Miller Park earned the honor of winning ESPN.com’s “Battle of the Ballparks.”
ESPN.com ran a bracket fan vote to determine Major League Baseball’s best ballpark. Miller Park was originally seeded 24th, despite numerous fan and media surveys in recent years that rated the facility as one of the best in sports. Fans of Miller Park ensured that their voices were heard, however, as four heavy favorites (Angel Stadium, Dodger Stadium, PNC Park and Camden Yards) were defeated in advancing to the championship round. In the final vote, Miller Park was voted the overall favorite, defeating San Francisco’s AT&T Park by a 58%-42% margin.
In all of the five bracket polls, Miller Park recorded double-digit percentage point wins. More than 130,000 fans voted in the championship round.
What does it all mean?
It means that fans of Miller Park made sure they didn’t go about the rest of their weekend business until they voted. Wisconsin’s have a history of coming on strong when it comes to backing their teams. But is it the best ballpark in the Majors? Please!
The vote really means nothing. Fans who voted Miller Park, most likely haven’t been to many of the other parks around the majors. It’s not the fans who should be deciding this, it’s the players and managers themselves. They see all of the parks and are much better equipped to come up with the top ballpark in the country.
Good for Miller Park, but the final numbers mean only one thing, that more Wisconsin fans took the time to vote than fans in other cities and states.