For those who plan a swing through the West Coast stadiums, I highly recommend you stop off at two nice, still somewhat new minor league parks: Raley Field in West Sacramento (AAA for Oakland) and Banner Island Ballpark (A-ball for Oakland) in Stockton, CA.

As minor league ballparks go, both of these are excellent: the sitelines, the seats, the dimensions, the views of the cities, amenities, food (esp. in Stockton) etc. Raley Field, however, is very expensive for a minor league game.

But what puts these parks over the top compared with most places in the U.S. in the summertime at night is the weather. Yes, it is hot in the Sacramento Valley in the summer. Often near 100 degrees at 4 pm, but without much humidity. But it's damn near perfect when the Delta Breeze comes through in the evening (70-75 degrees). Both of these parks are on the waterfronts and reliably get a pleasant breeze.

Unlike most coastal cities (SF and Oakland, especially) where it can be freezing cold on a summer night, Sacramento stays pleasantly warm. It's never (well, almost never) Phoenix or Las Vegas hot. And unlike most of the country where it is brutally humid in the summer, it's dry all summer here. (We get no rain from late March to late October. None.)

(We get no rain from late March to late October. None.)

That doesn't sound like a good thing.

Wrigley – Helps to be a Cubs Fan. Can't wait to get back but for those that like amenities, it's awful.
Tiger Stadium – Might be the best of all. Watching BP there was incredible.
PNC – What a waste to have the Pirates play there
Old Yankee – Both the original and remodeled were unique
Fenway – Strange place. When I’m there, I’m disappointed and then I can’t wait to go back.
Phil – As nice as any new stadium I’ve been to.
Camden – Like PNC, it’s a shame you have to watch the Orioles. Great BP ballpark.
Hou – The train is silly but a beautiful park.
Citifield – Great park. Shocked they got it right - other than the over-the-top Dodger hero worship.
Busch – Hard to distinguish with any of the 4 above. Fans are great.
Comerica – Gets a bad rap, especially from when it first opened.
Miller Park -
Cincy -
Ariz – Pool is still stupid
New Yankee – Corridors and exterior are amazing. Once you’re sitting, maybe the most over-rated ever! Architecturally vacant.
Dodger – I don’t get it. What’s the big deal?
Angels –
Jacobs/Cle – I went when the Indians were still pretty good and it was a great atmosphere. That hideous color infield is another story.
White Sox – Don’t love the neighborhood and never sat in the upper deck but I got great seats for a great price at the walk-up window.
Milwaukee County – For a team that was out of it in late ’93, they had some impressive tailgating.
Shea – Gives dumps a bad name…………..but it was my dump.
Fla – For anyone that watched the Odd Couple, “Aristophenes!”
Vet – Disgusting stadium, only to be outdone by fans

(We get no rain from late March to late October. None.)

That doesn't sound like a good thing.

Global warming is going to have a huge impact on the quality of life here. We don't need any rain most of the year because we have to our east the Sierra Nevada snowpack and dozens of large reservoirs (formed by dams). We have plenty of fresh water year round due to them. However, as our winters warm up, the amount of snow held in the mountains will be less and less. And hence, it will be a desert in the Valley, greatly harming the farmers and drying up millions of landscaped gardens.

Here's my ranking of current MLB stadia I haven't been to, in an order I'll keep hidden:

1) McAfee - Straight A's for the A's home
2) Chase - a close second
3) PNC - much higher ranking than Three Rivers would've had
4) Dodger - always been near the top
5) Great American - Riverfront was even worse than Three Rivers
6) Safeco - not much difference among stadia 3-8, frankly
7) Angel - better than Edison
8) Rogers - improved greatly in the last decade
9) Miller - a lot better than County
10) Comerica - top ten like Tiger Stadium, but not quite as good
11) Rangers - last in the AL West
12) Yankee - the 5th oldest stadium that's named for its team. Copycat...
13) Sun Life - Landshark? Dolphin? Pro Player? Doesn't matter; still middle of the pack
14) Minute Maid - pass
15) Progressive - when it first opened, it was ranked high. Now? Meh
16) Tropicana - even I was surprised I ranked it this high
17) Coors - could've been worse: they could've named it after Mork
18) Turner - the Turner name ruins everything
19) Busch - meet the new park, same as the old park
20) AT&T;- a few years ago would've been ranked near the top
21) PETCO - Isn't 21 the number of pages in the PETCO thread?
22) Citi - Who thinks Shake Shack should've bought the naming rights? I do
23) Nationals - everything about this team is bad
24) Citizens Bank - a different ranking could've had them last... or first
25) Kauffman - always been low on the list

