Hey the daffodils are blooming and the birds are singing it must be time for baseball. Opening day is just around the corner and I can smell the grass and hear the umpire say, "Play ball". I don't know about you but this has always been the best time of year for me. I am in love this time of year and her name is baseball. Want to know about the game from the fans point of view? Well lets get started.

Major League Baseball is the only professional sport that doesn’t have a standard field size. Sure they have a 90 foot rule between all bases and the pitchers mount is always 60’6” away from home plate, but the overall field dimensions vary from field to field depending on the year it was built or maybe what the owner thought would make an exciting game, therefore making tickets easy to sell. The ballparks of baseball define the game and make it exciting and strategic.

Beyond the game though is the feel, smell and emotion of being at the park on a spring or summer day. The intensity of the excitement is such that everyone that has ever played can attest to, no matter if it is a Major League or a Little League Park.

So lean back and enjoy the reasons that I love the national pastime!

The Oldest Ballparks In The Major Leagues

If you are lucky enough to be in the Northeast, make sure you visit the oldest ballpark in America, Fenway Park in Boston. Fenway — the home of the Red Sox — opened on April 20, 1912, just five days after the Titanic sank. It has a special quality that all baseball fans seem to feel. There is an intimacy between fans and players that can only be felt at classic parks like Fenway and at Wrigley Field in Chicago. Wrigley Field, the Cubs home park, opened two years later in 1914. Chicago’s park has the famous brick wall with ivy growing on it. Baseball fans everywhere clamor to get their hands on tickets at these two ball parks, especially Fenway, which has the “Green Monster” the infamously left field home run wall that is the highest in the major league’s.

Back in the early days of baseball, the idea was to keep the players from hitting home runs in order to make the game more exciting, with outfielders running to chase the ball while runners tried to stretch their hits into extra bases to get in position to score. But that’s not today’s game! Many modern ballparks are now built to increase the home run capacity in order to let fans enjoy the thrill of the long ball.

In the 80’s and 90’s ballparks were multi-use facilities much like Fulton County Stadium home of the Atlanta Braves before Ted Turner Field was built. Not only did they play baseball in them but usually football maybe soccer and of course had concerts of all sorts.

During this 21^st century the ballparks are built more like big replicas of old parks with all kinds of additional fan enjoyment such as museums, hitting cages and pitching cages. They have restaurants and all sorts of VIP type areas for the corporate fans.

What do you enjoy? Older, larger, more historic parks, or new, state-of-the-art stadiums with perhaps some smaller dimensions? This is a question you need to explore to make your Major League experience memorable.

A Pitchers’ Ballpark

Most baseball fans would rank PetCo Park in San Diego as the number one pitchers’ park in the Major Leagues. Unfortunately, well-pitched games are boring to many fans because there is a perceived lack of action. Some terrific games have been played with low scores and very few hits. This is more what I call a defensive game. Because of a strong pitching staff a lot of games — on the surface — seemed boring.

Some fans enjoy seeing a game like that because they try and understand what makes a particular pitcher so great and it adds to the strategy of the game. Why do some pitchers have a great year while others struggle? Is it the distance of a home run? Is it the team’s defense? Maybe it’s the division the particular team is in? Whatever it still makes baseball a very strategic sport.

In addition to Petco Park in San Diego, other pitcher-friendly fields include Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles and The Metrodome in Minnesota.

A Hitters’ Ballpark

The explosion of offense in the 1990s made baseball a more exciting game to many people. A number of factors went into the increase in home runs and scoring, including better, stronger athletes. But another factor was newer, slightly smaller ballparks where it was easier to swat home runs. San Francisco ( home of the Giants) built PacBell Park in 2000 with Barry Bonds in mind and constructed a 307-foot (a relative short Home Run) right field home run that splashes down in McCovey Cove, named for first baseman Willie McCovey.

Some Major League parks seem to have a propensity for home runs and scoring barrages, and they are considered “hitters’ parks.” Some of these stadiums include U.S. Cellular Field in Chicago, The Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati, Coors Field in Denver, Comerica Park in Detroit and Rangers Ballpark in Arlington.

Coors Field (Home of the Rockies) high up in Colorado has the hitting designation because the ball travels farther in the thin air of the mile high stadium. So different parks have different reasons for being known as a hitter’s park.

If you go to a game at one of these fields, try to get an outfield seat — you just might snag a home run ball or two!

These are just a few of the strategies that baseball park’s offer. There are a lot of parks and a lot of fans that are constantly debating if the Babe would have hit more or less homers in Fenway or if Willie Mays had an advantage in Candlestick Park because of the often-high winds. These debates and many more will continue to rage.

Opening day 2009 is almost here so visit your local park on game day and enjoy a spring or summer afternoon with your family or friends.