Ballpark facts for kids
A ballpark, also called a baseball park, is a special place where baseball games are played. The playing area is split into two main parts: the infield and the outfield. The infield has very specific sizes because of where the bases are. The outfield, however, can be different sizes and shapes in different ballparks. If a ballpark is very big, it might also be called a baseball stadium, just like other large sports venues.
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What Makes a Ballpark Special?
The Playing Field: The Diamond
The baseball field is often called a diamond. The infield is shaped like a diamond and has dirt and grass. It includes the three bases, home plate, and the pitcher's mound. Usually, the area between the bases and home plate is grass, except for the dirt mound in the middle. Some ballparks have grass or fake grass between the bases, with dirt only around the bases and the pitcher's mound. But some, like Koshien Stadium in Japan, have an infield that is all dirt.
Two white lines stretch out from home plate, going towards first and third base. These are called the foul lines or base lines. If a batter hits the ball outside these lines, it's a "foul" ball, and the play stops. If it lands between or on the lines, it's a "fair" ball. At the end of these lines are two foul poles. These poles help umpires decide if a ball is fair or foul. If a ball hits a foul pole in the air, it's a home run!
Near home plate are two batter's boxes, one for left-handed batters and one for right-handed batters. This is where the batter stands. Behind home plate is the catcher's box, where the catcher and umpire stand.
Next to first and third base are the coaches' boxes. Here, the first and third base coaches help the runners, usually with hand signals or shouts. A runner going from second to third base can't see the ball, so they rely on the third base coach to tell them whether to run, stop, or slide.
Further from the infield are the dugouts. This is where the teams and coaches sit when they are not playing. They are called "dugouts" because, in professional parks, they are built below the field level. This way, they don't block the view for fans. In smaller parks, dugouts might just be benches behind a fence.
Beyond the infield, between the foul lines, is the large grass outfield. It's usually about twice as deep as the infield. A fence surrounds the playing field, and its height can change. Infield fences are in foul territory and are often lower so fans can see better. Outfield fences might be taller in some spots if they are very close to the batter.
Many professional parks have a "warning track" around the field. This is a strip of dirt or rubber about 10 feet wide. It warns players that they are getting close to the fence. Major League Baseball made warning tracks a requirement in 1949.
Behind the outfield fence in professional parks is an area called the batter's eye. This area has no seats and is usually dark. It helps the batter see the white baseball clearly when it's pitched. The batter's eye can be a dark wall or even a grassy slope.
Most major league ballparks are built so that the main line from home plate through second base to center field faces north or east. This is to stop the setting sun from shining directly into the batter's eyes.
Where Fans Sit
Today, in Major League Baseball, a large seating area called a grandstand wraps around the infield. How far these seats go down the lines or around the foul poles changes from park to park. In minor league parks, the grandstands are smaller because fewer people are expected to attend.
The seating beyond the outfield fence is often different from the grandstand. This area might have cheaper bleacher seats, smaller grandstands, or just sloped seating. In local parks, you might just see a few rows of metal bleachers.
How Ballparks Can Be Different
Unlike sports like football or basketball, which have fixed-size playing areas, only the infield in baseball has a strict layout. The rest of the field can be very flexible in shape and size.
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Baseball leagues might set a minimum distance from home plate to the outfield fences. Higher-level games usually need deeper fields to prevent too many home runs. In Major League Baseball, a rule was made in 1958 that new fields had to be at least 325 feet from home plate to the fences in left and right field, and 400 feet to center. This rule was made to avoid very short fields.
However, since Camden Yards opened in 1992, this "minimum distance" rule has often been ignored. Fans loved the old-fashioned, "retro" look of Camden Yards with its unusual measurements. Many other "retro" stadiums have been built since then, each with unique, uneven fences. These distances vary a lot. For example, the original Yankee Stadium had a right field that was over 100 feet shorter than left field because of the shape of the land.
Older ballparks, like Fenway Park, were allowed to keep their original sizes. Also, new parks sometimes get special permission to be different. For instance, the second Yankee Stadium, built in 2009, used the same sizes as the original.
The height of the fences can also vary a lot. The most famous example is the 37-foot-high Green Monster in Fenway Park's left field. Such tall fences are often used where the distance from home plate is shorter, or where there isn't much space between the field and a nearby street.