Ah hell, why not:

1. Fenway - I hate the Sox, but I can't get over the history in that place. Love catching a game there.
2. AT&T;- I have extreme, extreme ballpark envy of Giants fans.
3. Old New Yankee - Less for the actual ballpark and more for the fact that I was like 10 and it was a "Wow, this is where the Yankees play," kinda thing.
4. Dodger - Just a solid ballpark. Weather was nice, the view was good, had a nice, baseball feel to it.
5. Shea - I caught this one on the same 10-years-old trip, and Todd Hundley hit a home run and made the apple pop out and I thought it was the coolest thing ever.
6. Petco - Nice, clean, kinda overly so, but the weather's always going to be nice and I like the fit of it in San Diego.
7. Oakland-Alameda - I love the crappy old hunk of concrete, but I can't objectively place it anywhere else. Beautiful, from what I remember, before Davis killed it.

PNC & AT&T;(SF) are very similar parks. Their outfields are pretty close to mirror images of each other. I think they were designed by the same team/company.

[Hmm... should I look this up? Naw.]

I saw games at every ballpark in 1998, and a handful before/after that... I don't care about food, only slightly about prices (for list purposes anyway), mostly about atmosphere, aesthetics, and history. Being in the place where Ty Cobb faced Lefty Grove is pretty awesome.

1. Wrigley Field
2. Tiger Stadium
3. Fenway Park
4. Dodger Stadium
5. Kaufmann Stadium
6. Safeco Field
7. Pac Bell
8. Camden Yards
9. Yankee Stadium (old)
10. County Stadium
11. Coors Field
12. Busch Stadium (old)
13. Arlington Stadium
14. Jack Murphy Stadium
15. Candlestick Park
16. PetCo Park
17. Turner Field
18. Jacobs Field
19. New Comiskey Park
20. Shea Stadium
21. Angel Stadium
22. Dolphins Stadium
23. BOB
24. Skydome
25. Oakland Coliseum
26. Olympic Stadium
27. Three Rivers Stadium
28. Riverfront Stadium
29. Veterans Stadium
30. Astrodome
31. Kingdome
32. Metrodome
33. Tropicana Field

My ballparks:

Oakland Coliseum - pre-Mt. Davis, of course
Dodger Stadium
Royals/Kauffman
Busch I (Sportsman's Park) - yeah, I know, but it's the ballpark of my yout'
AT&T;- wish it wasn't so cramped
Busch III
Coors
Wrigley
Yankee Stadium - the renovated old one
Petco - faux adobe instead of faux brick
Fenway
Candlestick - so sue me
Busch II - Two different ballparks to me. The concrete oven with the badly faded carpet ca. 1982 would probably be at the bottom of the list. The 1996 renovations move it up.
Anaheim
Olympic
Riverfront - meh
Exhibition - my seat along the rigt-field line beyond first base was an aluminum bleacher

Doesn't include three I toured but didn't see a game: the Astrodome, Turner and U.S. Cellular
Minor league parks: Raley and Banner Island mentioned in #101, San Jose Municipal, T.R. Hughes in O'Fallon, Mo.; Nashville (Greer?), Hammons Field in Springfield, Mo., whatever park the Class D Forest City (NC) Owls were playing in in 1955 or so when my dad took me to my first game.

We visited the Mkt Sq. location

That's the problem, right there. Not all Primanti's are created equal.

More seriously: It's not food of exceptional quality or anything like that, it's just a part of the regional identity. Like cheesesteaks in Philly, or burning lakes in Cleveland.

The real problem with Pittsburgh is the dependence on cars to get to/from the suburbs and the fact that only a single four-lane highway connects the East Side of the Metro area to the West Side. The fact that there is still no commuter rail to get from Monroeville to the Airport is embarrassing, as it's the most obvious public works project that a majority of the population would get behind.

Yes, yes, yes. This couldn't be any more correct.

