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Which city provides the best, fastest access to different ballparks. Time being the biggest factor and not so much distance. Basically which city has the best access to many different ballparks in a reasonable amount of time.
For fastest trip to 3 different teams the winner would be Chicago, in under an hour you could go to 3 different ballparks. So if you live in Chicago and you get out of work on a weekday you have the option of going to 3 different ballparks on a whim and be home the same night and at a reasonable hour.
For the most amount of ballparks in 7 hours our less would be Pittsburgh. Including Pittsburgh itself you can reach 12 ballparks in 7 hours or less, Pitt, Toronto, Detroit, Cleveland, Cincy, CHC, CHW, Baltimore, DC, Philly, NYY, NYM. If you add another hour to 8 hours total teams within 8 hours would be 13 the 13th being Milwaukee. St Louis and Boston would be 9.5 hours from Pittsburgh.
Now my east coast buddies would have to help me out with this one but with traffic being what it is, I am assuming that taking a trip from Brooklyn down to Citizens Bank Park is probably not as easy as Chicago to Milwaukee and going from Brooklyn down to Washington for a weekend series is probably not a fun drive either. Meanwhile going from Pittsburgh to Toronto is a 5 hour drive but is all country driving so going from Brooklyn to Washington is 4 hours per google maps is probably not as easy as all country driving from Pittsburgh to Toronto. I haven't been out east since 2002 so I really don't know hoe easy or hard it is to travel the I95 corridor.
So if you live in Pittsburgh you could hit 13 ballparks in under 8 hours short enough to make a weekend series. Now when I do baseball road trips 5-6 is my comfort level, I can drive 6 hours straight without it bothering me at all so my tolerance of a road trip to Cincy to watch the brewers doesn't bother me at all. Going from Milwaukee to Detroit is a short road trip the same with St Louis. I like being able to wake up Saturday morning and travel 5 hours check into a hotel and then go catch a night game and catch the Sunday day game and then drive home and be in bed by 9-10 o clock.
My wife and I have really started to dig the random day trip to go watch a baseball game in a different city, we go even if the brewers aren't playing there. I like seeing different teams play, just the other weekend we decided to go to St Louis for a Sat night game, great stadium and really great fans and I have a few other rants about St Louis but that's for another thread.
So here are the ballparks I have been to in order of my favorite parks:
Comerica
Busch Stadium
Great American Ballpark
Miller Park
Qualcomm Stadium
Steinbrenner field(yes a spring training facility is better than The Trop)
Tropicana Field
Baseball wasn't meant to be played in a dome, the only problem I have with Miller Park. When it comes to atmosphere I haven't been to a ballpark that even comes close to Miller Park and the tailgating.
I would have to agree with the Pittsburg suggestion.
On a side note, I have to also agree with you about the atmosphere at Miller. I'm a huge Braves fan, and get to as many games a year as I can. However, last summer my wife and I decided to take a "baseball trip" to the midwest, stopping at Wrigley, Miller, and then Minneapolis. I loved the new stadium in Milwaukee, especially after having visited the old ball park with my family as a kid back in the 80's. People were fantastic, the crowd was enthusiastic, and the park is beautiful. Keep it up up there my 2nd favorite team!
A game at Coors Field circa August 17. Live 20 minutes south of it.
A tour of Miller Park on August 24 - stayed in Milwaukee that night
A game at Wrigley Field on August 25 - stayed in the Loop, took the Red Line north
A game at Comiskey (I hate calling it U.S. Cellular) Field on August 26 - took the Red Line south.
Baseball wasn't meant to be played in a dome, the only problem I have with Miller Park. When it comes to atmosphere I haven't been to a ballpark that even comes close to Miller Park and the tailgating.
Then you're not familiar with Florida weather in the summer, have you?
Can't imagine either of the Florida teams trying to play regularly scheduled games - summer months have usual tropical thunderstorms about the time of the first pitch everyday - wouldn't be feasible to play in this part of the USA without a dome.
Likewise for Arizona. We wouldn't have an MLB baseball team given that the average summer temp in Phoenix exceeds 105F during the day if the stadium didn't at least have a dome. At least it's retractable for early spring games when the weather is still tolerable.
So here are the ballparks I have been to in order of my favorite parks:
Qualcomm Stadium
I'm assuming you mean Petco Park here.
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