Some ballparks have fences with unusual shapes. They might have curved fences, sharp angles, or sudden changes in direction. For example, at Fenway Park, the center field and left field stands meet at an odd angle, creating a sharp indentation. In Citi Field and Oracle Park, part of the right field fence sticks out unevenly. Some "retro" parks, like Globe Life Park in Arlington, add a small inward turn just to make the design a bit quirky.
Originally, these differences happened because of the shape of the land where the park was built. If a street was beyond left field, the fence would be shorter, and if it was too short, the fence would be higher. Now, these differences are mostly decided by the designers. New "retro" parks try to bring back these unique features.
Where Did the Names Come From?
Baseball was first played in open fields or public parks. Modern baseball is often linked to Elysian Fields in Hoboken, New Jersey. This was a large public park where people from New York City played organized baseball and cricket games starting in the mid-1840s. That's why early baseball places were often called "Field" or "Park."
When professional baseball began, the playing field became part of a bigger area with fixed seats and fences to keep out people who didn't pay. So, names like "Grounds" started to be used, like the Union Grounds in 1862. "Field" and "Park" were still used, but many professional ballparks were called "Grounds." The last major league "Grounds" was the Polo Grounds in New York City, which was torn down in 1964.
The word "stadium" has been used since ancient times for running tracks and their seating areas. As college football became popular, smaller college fields were replaced by large stadiums. Major league baseball also grew. One of the first major league ballparks to be called a "stadium" was the Polo Grounds, which was briefly renamed Brush Stadium. But the most famous baseball "stadium" was Yankee Stadium, built in 1923. After that, most new major league venues were called "Stadiums."
Indoor stadiums built from the 1960s onwards were often called "Dome," like the Houston Astrodome. The "retro" era of the 1990s saw some places go back to using "park" in their names, even for domed buildings like T-Mobile Park and American Family Field.
There's no strict rule for choosing "Field" or "Park." For example, Houston's Daikin Park was first called "Enron Field."
Where Ballparks Are Built
How stadiums are designed depends on things like how many people they need to hold, how fans get there, and traffic. Early ballparks like Elysian Fields were far from city centers. Each game was a big event, and fans used public transport to get there.
As professional leagues grew, games became more common, and it was important for fans to get there easily. Many professional ballparks were built near city centers or in working-class areas. This meant classic ballparks often had little space for cars, as most fans were expected to use public transport. This is still true for places like Boston's Fenway Park and Chicago's Wrigley Field. Some early ballparks were even abandoned because public transport didn't go far enough, and the team wasn't doing well enough for people to bother.
As fans became richer and moved to the suburbs, they bought cars, and a lack of parking became a big problem. Some ballparks solved this by building parking garages nearby or building new ballparks with lots of parking. Others built ballparks in the suburbs, usually with huge parking lots. The ballpark became like an "island" in a "sea" of parking spaces.
Today's "retro" trend tries to have it all: a city location with plenty of parking and public transportation.
Different Kinds of Ballparks
Wooden Ballparks
The first professional baseball fields were large wooden ballparks with seats on wooden platforms. Even though they were mostly wood, they had iron poles for better support. Some had one sloped level of seats, topped with a flat roof or a small upper level. The outfield had tall walls or fences covered in ads, much like minor league parks today. Wood was cheap, but it had a big problem.
Over time, the wooden stands got old and dry. Many parks caught fire, and some burned down completely. This problem, along with baseball becoming more popular and people wanting parks to last a long time, led to new building materials: steel and concrete. Some famous wooden parks, like the Polo Grounds III in New York, burned down and were rebuilt with fire-resistant materials. Others were simply left behind for new, safer buildings. These new fire-resistant parks often lasted for many decades and are now called "jewel boxes." No professional wooden ballparks are left today.
Jewel Box Ballparks
The first ballparks built or rebuilt with reinforced concrete, brick, and steel are known as jewel box ballparks or classic parks. In this time, two-tiered grandstands became much more common. The Baker Bowl in Philadelphia, opened in 1895, was the first to use steel and brick. It even had an upper deck that hung over the lower seats. Although it didn't use reinforced concrete, Baker Bowl is seen as the first jewel box park. The first to use reinforced concrete was Shibe Park, which opened in 1909.
The upper decks were usually held up by steel pillars, which sometimes blocked the view from some lower seats. But because of these supports, the upper decks could be built very close to the field. This two-tiered design was standard for decades until the New York Yankees built Yankee Stadium. To fit the huge crowds that Babe Ruth attracted, Yankee Stadium was built with three tiers. This became the new standard until some newer parks went back to two tiers.