That's the problem, right there. Not all Primanti's are created equal.

I wondered if this was an issue. That's on Primanti's then. If your 'franchise' sandwich can't produce in the heart of the city, what's a tourist supposed to do?

However, as our winters warm up, the amount of snow held in the mountains

I would love for my winters to warm up. The last 2 winters here in WV have been some of the coldest and snowiest ones I can remember. Did global warming forget to effect the hillbillies in Appalachia?

I haven't had Primanti's (or been to Pittsburgh), but had generally heard that it was things that you love if you're from Pittsburgh but, otherwise, eh (a harsher reading of Vlad's 110, I guess).

The last 2 winters here in WV have been some of the coldest and snowiest ones I can remember.

We're having a snowy and cold winter, this year, too, following three years of warmer and drier winters.

Did global warming forget to effect the hillbillies in Appalachia?

I have no idea how GW is projected to affect Appalachia. However, we have not yet seen in most of N. America any of the problems which will (or are expected to) come over the remainder of this century. If you live long enough, you may look back on the cold and snowy winter of 2009-10 with fondness and with envy, if what comes 50 years from now ends up destroying a lot of the vegetation and so on you associate with the quality of life there.

I've only been to 7 (hope to see them all eventually!) but:

1. PNC Park
2. Nationals Park
3. Progressive Field
4. Camden Yards
5. Rogers Centre
6. Old Yankee Stadium (in 2008) (just rating the stadium in and of itself, the experience was awesome)
7. Olympic Stadium

If your 'franchise' sandwich can't produce in the heart of the city, what's a tourist supposed to do?

Your confusion is understandable, but there's almost nothing of importance in Pittsburgh's "heart". Except for the symphony, the opera, and a few art galleries and posh bars, everything worth seeing (including the ballpark) is in a suburb or an outside neighborhood.

On the stroke of 6 downtown, everyone in the city closes their doors and drives away. Not always that far - sometimes the Strip or the South Side or whatever. But not downtown proper.

(We get no rain from late March to late October. None.)

Want to trade that for this? We've had over 30 inches here in the past week, with up to 16 more inches due, and not a snowplow anywhere but on the main roads.

We've had over 30 inches here in the past week

It's all relative to what you expect and are ready for.

I don't live in the mountains. However, you should know that 30 inches in the Sierras (one hour from me) is a typical weekend. The normal snowpack gets as high as 20 feet of accumulated snow in many places in a normal winter in the Sierras. (It is normally very wet snow, unlike in the Rockies.)

In the Sacramento area, we get about 1 snow evey 10-15 years; and maybe we get a half-inch. If we got 30 inches, like the mid-Atlantic states are now getting, we would die.

Did global warming forget to effect the hillbillies in Appalachia?

2009 was the second hottest year on record, behind only 1998. Look up the difference between "weather" and "climate" and get back to us.

We've had over 30 inches here in the past week

It's all relative to what you expect and are ready for.

Or more precisely, what our state and local governments are willing to prepare for. I've often wondered what the balance is between taxes spent on extra snow equipment and taxes lost due to lost economic activity caused by not having enough snowplows.

