in 1935 as a signing bonus and plenty of other memorabilia and memories from Feller's career, which made him a first ballot Hall of Famer in 1962, and his life, in which he earned eight World War II Battle Stars. Cooperstown-esque in its thorough tale of farm boy done good, the museum's location in a small Iowa farm town gives it a pastoral setting that makes a visit all the more pleasant.
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Talkin' Ballparks With Toledo Mud Hens GM Joe Napoli
Toledo's Fifth Third Field is one of the best minor league stadiums in which I've witnessed a game. Home to the world famous Mud Hens, the ballpark opened in 2002. The team's current general manager, Joe Napoli, had been on the job well before then and recently took some time to answer a dozen questions about how Fifth Third Field came to be and what makes it so remarkable in the second installment of our Talkin' Ballparks interview series.
Read the interview
Places to Go, Things to See, All in the Name of Baseball History
Historic markers, memorials, museums and other sites across the country tout baseball's illustrious history in the places where that history was made. These attractions are worthy of a pilgrimage in their own right, so Baseball Pilgrimages has begun to chronicle some of the places to go and things to see for those who love baseball history. To kick off the series, we made a visit to parking lot B at U.S. Cellular Field, where a Comiskey Park Tribute outlines the area that was home to White Sox baseball for 80 years.
10 Great Places For A Baseball Pilgrimage
The fine folks at USA Today asked for and we gave them 10 great minor league destinations for travelers who enjoy baseball, a list that was published in the "10 Great Places" portion of their travel section that appears each Friday. From Buffalo to Sacramento and the eight points in between, we explain in a follow up to the printed piece that ran on April 2nd why each ballpark and city chosen is a great place for a baseball pilgrimage in much more detail than space in the newspaper would allow for.
Read the story at Baseball Pilgrimages
Read the article at USA Today
Baseball Pilgrimages on Facebook
Since June of 2009 we've been on Facebook, posting photo galleries of ballparks, write-ups of baseball road trips and recaps of news about where the national pastime is played on the Baseball Pilgrimages page, which cleared 10,000 fans/likes in December of 2012. Join what has become a respectable number of masses by following along at Facebook. If you love ballparks, you won't be disappointed in the page.
 Read More Stories in the Ballpark News Archives
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Walker's First Game
Fluor Field in Greenville - July 20, 2013
My second son, at age almost 21 months, saw his first baseball game in a South Atlantic League ballpark in South Carolina in the summer of 2013. Greenville's Fluor Field, a prime example of the modern and family-friendly ballpark, was the location in which Walker mostly roamed while the Lexington Legends beat the Greenville Drive. My toddler's first time seeing America's pastime in person is recounted, with a tip of the cap given to the splendid 'lil ballpark that is responsible for baseball's success in the Palmetto State city that's best known as the hometown of “Shoeless” Joe Jackson.
Read the full article |
Another Stadium Fades Into Oblivion
Drillers Stadium Loses the Drillers
The cliché is true. If you build it, they will come. It being a ballpark and they being a baseball team. Of course, "they" have to leave somewhere to arrive and when that happens a current ballpark becomes a former one. That happened quite a bit in the decade that is just about to end; 63 times in fact. That's counting major and affiliated minor league teams, one of which is the Tulsa Drillers, who left their self-titled stadium in the county fairgrounds for new corporate sponsored downtown digs.
Read the full article
Abandoned ballparks list |
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Zachary's First Game
McCormick Field in Asheville - July 5, 2009
My 8-month old son saw his first baseball game on the evening of July 5th. The venue was an old one: Asheville's McCormick Field, established in 1924. Zachary, at 244 days, enjoyed the Tourists' 7-6 victory over the visiting Charleston RiverDogs primarily from the comforts of his mother's lap in a bleacher seat behind the home team dugout, where our rookie in life enjoyed the old ball game on a night in which rain drizzled intermittently during his inaugural immersion in America’s national pastime.
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Major League Ballpark Tours
What You Need to Know to Become A Ballpark Tourist
There are 30 major league ballparks and all but two of them offer tours guided by team employees. A ballpark tour takes fans from the dugout to the press box and many points in between. Besides exposing fans to places normally off-limits, a tour enlightens those in attendance about public areas usually overlooked and facts previously unknown. Whether or not catching the home team at home is possible, a tour of their ballpark is a fulfilling opportunity that all baseball fans are sure to enjoy and is a memorable experience provided by all teams except the Marlins and Mets.
Read the full article |
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The Rickwood Classic
Baseball's Ultimate Throwback Game - Birmingham, AL
It's one thing to "turn back the clock" and wear retro uniforms, quite another to play in a throwback ballpark. But every year that's what the Birmingham Barons do, much to the delight of ballpark fans everywhere. Rickwood Field, built in 1910, is an ageless wonder, a baseball playground of generations past. Lovingly restored, it is the oldest ballpark in the nation to host professional baseball thanks to the annual Southern League game that's played there. That game is known as the Rickwood Classic.
Read the full article
See the photo gallery |
A Taste of International Baseball
Estadio Calimax - Tijuana, Mexico
Ever wonder what it's like to watch America's pastime somewhere where the English language is scarce? In the Mexican League, the game on the field looks familiar but the experience in the stands is anything but normal. Girls dressed like strippers on top of the dugout, a mascot on the field during the game, and lots of music are just a few things that will detract your attention from players you've never heard of. But it all adds up to a very lively, and intoxicating, atmosphere.
Read the full article |
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Batting Practice
Catch It If You Can
The average life of a Major League baseball is only six pitches, but the likelihood of catching a foul ball is very remote due to the size of the ballpark and competition from thousands of fans. For most fans, batting practice is the only chance to get a ball as players successfully swing for the fences in front of small gatherings. With balls landing in relatively empty seats the likelihood of catching – or at least retrieving – one would seem simple. At least that's what I thought while trying to snag a souvenir during BP in Houston.
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Homecoming in Washington
CONSOL Energy Park in Washington, PA - August 22, 2009
We didn't have a professional baseball team when I grew up in Washington, PA in the 1980s. That all changed when the since renamed Falconi Field opened in 2002 and the Washington Wild Things were born. Well after my former hometown joined the rarefied ranks of cities with pro ball I finally got to experience the thrill of seeing a game there.
Read the full article |
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Welcome to BaseballPilgrimages.com
On March 16, 2001, after saving up enough vacation time to take two weeks off, I arrived in Melbourne, Florida for Spring Training. Coinciding with my arrival was an unexpected phone call, informing me that I had been laid off, another casualty of the dot-com bust. And so the journey began when my personal misfortune afforded me the time to do what I had always wished: travel the country. Add to that my passion for baseball, and most of my trips have included numerous baseball pilgrimages, hence the name of the site. And when my original car died on the way to Vero Beach for a game on my Spring Training journey of 2002, I bought a new one and embarked on a cross-country trip to California.
What started out as just a trip to Spring Training has morphed into visiting ballparks at all levels, from the lowest levels of the bush leagues to the legendary ballyards in the big leagues. Although I'd been to a number of ballparks prior to the 2001 season, I decided to use that year as my starting point. Through nine seasons, I’ve seen 254 games in 100 ballparks and traveled thousands of miles across our great country in pursuit of the national pastime. I've been to places I'd never thought I'd go, or probably would not have considered....all because of a baseball game.
A tour of ballparks is a great way to see America, as professional baseball is dotted across its landscape. This site is dedicated to all of those who have taken the journey, or wish to.
Graham - Smyrna, GA
info@baseballpilgrimages.com
E-mail me your personal baseball pilgrimages if you'd like to be included on the site
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