The Ballpark
25 Innovations That Shaped Today's Baseball Stadiums
Foreword by Jordan Shusterman (Senior MLB Writer, Yahoo! Sports)
How did we go from playing baseball in glorified cow pastures in New York to whatever is about to be built in Las Vegas...with stops at Wrigley Field and The Astrodome along the way? The Ballpark explores the evolution of baseball stadiums by looking at the history and development of staples such as the bleachers, the bullpen, ballpark food, "Take Me Out to The Ballgame," and more.
Coming February 17, 2027. Pre-Order Now Via:
"I loved Travis Parker Smith's The Ballpark. It is ingeniously organized—not solely by chronology, but by aspects of the ballpark experience. He tosses in history as an aside, which is how the past intrudes upon the present."
-John Thorn, Official MLB Historian
"The Ballpark is both a serious study and a fun celebration of sports' best meeting place and playing venue. Travis Parker Smith takes us on a delightful trip through the chronicles of these structures and illustrates how we got to where go today. Hard-core baseball fans will love this book, and so will armchair historians!
-Ken Davidoff, co-author of 101 Lessons from the Dugout
About the book:
Publisher: Bloomsbury / Rowman & Littlefield
Coming: February 17, 2027
A baseball game played at one ballpark is not the same at another. A lazy fly ball hit to left is an out at Comerica, but a double at Fenway. A foul pop at Coors is caught by the first baseman, but at Wrigley it drifts into the stands, awarding the batter another try. A hard ground ball in Tampa skips off the turf and through the infield for a hit, but that same ground ball is easily swept up by the shortstop thanks to the damp grass of Seattle. Like golf, the unfolding a baseball game depends on the location it is played: just as golfers must learn to navigate a course’s water hazards and doglegs, so too must visiting ballplayers learn to navigate Fenway’s wall and Wrigley’s ivy. But unlike golf courses, baseball fields have a local team. They have local fans—and, consequentially, a local culture. America’s ballparks are a crucial part of America’s Pastime.
But how did we get here? How did we go from playing in cow pastures in New York to whatever futuristic thing is about to be built in Las Vegas—with stops at Wrigley Field and The Astrodome along the way? How did the concept of “The Ballpark” become such a cultural phenomenon in the sporting world, where a popular bucket list desire is to see them all? How did the name “ballpark” become exclusive to baseball?
Like any historical timeline, there is no one answer. Instead, what we envision as The Ballpark today has emerged from a multitude of individual anecdotes, freak accidents, and key decisions made throughout the 150+ years of America’s Pastime. The desire for track and field in New York consequentially resulted in the creation of the first warning track. The Cincinnati Reds’ near-bankruptcy in the 1930s is now the reason we have Sunday Night Baseball. A disastrous football game in Toronto paved the way for retractable roofs to come.
In this upcoming book, I narrow these stories down to 25 that, when woven together, provide a cohesive biography of the ballpark. It’s A History of the World in 100 Objects—but ballparks.
© Travis Parker Smith