1 PNC - What else can I say? The greatest baseball stadium ever built.
2 Wrigley - In addition to all the ambience, history, etc., I LOVED the lack of advertising, although this may have changed since then.
3 Fenway - Not the most comfortable game-watching experience but the atmosphere can't be beat
4 Pac Bell - Anything with views like that has to be near the top. Just a beautiful place.
5 Tiger Stadium - Fortunately, the one game I ever attended there, I had seats in Row 1 of the upper deck overhang. Best thing ever.
6 Camden Yards - There's a reason why everybody copied it.
7 Jacobs Field - Just a really great park with awesome sightlines and scenery.
8 Ballpark at Arlington - Lots of cool stuff to do here and some nice architectural touches. An underrated park.
9 Kauffman - Love the inside. Love the fountains. The location, and the giant mass of concrete surrounding it, are kind of unfortunate.
10 Coors Field
11 Oakland Coliseum - Although I've been to both versions, I'm rating it here based on the pleasant pre-Mt. Davis days.
12 Dodger Stadium
13 Minute Maid - A solidly middle-of-the-pack retro park.
14 Great American Ball Park - Pretty generic, but gets big points for the river.
15 Busch II - I never went during the turf years, but once they put the grass in it was great.
16 Astrodome - Domes suck, but this one had a certain screwy charm.
17 New Comiskey - A perfectly fine, if thoroughly unspectacular, place to watch a game.
18 Shea - Yeah, it sucked, but it had a certain charm that prevents it from sinking to the bottom of this list.
19 Miller Park -- Too big and not enough sunshine for a supposedly outdoor stadium.
20 Yankee Stadium (renovated version) - If the Yankees didn't play here, this place would've had a reputation as the dump that it was.
21 Olympic Stadium - The enthusiasm of the crowd made this place fun. Even when there were 5,000 people there, they had the energy of 50,000.
22 Turner Field - Nice, new, expensive, generic, with terrible views from the upper deck.
23 Bank One Ballpark -- see Miller Park.
24 Skydome - The needle's cool, the hotel's cool, but you're still watching a game on carpet inside a big hangar.
25 Arlington Stadium
26 Candlestick
27 Three Rivers - The location was great. Too bad you couldn't see any of it.
28 Metrodome
29 The Vet - Should have been blown up about 30 years before it actually was. The dumpiest dump that ever dumped.

God, please rank every other baseball stadium You have been present in as well, over the past 150 years. This would assist us greatly in our understanding of Your bounty.

Did global warming forget to effect the hillbillies in Appalachia?

2009 was the second hottest year on record, behind only 1998. Look up the difference between "weather" and "climate" and get back to us.

My post was snark. I'm just bitter and cold and tired of it. Here in WV, we've had just a handful of days since mid December that have been above freezing. Even in central WV, that's very cold: The average temp for the month of Jan in Charleston is the low 40s. I have seen 40 no more than 4 times in the last ~30 days. I'm tired of it.

I wasn't trying to say anything about global warming or climate change, so you don't' have to preach to me about it.

Re: post #122.

Would've loved to see the Roman Coluseium or Circus Maximus thrown in there in the middle without any additional comment.

I had stopped watching baseball for a few years until the awful late 90s Twins combined with the Metrodome to make a live ballgame cheaper than a movie. I've lived near charming, beautiful stadiums before, but I've never been grateful for a park like I am for the Metrodome.

The $4 tickets in the year 2000 time frame were tough to beat if you were on a budget. I used to sit in the same section as the LaTroy Hawkins fan club. (Talk about a group with pretty modest ambitions!) Too bad you couldn't see the right fielder. And on dollar dog night, you could buy all the hot dogs that you could throw.

Hard for me to rank them precisely, but some rough groupings:

Best:
1) Petco - only been there once, but can't remember anything negative
2) Fenway - love the history, have been to some fantastic games there over the years
3) Citi - great food, beautiful park although I admit it feels a little fake to me
4) Dodger - great sightlines, great weather, just a nice place to watch a game
5) Safeco - also only been there once, but I remember it being really nice and very accessible

Middle:
6) Old Busch Stadium - I really liked the effect of the sun setting through all the arches around the stadium
7) New Yankee - it might rank higher if it hadn't been raining the only time I went.
8) Nationals - great on the inside, easily accessible by metro. Does not look great from the outside, and your view is obscured by two giant parking garages as you approach from the metro
9) Old Yankee - lots of history I guess, but it felt pretty average. Then again, I'm not a Yankee fan
10) Citizens Bank - nice park but the traffic situation was nightmarish the one time I went
11) Angels Stadium of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim - not bad, felt a bit too fake

Worst:
12) Shea - it's our ****hole, but it was still a ****hole
13) Olympic - I was pretty young when I went, but even then I could tell this was a bad place to watch a game

Tiger
Wrigley
Yankee I
Yankee II
Fenway
Citizen's
Safeco
Camden Yards
Nats Park
Busch I
Memorial

left out Shea at the bottom, it was wrong watching the Yankees there, and the Met game I can remember was freezing my butt off watching them play a boring Astros team.

Also RFK which would be right above Memorial. It's aging, plain, sadness was kind of endearing. The undulating facade was kind of relaxing.

I think Nats Park will grow into being a good place, a lot depends of development of that area, which really will take a while now. The Hard Times Cafe nachos are decent and there's Dogfish Head 60 minute ale available 100 feet from the CF gate. Sadly, the beer choices aren't along the lines of what there is in Philly or Seattle, or the sheer volume of vendors at Wrigley. Even if you don't drink beer, you will somehow have some, at least on you.

