Minor League Ballparks: Ballpark Burnout

Minor League Ballparks: Ballpark Burnout

This is a cool website (photos and descriptions of 200 minor league ballparks) with a sad ending:

"It's official: I'm retiring. Here's the ugly truth -- going to ballgames simply isn't as much fun as it was 10 or 15 years ago. LED video displays, never-ending sound effects, constantly-changing corporate stadium names, blaring music, commercials between innings, and spiraling prices have all conspired to send me running for the exits (and even the exits probably have corporate sponsors now). Besides, most of the interesting old parks are either gone or sit unused, replaced by the color-by-numbers uniformity of new ballparks. It's true, I've seen professional baseball at over 200 ballparks in all 48 continental states, and that's enough. Why?

"Because a trip to the ballpark these days is something like a cross between going to a shopping mall and becoming trapped in a baseball-themed pinball machine.

"That's why I'm packing it in. It's been a fun decade and a half -- I've met a lot of great people and seen a lot of cool things. But still, enough is enough. "