Ballpark: The Story of America's Baseball Fields

It's Still Baseball Season 



Curlee, Lynn. Ballpark: The Story of America's Baseball Fields. New York: Atheneum, 2005. 

As Curlee's exquisite drawings illustrate many of the baseball parks that live in the legends of the game, he also discusses how changes in the location and design of these parks reflect changes in the social structure of the country. Early parks such as Ebbets Field in Brooklyn and Wrigley Field on the north side of Chicago were wedged into city neighborhoods and became part of that neighborhood's identity. They were accessible by subway, bus, and foot. As populations moved out of the cities and into the suburbs, so did ballparks like the Astrodome in Houston, surrounded by vast parking lots and accessible only by car. Then in the 1990s came a new trend, a reversal back to the city and back to the style of the older parks,with the addition of modern facilities. Baltimore's Camden Yards is a prime example. Viewing the game through the physical structures in which it is played offers a different perspective on the ways in which baseball both reflects and influences our cultural experience.