Would've loved to see the Roman Coluseium or Circus Maximus thrown in there...

I've been having a bad day with spelling. Earlier I wrote "perjorative" for "pejorative." That made me feel small (pun intended). "Coliseum" is one which tends to throw me. That is the most common spelling of that word. That is how the Oakland Alameda County Coliseum spells it, as does the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. But "colosseum" is also deemed acceptable. And when it is in reference to the one in the Italian capital, I most often will see it as the "Roman Colosseum," and less often the "Roman Coliseum."

I suspect the different English spellings result from the different Latin spellings. Here is an etymology I found:

[Medieval Latin Colis?um, an amphitheater in Rome, Italy, variant of Latin Coloss?um, from neuter of coloss?us, gigantic, from colossus, huge statue; see colossus.]

The lower-case word colossus came to Latin from ancient Greek, where it simply meant statue. However, because of the gigantic Colossus of Rhodes, the word took on the added meaning "Something likened to a huge statue, as in size or importance." So a gigantic amphitheater* was deemed colossal and hence a colosseum or the Roman Colosseum.

*Amphitheater is easy to misspell, because most people mispronounce it. They say AM-puh-thee-uh-turr instead of AM-fuh-thee-uh-terr. It should have the eff sound, same as amphibian has. It comes from:

a prefix occurring in loanwords from Greek (amphibious); on this model, used with the meaning “two,” “both,” “on both sides,” in the formation of compound words: amphiaster.

Ambi-, as in ambiguous and ambidextrous has the same root meaning and origin. However, ambi- came into English words more indirectly and hence took on a different spelling.

Post 98 edited - I inadvertently left one out.

1. Dodger Stadium
2. Safeco
3. Wrigley (back when you could just walk up on game day and buy tickets)
4. Fenway
5. Astrodome
6. Riverfront
7. Anaheim Stadium (pre-renovation)
8. Forbes Field (obstructed view - but a great game)

Nobody wanted to try to crack the code on #105?

Also RFK which would be right above Memorial. It's aging, plain, sadness was kind of endearing. The undulating facade was kind of relaxing.

You must have never been to Memorial during the O's 1979-83 heyday. There's never been a stadium with better atmosphere, and without a trace of corporate BS.

RFK, OTOH, had about as much atmosphere as a convention of text messagers and twitterers, both in the 60's and with the new team. Of course for football it was right up there with any venue in the NFL.

1. Fenweigh Park
2. Citifeel'd
3. Wrigley Feel'd
4. The Sell
5. Turner Feel'd
6. Jo Robbee
7. Countee Stadiyum
8. Miller Parc
9. Arr Eff Kay
10. Olde Yaqui Stadium
11. Shay's Rebellion Stadium

Nobody wanted to try to crack the code on #105?

Quality of the hot dogs?

I had stopped watching baseball for a few years until the awful late 90s Twins combined with the Metrodome to make a live ballgame cheaper than a movie. I've lived near charming, beautiful stadiums before, but I've never been grateful for a park like I am for the Metrodome.

Metrodome 2001: $10 lower level general admission tickets, reduced to $5 for students on Wednesday nights (plus $1 hot dogs). And a competitive team, to boot.

And I think as recently as last year you could still get an upper deck, general admission SEASON ticket for only $250 (or $3/game).

The end of an era...

Quality of the hot dogs?

For stadia I haven't been to? No.

#105,

Seems like you're ranking them based on how much you like the name of the ballpark.

1. Fenway
Moreso when it was possible to sneak down to about 14 rows behind home plate.

2. Camden
A mall park that doesn't feel like a mall.

3. Wrigley
Fenway-ish, but not Fenway.

4. CitiField
Huge upgrade, though the altitude is even more vertical than Shea's was.

5. New-Old Yankee (post-1974)
6. New-New Yankee
No upgrade at all, except for wider ramps. The "revised" version is essentially identical, only more expensive and with restricted areas.

7. Old Comiskey
Only went once, and it turned out to be the longest rain delay in American League history. I saw HISTORY!