Most jewel box parks were built to fit into city blocks. This often led to outfield sizes that were not even on both sides and tall outfield walls to stop easy home runs. Famous examples include League Park in Cleveland, which had a 40-foot-tall wall in right field, and the Green Monster, the 37-foot-tall left field wall at Fenway Park in Boston.
Other sports, like soccer and football, were often played at these stadiums. Unlike later multi-purpose parks, the seats were usually angled perfectly for baseball. The "retro" ballparks built from the 1990s onwards try to bring back the feeling of these jewel box parks. The only jewel box parks still used by Major League Baseball are Fenway Park and Wrigley Field.
Multi-purpose Stadiums
From the 1960s until 1992, many baseball stadiums were built as multi-purpose ballparks. People sometimes called them "concrete donuts" or "cookie-cutters" because they were often tall, round, or square structures made of plain concrete. These parks were designed to host baseball, but also other sports like football and soccer. The idea was that one stadium for all sports would be cheaper to run than two separate ones.
The shape of these parks often depended on their original use. Ballparks changed to fit football, like Candlestick Park, were usually unevenly shaped. Football stadiums changed for baseball, like Sun Life Stadium, were usually rectangular. Parks built for both sports from the start were often circular and fully enclosed. These circular parks gave multi-purpose stadiums their reputation for being plain and similar. The first of these was DC Stadium (later RFK Stadium) in Washington, D.C. It was unique because it hosted two different baseball teams and was the first to be built for multiple sports from the beginning.
One big new idea in multi-purpose parks was the cantilevered upper deck. In older ballparks, columns holding up the upper decks blocked some views. In the new design, the upper decks were extended upwards, and the columns were removed. However, this meant the upper decks couldn't be as close to the field and had to be moved back. Also, the roofs couldn't be as big, often only covering the top few rows, leaving fans exposed to the weather.
Besides the cantilever design, these parks had other issues. Seats were often angled towards the center of the field, not home plate. The farthest seats could be 500 feet or more from home plate. These stadiums were also very large, and typical game attendance didn't fill them. Because of the rectangular shape needed for football, outfield sizes were usually the same on both sides, and even seats close to the field down the lines could be far from the action.
Multi-purpose stadiums also caused problems for football teams. The "cookie-cutters" with moving field-level sections were tricky. The front rows were too close to the field, making it hard for fans to see over the football benches. Despite being cost-effective, these problems eventually made these parks unpopular.
The multi-purpose design reached its peak when Toronto's SkyDome (now Rogers Centre) opened in 1989. It had modern features like a retractable roof, a hotel, and a restaurant where people could watch games from behind the outfield. Rogers Centre was renovated to be a baseball-only stadium from 2022 to 2024.
There are no more purely open-air multi-purpose parks still used for baseball today. The Oakland Coliseum was the last one. The Athletics moved out of Oakland Coliseum in 2024.
Indoor Ballparks
An important type of ballpark is the indoor park. These parks have a fixed roof, often a hard concrete dome. They were built for different reasons. The Astrodome, the first indoor sports stadium ever, was built to escape Houston's hot and humid weather. The Kingdome was built to avoid Seattle's constant rain. In Japan, domed stadiums were built to avoid rain and heavy snow.
These parks have little to no natural light, so they use artificial turf. While new technology allows grass in some indoor places, the first indoor parks didn't have this. Since there wasn't enough light for grass, artificial turf was used. This changed the game because artificial turf is harder, so balls hit on the ground move faster and bounce higher. Also, the usually dull white or gray roofs could make it hard to see a fly ball.
Olympic Stadium in Montreal is a notable park. It was designed with a large tower and cables that were supposed to lift the roof, opening the park on nice days. But the system never worked right, and the roof ended up being permanently fixed, making it a strictly indoor stadium.
Another famous park was the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome in Minneapolis. Instead of a hard roof, it had an inflatable fiberglass cover held up by air pressure. A problem with this design, especially in Minnesota's harsh winters, was that the dome collapsed three times in its first three years because of heavy snow. The Tokyo Dome has a similar roof, but because Tokyo's winters are milder, it hasn't had the same snow problems.
