Jonah Keri: Ranking MLB Stadiums, Part 1

I’m reminded of the weekend I spent one night in the Untamed Youth touring van.

Chris Jaffe, an excellent writer for The Hardball Times and one of two Jaffes at the top of my recommended baseball reading list, has penned a fun feature ranking his favorite baseball stadiums. It’s such a good idea, I had to nick it for myself.

One advantage I have over Chris (and even the biggest baseball nerds) is a history of baseball road trips. The mid-to-late 90s were a blur of frantic 400-mile drives, TripTiks, ballpark beverages and pitcher heckling. Those trips enabled live baseball viewing in every major league market but one (that white whale will be revealed shortly).

...31 Riverfront Stadium (Cincinnati): Your basic, multi-use, cookie-cutter stadium, but it trails some other, similar parks for its lack of rabid fans (St. Louis) and its inferior waterfront location (the Ohio River is more pleasant when crossed with two others in Pittsburgh, for some reason). Food was lame, configuration stunk, crowd noise didn’t travel well, etc.

But the worst part, by far, was our encounter with stadium security. We visited Cincinnati the weekend of June 14-16, 1996. How do I remember the dates so clearly? First, June 16 was my buddy Andrew’s 22nd birthday, so we were psyched to hit the town, get hammered, then see the Expos battle the Reds. The Spos took the first two games of the series, much to our delight. On the Saturday night, we all went out drinking.

...Jagermeister turned out to be…not the best choice.