8. Jarry
This must have been very tiny, because I was only a kid and it still looked small.

9. Candlestick
It was very cold and I got the worst sunburn of my adult life.

10. Riverfront
11. Veteran's
Tweedlesuck and Tweedleblow. I list Riverfront first because I was there for Pete Rose's 4,192nd hit. The most memorable thing I saw at Veteran's was a frighteningly savage Schmidt HR off Gooden to dead center.

12. Shea
Seats angled 40 degrees away from home plate so it hurt your neck, airplane noise that was drowned out by scoreboard noise, that chop shop ambience... what's NOT to like?

13. Olympic
Looked like it was made out of Lego. Every other part of the stadium seemed 4 miles away.

I've seen San Diego's stadium, but from a rooftop only. I'd still rate it above the previous four.

Seems like you're ranking them based on how much you like the name of the ballpark.

Well, I thought of that too, but then why the hell would McAfee be at the top? (It's not even the name of the ballpark anymore BTW.)

My own guess was stupid, because I failed to notice: Here's my ranking of current MLB stadia I haven't been to, in an order I'll keep hidden:

Seems like you're ranking them based on how much you like the name of the ballpark.

Getting warmer, but no.

If it helps, I was wrong about Coors. They could have named it after Mork and it still would've been just ahead of Turner.

The AT&T;reference means it was better either when it was called Pac Bell or when Barry Bonds played there. What has changed about the Rogers Centre over the past decade?

8) Rogers - improved greatly in the last decade

The name changed from Skydome to Rogers. The team has been mediocre the whole time. Did they change the playing field?

Market size, offense, team success, etc. don't seem to have a correlation. Neither does length of time since a title win.

EDIT: And Jacobs Field (ranked high) has been changed to Progressive (mid-pack).

It's a name based ordering, the only thing left is to figure out the particulars.

What has changed about the Rogers Centre over the past decade?... The name changed from Skydome to Rogers.

Yes. So why's it 8th now?

EDIT:

EDIT: And Jacobs Field (ranked high) has been changed to Progressive (mid-pack).

It's a name based ordering, the only thing left is to figure out the particulars.

You're almost there.

So the A's park is ranked first based on its former name (McAfee) rather than its current name?

So the A's park is ranked first based on its former name (McAfee) rather than its current name?

Yes. I used McAfee because I wanted a list that, at first glance, wouldn't make any sense. (Who would rank that place first?) Funny, it wasn't until I called attention to that post that anyone even noticed anything was odd. Guess this is more a thread of posting lists than reading lists.

I don't think I had any unintentional oversights. I almost messed up on the Marlins' stadium, because the name changes more often than I can keep up with. I did catch that one in time, but - as the comment to Sun Life points out - none of its names really move it too far up or down the list.

12) Yankee - the 5th oldest stadium that's named for its team. Copycat...

Okay, you've got Braves Field, Cubs Park, White Sox Park, and National Park. Those last three were tricky.

I throw in the towel.

Okay, you've got Braves Field, Cubs Park, White Sox Park, and National Park. Those last three were tricky.

In descending order by age of stadium: Dodger Stadium, Angel Stadium, Rangers Ballpark, Nationals Park, and Yankee Stadium.

1. PacBell
2. Memorial
3. Wrigley
4. Dodger
5. Camden
6. Old Comiskey
7. Petco
8. Oakland Alameda
9. RFK
10. Candlestick
11. Renovated Yankee
12. Astrodome
13. Metrodome
14. Vet

Or more precisely, what our state and local governments are willing to prepare for. I've often wondered what the balance is between taxes spent on extra snow equipment and taxes lost due to lost economic activity caused by not having enough snowplows.

I wonder the same. One factor which is hard to measure is the locals expecation(s). I grew up in Milwaukee, and people expect roads to be cleared, salt to be dumped and life to go on as it snows, local media weather hype notwithstanding. They average mid 40 inch range per year (though got nearly 100, each of the last two years). By and large based on experiences there and in other cities during snowstorms, they do a commendable job. My wife, a Hooiser, was always shocked by the efficiency. If school is canceled, typically it is determined at a rather 11th hour. You'd wake up as a kid like you were holding a lottery ticket waiting for your number to get called. Cancellations were rare, but seemed to become more frequent as I aged.