The first indoor parks had many of the same issues as multi-purpose parks. Tropicana Field is the only indoor-only park built just for baseball that still hosts a Major League Baseball team, but it is planned to be replaced soon. The new ballpark for the Las Vegas Athletics will have a fixed roof with a window for natural light. Japan still has several fixed-dome parks mainly for baseball. One of them, the Sapporo Dome, has two different playing surfaces: artificial turf for baseball and a grass field that slides into the dome for soccer games.
Modern Ballparks
While many teams built multi-purpose parks, some built baseball-only parks. These modern ballparks avoided some multi-purpose park features but kept some new ones. The most noticeable new features were upper decks that hung over the lower seats without columns, seats in colors other than green, plain concrete outsides, and outfields that were the same on both sides. While multi-purpose parks are almost gone, some modern parks, like Dodger Stadium and Kauffman Stadium, are still loved. Instead of building new parks, teams have chosen to update these older ones, adding new comforts. Several modern parks built this way are still in use today.
Milwaukee County Stadium is seen as the ancestor of the modern ballpark. It was the first to have an outfield fence that was round and symmetrical. It also had the rounded V-shaped grandstand and colorful seats that are common in modern parks. It was meant to be a minor league park until a major league team arrived, but the Braves came sooner than expected.
The first two truly modern ballparks were built by the New York teams that moved to California: the Giants and the Dodgers. Candlestick Park was built first but was later changed to a multi-purpose park. Dodger Stadium has been updated many times but remains baseball-only, and its original design is mostly still there.
Anaheim Stadium, which was first very similar to Dodger Stadium, was expanded for football. But once the Rams football team left, most of the extra outfield seating was removed, making it look more like its original design.
The original Yankee Stadium is a special case. It was built as a jewel box park, but a very large one. It was getting old in the 1970s, so it was heavily renovated from 1973 to 1975, making it more like a modern ballpark. Many of its classic jewel box features were kept, so the remodeled stadium fit into both styles.
Rogers Centre, with its retractable roof, and Tropicana Field, with its fixed roof, can also be seen as modern ballparks. Rogers Centre was originally a multi-purpose stadium but was renovated to be baseball-only from 2022 to 2024. Tropicana Field was built to attract an MLB team to the Tampa Bay area.
New Comiskey Park (now Rate Field) was the last modern ballpark built in North America. It has been renovated to look more like a retro-classic ballpark.
Even though they were built for baseball, some of these stadiums also hosted professional soccer and football teams sometimes. The Minnesota Vikings played at Metropolitan Stadium, and the Green Bay Packers played some home games at Milwaukee County Stadium every year from 1953 to 1994.
The only modern parks still used by Major League Baseball are Dodger Stadium, Angel Stadium, Kauffman Stadium, Rate Field, Rogers Centre, and Tropicana Field. However, Rate Field has been updated to look like a retro-classic park, while Angel Stadium and Kauffman Stadium have been updated to be retro-modern. Tropicana Field, Rate Field, and Kauffman Stadium are planned to be replaced with new ballparks soon.
Retractable-Roof Ballparks
Indoor parks were built for various reasons, mainly to deal with weather. But as multi-purpose parks became less popular, so did indoor parks. This led to the creation of retractable-roof parks. These parks offer shelter from the weather but can still be open when the weather is nice. To support the roof, most of them are enclosed on all sides, like multi-purpose and indoor parks.
Because the roof needs a place to go when it's not covering the field, a key feature of retractable-roof parks is a large extension of the building to one or both sides where the roof rests when it's open. The only exception is American Family Field, whose fan-shaped roof folds in on itself and hangs behind the stands. Often, even when retracted, the roof still hangs over the field, creating large shadows. This is solved at American Family Field with large glass panels under the roof. While most stadiums seal up when the roof is closed, others remain partly open, like T-Mobile Park, whose roof acts like an "umbrella" to protect from Seattle's frequent rain.
Pittsburgh's Civic Arena was the first sports building in the world with a retractable roof, but it was not used for baseball. While Montreal's Olympic Stadium was the first baseball park with a retractable roof, it had many problems and was never fully used. This made Rogers Centre the first fully working retractable-roof park. It succeeded where Olympic Stadium failed, building a multi-section roof that folded back over the hotel in center field.
