Rating: 
Summary: Wow!
Review: The ballpark book for ballpark lovers. Includes all current and many older ballparks, including many from the past 30-40 years that have recently been replaced. Great pictures and stories taking you down memory lane time after time.
Rating: 
Summary: Nice, but could have been better...
Review: The Ballpark Book is a handy reference tome for any hardcore baseball fan, but I wish there were more photographs, especially of the parks that have gone through several renovations and remodellings, a la Yankee Stadium and Busch Stadium. The artist renderings are a nice idea, but they're given far too much prominence, and they're woefully inadequate substitutes for actual photos. And the writing, especially on the newer parks, reads more like a press release than an insightful account of baseball park history...
Rating:
Summary: Great idea, but a stretch
Review: The book is very egalitarian, and it does not dump on any park, it tries to say nice things about every park, and sometimes it comes off as a stretch.Each chapter begins with a lovely, impressionist style (I think, art appreciation was a long time ago for me) panting of the ballpark from behind home plate, with little arrows denoting the landmarks. They've managed to find enough so that the young parks have as many landmarks as the classics. Again, some of these I felt were a stretch. The prose is sentimental and it pushes all the right buttons, it makes you swell or tear up in pride as you read about your favorite park, but its a bit heavy handed. Overall, a good book, though I wish they would focus more on a few parks.
Rating:
Summary: Ballparks - Only the Good News
Review: The motto for this book could be "Never Met a Ballpark we Didn't Like". While the Ballpark Book has a lot of unique photos and illustrations, the narrative leaves much to be desired. Any book that seems to gloss over the problems with Cleveland's "Mistake by the Lake" and New Comiskey Park can't be treated as a frank discussion. It is also hard to believe that RFK Stadium, the first of the cookie cutters and movable-stand stadiums, is not included. However, if a reader is looking for the equivalent of postcards from most of the present baseball parks and a few of the past ones, then the book can be recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Great visuals!
Review: The visuals in this book are extremely rich and really reflect the nostalgia of America's favorite past time! A must for every baseball purist..
Rating:
Summary: Absolutely wondeful book
Review: this book captures it all for baseball purists. Lots of photos and text accounts of virtually every major league ballpark that has ever existed. I highly recommend this book for all of those of cherish the likes of Wrigley Field, Old Comiskey Park, and Ebbets Field.
Rating: 
Summary: The older version was better
Review: This book is styled after 'TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALLPARK' published by the Sporting News in 1983. That book included more stadiums that had not been played in for years, eg. Ebbetts Field, Braves Field, Sportman's Park. These were parks that featured many of baseball's historic moments. The Ballpark Book leaves out these older 'unused' parks, and focuses on today current crop of stadiums. The unfortunate point in this approach is that too many of today's ballfields have been built so recently, that not many historic events have been witnessed in them. My son has caught on to baseball, and so we try to visit any stadium we might on vacation. So this book is kind of like a family scrapbook for us too. The drawings are much better in this new book, and it's hardcover to boot. But I'll still leaf through my old '83 copy with joy.
Rating:
Summary: The Ballpark Book
Review: This book is very good. It contains many beautiful pictures of present and past ballparks. It also gives the history of each ballpark as well. I would recommend to any who likes baseball.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful reference book
Review: This book takes a loving look at major league stadiums across North America. It starts off with a short history of ballpark construction, detailing the styles of each generation of parks. It's interesting how in the the 90s, the trend was to go back to the "old-style" stadiums like Camden Yards, Jacobs Field, and Pac Bell Park, here in San Francisco. The authors resisted the urge to badmouth any of the stadiums that have been widely criticized, such as the "cookie-cutter" stadiums of the 70s like RiverFront Stadium (now Cinergy Field) in Cincinatti or Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia, choosing instead to concentrate on the positives and the experience of being at a particular park. I loved the description they gave of Candlestick (aka 3Com) Park, a stadium that for better or worse became my "home park" when I moved to Northern California. The illustrations of each park, coupled with famous moments brought back a ton of memories for me. There are also numerous pictures of each ballpark, giving the reader a sense of history for each one. The book is divided into several sections, starting with the classic parks, like Wrigley & Fenway, through the current class of stadiums, to the ones not around anymore. Reading through the last section, I regretted not having had the chance to see games in some of these old parks. One minor disapointment was that temporary parks (SF's Seals' Stadium, LA's Wrigley Field & Coliseum, Philly's Baker Bowl, Seattle's Sicks' Stadium, for example) were not mentioned. Perhaps a future edition could include them? But other than that, this book is an excellent and entertaining reference that will keep you intrigued for hours at a time. A related book to buy if you haven't is the Lawrence Ritter book, Lost Ballparks.
Rating:
Summary: VERY GLOSSY BUT COULD BE BETTER
Review: THIS IS A FINE BOOK OF PAST AND PRESENT BALLPARKS. THE PHOTOGRAPHS ARE EXCELLENT. IF PICTURES AND ILLUSTRATIONS ARE WHAT YOU WANT THEN THIS IS A VERY GOOD BOOK. IF YOU WANT A GOOD HARD CORE DESCRIPTION AND ATMOSPHERE OF THE DIFFERNT PARKS THEN YOU WILL BE DISAPPOINTED. OVER ALL A GOOD BUY. BUT FOR A TRUE HISTORIAN OF BASEBALL STADIUMS THIS IS JUST AVERAGE.
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