When I was a kid, I collected everything to do with sports — it was something my Dad helped me with. I collected sports cards, magazines, hats, posters, tickets and anything else you could imagine. But once I became an adult (I swear it happened), and began moving from house to house, apartment to apartment, condo to condo, I had to downsize each time. To get an idea of how much I downsized, in January, I went from 135,000 sports cards — to just 25,000. While that still sounds like I kept a lot, I left behind a Neyland Stadium’s worth of commons. That brings me to this — my collection of MLB Stadiums pictures I’ve taken through the years.
I also try to collect beers while I’m at the stadium, but that gets expensive. Here’s an infographic showing the average beer prices at MLB Stadiums in 2012!
Fenway Park, Boston, 1979 -- I'm the one waving in the middle, surrounded by (left to right) my neighbor Mike, my brother Mike, and my brother Scott. My Dad took us all to see a Yankees-Red Sox game. We sat in right field, and watched Jim Rice do his thing.
As a kid, my pop took me to Fenway Park in Boston to see a Red Sox-Yankees game, and we went to countless spring training games once we moved to Florida. But people my age don’t have the gift of having dozens of digital pictures of us doing everything as a child. So I don’t have many pictures of myself at stadiums as a kid — or a young adult. Kids nowadays miss out on having crappy pictures as kids blinking (because parents delete them now and take another) and they miss out on good, quality Saturday Morning Cartoons.
I went to old Comiskey Park in Chicago in the early ’90s to see the White Sox host the Orioles. The two major stars on the field that day, or so we thought, were Cal Ripken and Mike Devereaux. We sat in right field, where a young White Sox outfielder’s name was being playfully drawn out by the PA — “Sssssammy Sooooooosahhhhhhh!” And at first base for Chicago was a young slugger named Frank Thomas. I didn’t get any pictures. I suck. I would kill to go back now with a digital camera and go nuts. That stadium was awesomely old/ugly, but it would have been great to have a personal record of it. The very first Major League All-Star Game was held at Comiskey Park in 1933!
I went to Wrigley Field in 1990 to watch the Home Run Derby, held the day before the ’90 MLB All-Star Game. Ryne Sandberg put on a show and won it, while Bill Murray yukked it up as the emcee. One of my favorite all-time non-game sporting events! Murray was absolutely hilarious. No pictures.
I went to the first Marlins opener in 1993 with my step-Dad, who designed Billy the Marlin for Wayne Huizenga. We sat in left field and watched the Dodgers, with Mike Piazza and several other former Rookies of the Year. No pictures.
I went to the very first win by the Tampa Bay Devil Rays franchise, in 1998, at Tropicana Field — no pictures. So when I got older, I realized how much I missed out on, by not getting pictures of all these events. And that brings me to this photo gallery of most of the stadiums I’ve gone to.
MLB Stadiums Pictures of Mine
Here are all the Major League Baseball stadiums I’ve visited in my life, with ones I have pictures of in the gallery below in bold.
- Fenway Park, Boston, 1979, 2009
- Joe Robbie Stadium/Dolphins Stadium, Miami, 1993, 1994, 2003-11
- Tropicana Field, St. Petersburg, 1998-2011
- Wrigley Field, Chicago, 1990, 1999
- Comiskey Park, Chicago, 1990
- Shea Stadium, Flushing, New York, 1992
- U.S. Cellular Field, Chicago, 1999
- Dodger Stadium, Chavez Ravine, Los Angeles, 2007
- Petco Park, San Diego, 2007
- Citi Field, Flushing, New York, 2009
- (New) Yankee Stadium, Bronx, New York, 2009
- Citizens Bank Park, Philadelphia, 2009
- Marlins Park, Miami, 2012
- Nationals Park, Washington, D.C., 2012
- Camden Yards, Baltimore, 2012
When I take MLB Stadiums pictures or pics of sporting events, I use a crappy little point-and-shoot camera or sometimes just my camera phone. I need to get a good camera. I know. My goal, when I take these pics, is that they will hopefully end up as great desktop wallpaper images. Is that ridiculous or what? But it helps with my composition and it helps me look for great lines and great contrasts.
Please enjoy! And feel free to use these MLB Stadiums pictures wherever you’d like, but please give attribution back to DavidGonos.com. Thanks!
[slickr-flickr tag=”mlb stadiums” type=”gallery” size=”medium”]
Related articles:
- A Baseball Fan’s Guide: Going to Marlins Park
- A Day at The Clevelander at Marlins Park
- 2012 MLB Stadium Beer Prices Report (Infographic)