Now I live in Indy metro, which is kind of a snow perimeter city, they get about 23 inches per year, and it is all reactive, they wait until it snows, virtually no pre-emptive salt trucks, and a bit of a panic by the schools and gov't, closures announced and the ever popular two hour delays to school, all before a flake comes down. Compared to Milwaukee, it is pathetic, but I see the dilemma, they can't over allocate, because the moment they do that, they get a winter of ten inches, under budget and we get two 8 inch storms in four days as we are in the midst of as we speak. The natives might complain a little, but their standards are noticeably low, as evidenced by their unwillingness to timely clear their own sidewalks and driveways. I'm a total outlier, with my two stage snowblower, and a bag of salt ready to go. I had three neighbors approach me this Saturday, with sore backs ask me how much my Toro cost. Living in Lincoln during school was just the same.

By way of example: It is quarter to midnight eastern time right now: according to MKE media reports, two schools have announced closures right now in Milwaukee and Waukesha Counties, they are two small parochial schools. MKE is expecting 14 inches or so between now and Tuesday night. I have a flight to MKE in the morning. I totally expect to be there, barring an Indy caused delay or cancellation.

That surprises me about Indy, since I've only been in Indiana maybe half a dozen times, but one of them was in January of 1977 when I drove by a bank clock in Bloomington that read -64 degrees. (I still can't quite believe that---it must have been measuring wind chill---but I'd just been in Knoxville and Durham before that and it was zero in both of those places.) I would have thought that Indy would have been much more like Milwaukee than metro Washington, where we're always in a reaction mode and never prepared. Of course it doesn't help that there are probably a dozen different jurisdictions and little or no coordination among them. Montgomery County promised that all streets would be cleared by midnight tonight; ah, well, they've still got 13 more minutes to get to ours.

It isn't a total disgrace when it comes to snow removal, say like Detroit (when just trying to compare 'northern' cities), but the attitude towards preparedness is noticeably different, and I get it, I don't march around lecturing people about this downfall, they fell bad enough right now about the Colts. Indy certainly isn't immune to cold blasts and enduring a 'real' winter, even by SE Wisconsin standards, but it is typically a 8-11 degree difference on average in temperature, which doesn't sound like much, but an Indy winter is a piece of cake compared to MSP, Chicago, or MKE. 30 days in a row of a high temp below freezing can be demoralizing, and you just don't see long spells of cold here like that. I still think it is better than DC removal efforts based on two experiences I had with 'storms' in the 3-5 inch range. That was humorous and yes, very much reactive. The mood in the airport was such you would've thought it was going to be a weekend before we saw a gate agent.

That surprises me about Indy, since I've only been in Indiana maybe half a dozen times, but one of them was in January of 1977 when I drove by a bank clock in Bloomington that read -64 degrees. (I still can't quite believe that---it must have been measuring wind chill---but I'd just been in Knoxville and Durham before that and it was zero in both of those places.)

That's not even close to being accurate, and I doubt the wind chill even got that low. The record-low for the state is -34, set in two places in January 1991. That broke the previous record of -33 set in the 1950s (and I've long been skeptical about that earlier reading, based on the location).

As for Indy's snowfall totals, I'm reminded of a story from an IU football game back around that same time frame. There was a snowfall during the annual IU-Purdue game (held the week before Thanksgiving), and the other writers covering this story assumed the IU quarterback, a Long Island native, must be familiar with that kind of snowy weather (when Midwesterners think of New York, they automatically think of the city, except for snowfall totals, where they picture Buffalo.) The quarterback's response to the media throng, "How many times do I have to tell you people, we get the same damn weather." I chuckled, having had similar conversations with my fellow Hoosiers.

The very northern slice of the state, however, does get a lot of lake effect snow (though not much this year).

Only seen MLB games in six stadiums, so...

1. Safeco Field
2. Fenway Park
3. Oakland-Alameda (1970s)
4. Candlestick Park (1970s)
5. Sicks' Stadium
6. Kingdome

I haven't had Primanti's (or been to Pittsburgh), but had generally heard that it was things that you love if you're from Pittsburgh but, otherwise, eh (a harsher reading of Vlad's 110, I guess).

I've never been to Pittsburgh, but there's a place in San Francisco that does Primanti-style sandwiches and it's pretty damn good. They seem to be a little smaller than the ones you see from Primanti's though.

