Welcome to Best of the Ballparks 2023 fan vote for summer-collegiate ballparks! You don't need to login to vote: Just click on your preferences. Please sign up to be notified of vote results; entering your email address will automatically add you to the twice-weekly Ballpark Digest newsletter list.
Running this competition is a much more daunting task than one would assume, mostly due to the sheer number of summer-collegiate teams and leagues. We began with a master list of 116 contenders, a list that could have been much larger had we included the 16 summer-collegiate ballparks in the two leagues with direct MLB ties, the Appalachian League and MLB Draft League. We trimmed that master list to 32 strong contenders, based on what ballparks and teams successfully combined top ballpark aesthetics, history and current offerings to create a top fan experience, as well as performances in past fan votes. From that list we randomly generated the brackets, resulting in this lineup. Two new summer-collegiate venues made the list as well: Mel Olson Stadium, home of the DubSea Fish Sticks, and Jackson Baseball Stadium, home of the Jackson Rockabillys.
Last year’s top two ballparks in the fan vote--Robin Roberts Stadium, home of the Springfield Lucky Horseshoes, and Cardines Field, home of the Newport Gulls—are the top two seeds, but the rest of the seeds were randomly generated. If your favorite summer-collegiate ballpark did not make the cut, our apologies in advance; given how many fine facilities are out there, inevitably tough decisions were made, but rest assured we agonized over the 32-ballpark final list. We will revisit the parameters of this particular competition in 2024, perhaps splitting the competition into multiple votes.
The schedule for the 2023 Summer Collegiate Best of the Ballparks vote:
Round 1: Completed
Round 2: Completed
Round 3: Completed
Round 4: Completed
Round 5: Now through Aug. 12, midnight
Round 1
Round 3
Semi-Finals
Championship