Retractable-roof parks can look very different, from practical (Rogers Centre) to those with old-fashioned elements (like Daikin Park) to very modern (loanDepot Park). Their style reflects the popular architecture of the time they were built. When Rogers Centre opened in 1989, baseball was at the end of the modern and multi-purpose era. Chase Field, T-Mobile Park, Daikin Park, and American Family Field all opened during the retro era. When loanDepot Park opened in 2012, it brought in a new and different style, possibly starting a new era. The Texas Rangers built Globe Life Field in a retro style, similar to their old ballpark.
So, "retractable-roof ballpark/stadium" describes how it works, not its overall look. Because of this, retractable-roof parks are also listed under their architectural styles. For example, the four retractable-roof parks built in the United States during the retro era are also considered retro-modern ballparks.
Retro-Classic Ballparks
HOK Sport, now called Populous, designed Sahlen Field in Buffalo to attract a major league team. The stadium opened in 1988, but it wasn't chosen for a major league team. HOK Sport then used what they learned in Buffalo to design a retro-classic ballpark for their major league project in Baltimore.
In 1992, Oriole Park at Camden Yards opened in Baltimore. It looked similar to a jewel box park, with red brick and forest green, but had more modern features and comforts. It also had a modern, stepped-deck layout, no columns blocking views, and updated fencing.
Since Camden Yards opened, many major league teams have built new ballparks, each with unique features. The most important thing was that they were built mainly for baseball, though they have also hosted football, soccer, and ice hockey games. Turner Field was first built as Centennial Olympic Stadium for the 1996 Summer Olympics and was changed for baseball the next year.
Rate Field was the last modern park built in 1991 and was seen as old-fashioned just a year after opening. The White Sox responded by making many retro-classic style changes, like new roofing, uneven fences, and a dark green color scheme. They also reduced upper deck seating.
The most recent retro-classic ballparks were built in New York City. Queens' Citi Field looks like Ebbets Field, and the Bronx's Yankee Stadium looks like the old "House that Ruth Built" before its renovation. Both opened in 2009.
Teams are now moving away from the retro-classic look and building retro-modern and contemporary ballparks instead. Turner Field was the first retro-classic park to be replaced, as the Atlanta Braves moved to Truist Park in 2017. The Texas Rangers moved from Globe Life Park in Arlington to the retractable-roof Globe Life Field in 2020. Rate Field is also planned to be replaced with a new ballpark soon.
Retro-Modern Ballparks
While Camden Yards influenced almost every ballpark built after it, not all of them followed its exact design. Those that added more modern-looking elements are called retro-modern ballparks.
Progressive Field, originally Jacobs Field, was built two years after Camden Yards. It had angled, uneven fences of different heights, a smaller upper deck, stepped seating levels, and a simple color scheme. While the inside felt like a retro park, the outside didn't look like the old jewel box parks. So, it couldn't truly be called a retro-classic park.
Many of today's parks have followed this second style of retro. Instead of brick, their outsides often feature white or gray painted steel. If there's any stone, it's sandstone or limestone. Some have modern features like glass walls or retractable roofs.
Angel Stadium has changed a lot over the years. It was first a modern park, similar to the Angels' previous home, Dodger Stadium. When the NFL's Los Angeles Rams football team moved there in 1980, the first renovations began. The grandstand was expanded to completely enclose the stadium, making it a multi-purpose park. The Rams left in 1994, leaving the Angels alone in the large, 65,000-seat stadium. After a two-year renovation, the steel was painted green, and the concrete was painted sandstone. The seating was changed a lot, especially by removing most of the outfield seating, to look more like the park's original design. The finished result in 1998 was a retro-modern ballpark.
In the same year, Chase Field opened as Bank One Ballpark for the new Arizona Diamondbacks team. It had a retractable roof and a swimming pool—things that didn't exist in jewel-box ballparks. Even though there wasn't much MLB history in Phoenix and the roof design was very big, much of the inside was still built with retro features, similar to Progressive Field. Chase Field was not the first retractable-roof ballpark, but it was the first of four retractable-roof ballparks (opening within four years) to follow the retro-modern style.
Later, Petco Park and Kauffman Stadium followed the building and renovation ideas of Progressive Field and Angel Stadium. Meanwhile, three new retro-modern stadiums pushed even further away from classic parks.