That surprises me about Indy, since I've only been in Indiana maybe half a dozen times, but one of them was in January of 1977 when I drove by a bank clock in Bloomington that read -64 degrees. (I still can't quite believe that---it must have been measuring wind chill---but I'd just been in Knoxville and Durham before that and it was zero in both of those places.)

That's not even close to being accurate, and I doubt the wind chill even got that low. The record-low for the state is -34, set in two places in January 1991. That broke the previous record of -33 set in the 1950s (and I've long been skeptical about that earlier reading, based on the location).

All I know is what that reading on the bank clock was. Obviously I had no way of determining exactly how inaccurate it was. But here's the general background for what was far and away the worst Winter I've ever witnessed:

Winter of 1976-1977

During the months leading up to the blizzard, weather conditions occurred that allowed the blizzard to have the impacts that it did. In fall 1976 through January 1977, a high-amplitude planetary wave pattern set up (Wagner 1978), that was very persistent from October through January and involved a ridge over western North America and a trough over eastern North America (Wagner 1977a). In January 1977, this pattern persisted with the strong ridge over western North America being more than two standard deviations from the mean, while the strong trough centered over eastern North America was 3+ standard deviations from the mean (Wagner 1977a). A strong blocking high developed over the Arctic Ocean during January and this moved the polar vortex to southern Canada, south from where it normally is located (Wagner 1977b). Strong northwest flow between the ridge over western North America and the trough over eastern North America resulted in strong northwest flow in between, which ushered in Arctic air to the central and eastern United States (Wagner 1977b). The circulation helped cause record cold for the winter over many portions of the eastern United States with the Ohio Valley averaging more than 8 degrees Fahrenheit below normal (Wagner 1978). The severe winter was not limited to the Northeastern United States with snow observed in Miami, Florida on January 20 and snow mixed with rain in the Bahamas (Schwartz 1977).

And while I don't know how to find records for Bloomington, the average temperature in Indianapolis that month (10.3 degrees) was the coldest that city has ever recorded [source], and I was there at its coldest point. I wouldn't surprise me all that much if that bank clock wasn't functioning at maximum efficiency. (smile)

EDIT: That source link doesn't work, but here's the relevant paragraph:

THE WARMEST JANUARY ON RECORD AT INDIANAPOLIS OCCURRED IN 1880
WITH AN AVERAGE OF 45.0 DEGREES...AND THE COLDEST JANUARY ON
RECORD WAS IN 1977 WITH AN AVERAGE OF 10.3 DEGREES.

[140]

1. Fenway Moreso when it was possible to sneak down to about 14 rows behind home plate. ...

12. Shea Seats angled 40 degrees away from home plate so it hurt your neck

Had you snuck down to seats on Fenway's 1st and 3rd base lines, you would have noticed that Fenway's seats are angled just as badly, if not worse, than Shea's were (as a multipurpose stadium.)

So vi, since this thread is dead, perhaps you can share what your list based on?

I've never been to Pittsburgh, but there's a place in San Francisco that does Primanti-style sandwiches

Their FAQ is pretty good.

Q: Do you show the Steeler games?
A: Yes.

Q: Do you show other NFL games when the Steelers are on?
A: No. Only the Steelers.

Q: Do you show the Penguin games?
A: Yes.

Q: Do you show the Pirates games?
A: No. (Tell them to have a winning season and we’ll consider it.)

161, it's a list of items in the proximity to villageidiom's kitchen. Clearly he owns McAfee anti-virus and would never invite the Kaufmann family to come over.

I got it right!

Marlins Marlins Marlins Marlins Marlins Marlins Marlins Marlins Marlins Marlins Marlins

Baseball baseball!

Marlins Marlins Marlins Marlins Marlins Marlins Marlins Marlins Marlins Marlins Marlins

Baseball-baseball!

And Marlins Marlins Marlins Marlins Marlins Marlins Marlins Marlins Marlins Marlins Marlins

Mets! Meet the Mets! Ahhh, meet the Mets!

And Marlins Marlins Marlins Marlins Marlins Marlins Marlins Marlins Marlins Marlins Marlins

So vi, since this thread is dead, perhaps you can share what your list based on?

Drop the first two letters, then alphabetize.