Ballpark: The Story of America's Baseball Fields [Hardcover]

Lynn Curlee (Author, Illustrator)

Book Description

If you love baseball, chances are you love one particular ballpark. Boston fans wax poetic about Fenway Park. Cubs fans are adamant that Wrigley Field is the classic ballfield. Busch Stadium is a hit with folks from Missouri, and Yankee fans are passionate about the House That Ruth Built....

Besides passionate fans, there's one other thing all ballparks -- from the Union Grounds in Brooklyn built in 1862 to the Baltimore Oriole's Camden Yards built in 1992 -- have in common: Each has its own vibrant and unique history.

In Ballpark, Sibert Honor Award winner Lynn Curlee explores both the histories and the cultural significances of America's most famous ballparks. Grand in scope and illustrations, and filled with nifty anecdotes about these "green cathedrals," Ballpark also explores the changing social climate that accompanied baseball's rise from a minor sport to the national pastime. This is a baseball book like no other.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 3-5–In this succinct and thoughtful overview, Curlee traces developments in the game from the mid-1800s to the construction of landmark arenas. The early 1900s saw the building of intimate playing fields such as Boston's Fenway Park and Chicago's Wrigley Field. Yankee Stadium, "the House that Ruth built," opened in 1923 and immediately became one of the country's best-loved ballparks. In the era of expansion teams, Houston's Astrodome opened in 1965–a huge but characterless stadium typical of the era. Baltimore's Camden Yards in 1992 saw a return of nostalgia-inspired fields. Stylized, full-page acrylic paintings add to the nostalgic tone of the book: players appear dramatically frozen in time as flags flap crisply against pastel-tinted skies. Lack of an index limits this title's usefulness for report writers, but both fans and those new to the sport will find that it succeeds admirably at showing the venues, famous and not-so-famous, that have featured so highly in baseball history.–Marilyn Taniguchi, Beverly Hills Public Library, CA

From Booklist

Gr. 4-6. Veteran nonfiction author and Sibert Honor Book winner (for Brooklyn Bridge, 2001), Curlee offers an engaging history of baseball parks in words and pictures. The text briefly recaps the history of the game, mentioning star players through the years (Cobb, Ruth, Robinson, Mays, et al.) but emphasizing the game's growth through the evolution of its playing fields: from parklands to enclosed stadiums with grandstands. Naturally, the most loving attention is paid to the classic ballparks built in the early twentieth century (of which only Chicago's Wrigley Field and Boston's Fenway Park remain), but Curlee also notes the low points in ballpark architecture (the "concrete doughnuts" and domed stadiums of the 1970s). The text is concise and serviceable, but the striking, acrylic-on-canvas illustrations--in bold colors and evoking the baseball art of the early 1900s--are the superstars here, effectively carrying the narrative. One caveat: the upbeat ending, asserting that the game remains in good health and celebrating the home-run records of Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire, rings hollow in light of the ongoing steroid scandal. Bill Ott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 48 pages
• Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers (February 8, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0689867425
• ISBN-13: 978-0689867422
• Product Dimensions: 11.3 x 11.1 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,563,578 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars beautiful look at the great american baseball park, April 6, 2008

By 

Michael R. Chernick "statman31147" (Holland PA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ballpark: The Story of America's Baseball Fields (Paperback)

So many baseball park where I enjoyed watching games in my youth are gone!
Ebbetts Field, The Polo Grounds, Memorial Stadium, County Stadium, Crosley Field, Forbes Field, Veterans Stadium, Connie Mack Stadium, the old Busch Stadium, the old Comiskey Park, Griffith Stadium, Tiger Stadium, Municipal Stadium, the Houston Astrodome,Candlestick Park and more recently Atlanta's Fulton County Coliseum, Metropolitian Stadium (Bloomington Minnesota),Three Rivers Stadium,and Riverfront Stadium. Admittedly some of the new parks are prettier and very modern. But most of these historic parks with their idiosychracies are very nostalgic with fond memories. Thompson's and Mays' catch in the Polo Grounds, Aaron's 715th in Fulton County Coliseum are a few of many. Sadly, most of these parks have been torn down. We have beautiful new ones that are hard to identify because their name changes almost every year. Pac Bell (now AT&T) Park in San Francisco, Miller Park in Milwaukee, Jacobs Field in Cleveland (soon to take on the name of a sponsor), Camden Yards in Baltimore, Comerica in Detroit, The Great America Park in Cincinnati, Citizen's Bank Park in Philadelphia, Royals Stadium, Coors Stadium in Denver, The Hubert Humphrey Dome in Minneapolis and others

Still standing from the past are Wrigley Field in Chicago, Boston's Fenway Park, Yankee Stadium and Shea Stadium. But next year my beloved Yankee Stadium will be replaced and soon after that Shea Stadium will be gone! We need books like this to provide the pictures and memories of the old and to alsosee the look of the future.

4.0 out of 5 stars Nice book on stadiums but I have seen better, December 28, 2009

By 

Paul Andersen (New York City) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Ballpark: The Story of America's Baseball Fields (Hardcover)

If you collect books on baseball stadiums you need to add this to your collection even though there are other stadium books out there MUCH better