When Great American Ball Park opened in 2003, it had a modern-looking glass front. This use of new elements showed that some stadium planners were more willing to include designs that looked to the 21st century. Five years later, Nationals Park built on Cincinnati's design, using even more glass and white concrete that matched Washington, D.C.'s architecture. Nationals Park was the first stadium to be environmentally friendly while still offering all the comforts. The retro-modern style reached its peak in 2010 with the sculpted, modern outside and canopy of Target Field, making it almost unrecognizable from the outside. Its glass and limestone design helped it fit into a small 8-acre space in a busy transportation area. The main architect, Earl Santee, said the outside was also an artistic way to show Minnesota's culture: a mix of city and nature. Designing a building as a metaphor for people was a new way to think about ballpark architecture.
The outsides of the later retro-contemporary ballparks looked more and more different from jewel-box or even modern-style parks. Yet, inside, in the stands and on the field, they still have the familiar classic feel while using retro features (like unique-shaped fences, a single color scheme, etc.).
Contemporary Ballparks
Before the 2012 baseball season, USA Today said that the new Marlins Park might "provide a coda to the postmodern Camden Yards era." After two decades of the retro style dominating ballpark design, a new type of design appeared in 2012 with the opening of the stadium now known as LoanDepot Park. This new style aims to make the fan experience the current culture of the city or area around the stadium, and it moves away from the basic idea of retro. Stadium planners are calling this style contemporary. The New Yorker wrote about the new MLB architecture: "The retro mold has finally been broken, but this might be the last chance a new style gets for some time."
Es Con Field Hokkaido, a ballpark with a similar style built for the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters in Japan, opened in 2023.
The new ballpark for the Las Vegas Athletics was designed to fit in with the feel of the surrounding Las Vegas Strip.
Temporary and Converted Ballparks
The new teams of the 1960s led to two special types of parks in the major leagues: temporary ballparks and converted ballparks.
Temporary ballparks were used when a new ballpark was planned for a new team or a team that was moving, but the new park wasn't finished yet. This happened for reasons like delays or waiting for a deal to be set. In these cases, an existing building, often a minor league park, was used as a temporary home. The first temporary ballparks were actually used by established teams. When the Dodgers and Giants moved to California from New York, they played in Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum and Seals Stadium while Dodger Stadium and Candlestick Park were being built.
Converted ballparks were an option instead of building a completely new stadium. These parks were existing minor league or college facilities that were expanded to fit a major league team. Converted ballparks are different from football stadiums that were changed into multi-purpose parks because converted ballparks were originally built only for baseball, just not for major league teams. Early converted ballparks included Memorial Stadium in Baltimore, Municipal Stadium in Kansas City, and Metropolitan Stadium in Bloomington, Minnesota. All three were expanded minor league facilities, though Baltimore and the Met were built with the idea of expanding for major league use. Kansas City was a true minor league park that was greatly expanded for major league crowds.
Temporary ballparks made a return in 2020 when Sahlen Field was used by the Toronto Blue Jays in the 2020 and 2021 seasons. This was because Canada's travel rules during the COVID-19 pandemic stopped them from playing in the Rogers Centre.
Sutter Health Park is the temporary home of the Athletics from 2025 to 2027 as the team prepares for its move to Las Vegas.
After Tropicana Field was badly damaged by Hurricane Milton, it was announced that George M. Steinbrenner Field will be the temporary home field for the Tampa Bay Rays during their 2025 season.
These two types of ballparks are defined by how they are used, not by their design. So, a temporary or converted ballpark can also be any of the other types: jewel box, modern, multi-purpose, and so on.
Current Major League Stadiums: How Big Are They?
The numbers below show the distances from home plate to the outfield wall. "Left field" (LF) and "right field" (RF) usually mean the distances along the foul lines. "Left center" (LC) and "right center" (RC) are the approximate distances to the "power alleys" (where home runs are often hit). "Center field" (CF) can mean straight-ahead center field or the deepest part of the center field area. "Backstop" (BS) is the distance from home plate to the screen behind the catcher. These numbers might be slightly different from what's marked on the actual walls.
In 1958, Major League Baseball made a rule that new parks had to have minimum outfield distances of 325 feet down the lines and 400 feet to center field. Older parks were allowed to keep their original sizes. However, since 1991, many new parks have been allowed to be different from these rules.
See also
- List of baseball parks by capacity
- List of Major League Baseball stadiums
- List of U.S. baseball stadiums by capacity
- List of terraces at baseball venues
- All-you-can-eat seats
- Scoreboard
