tracking available minor league 3D ballparks

[thehef]

I've no clue if anyone else will find this useful... I wanted to put together a spreadsheet that would track for me where to find as many "classic era" (for me, that's early 1900's thru 1950's) minor league 3D ballparks that could be found. I mainly wanted to focus on the higher levels - PCL, AA, Int'l, Texas, Eastern & Western Lgs, Southern Lg/Assoc/Sally. I ended up going down a bit of a rabbit hole as I included more modern parks & teams/leagues than intended, and I also noted gaps (where we don't yet have 3D parks).

I generally tried to put city-teams under the league with which they were most associated. In some cases, the sheet will point you towards another league. For example, under PCL for Omaha, it shows the current park (Werner, by eriqjaffe), but it also directs you elsewhere ("See Amer Assoc for previous park").

As far as nicknames included for each city-team, a general attempt was made to include most nicknames for that city, but not every nickname was captured.

For higher-level leagues, I tried to be complete (post-1900) with park histories. For lower-level leagues, I only included teams (and their park histories) if a park for the city-team was found. For example, the only teams included for the California League are Bakersfield and Stockton; that's because I found Sam Lynn Ballpark (Bakersfield) by Lawn Loaf, and Banner Island Ballpark (Stockton) by nielsnoncp.

Parks include a date range, like "Wrigley Field LA, 1926-38". This would be the dates that the team (in this case, Hollywood) used the park, rather then the lifespan of the park. And something like "CHS Field, 2015-" (no end date) indicates that the park is still in use. This logic, however, is not 100%; the date range should be considered more of a guide than anything else...

Parks from the following designers are included, with the links to their work (park counts are approximate):

asrivkin (74 parks)
eriqjaffe (56)
neilsoncp (36)
Silvam14 (32)
Braden (20)
Flying_Canuck (13)
Lawn Loaf (5)
mytreds (4)
Scott Vibert (1)
dfswans (1)

You may notice that certain parks are shaded in a slightly darker color (of, say, blue or green). This is to indicate where there are two (or more) choices for a ballpark. For examples, for Edmonton Ballpark you'd have a choice between Silvam14's park or Flying_Canuck's park, and for Sacramento's Sutter Health (Raley) Park, you could use Silvam14's or eriqjaffe's.

neilsoncp's amazing work generally does not fit my goal, as his parks are mostly modern parks, and/or older parks given modern-fictional updates. However, I decided to include his parks where they filled gaps. (Looks like he hasn't been active for some time... I'm an aggregator, not an artistic creator, so if I may be so bold I think it would be an awesome endeavor for someone to take his some of his ballparks and "age" them so we would also have more semi-historically accurate versions of older parks.)

Braden's excellent work appears to be exclusively Negro Leagues...

For some designers - I believe Silvam14 is a good example - you can find links for each of his parks in his initial post. For others, you'd need to either hunt thru the thread and/or find a link to their file storage site and then scan through that.

At the bottom of the spreadsheet there are notes as to where to find some add'l parks - fictional, college, foreign - that might be useful for filling gaps.

Finally, if a park is listed but there's no Designer name to the right of it, then there's no 3D park for it. I've noted in red my own personal opinion as to where the main gaps are - 3D parks that don't yet exist but we could really use; IOW, the most-important ones. Just in case anybody wants to jump into creating more parks for historical minors; this could be a guide...

(I'm sure I've accidentally ommitted some parks or made other errors. If any are found, please let me know and I'll update the sheet. I'll also keep an eye on the 3D Models forum and add parks as they are contributed.)

[asrivkin]

This is great! And since my system for keeping track of things doesn't really exist, it's much appreciated!

I do have a few parks made that are among the red-letter ones, most of them I never posted (at least I think I didn't post them?) because I felt like they might be a bit niche:

• Island Park, Wichita
• Bay Street Park, Rochester
• Scranton Athletic Park
• West End Park, Houston
• McNulty Park, Tulsa
• College Park, Charleston
• Wearn Field, Charlotte
• Sulphur Dell, Nashville (original orientation)
• Gill Stadium, Manchester
• Bayside Park, Portland

I'm happy to try to see if these are ready for prime time. I'm also pretty sure that Atwater Park in Montreal was the main field at the time and Shamrock Grounds was the Sunday field, at least according to a few sources.

Finally, here's Tate Field in Richmond

Thanks for the compilation!

[ALP21]

Would love to see College Park or Gill Stadium if possible!

[asrivkin]

OK, I'll try to post those two in my thread soon!

[thehef]

FYI, I will try to update the spreadsheet in the OP soon!

[ALP21]

Originally Posted by asrivkin

OK, I'll try to post those two in my thread soon!

That would be awesome, thanks!

[thehef]

Updating the attached to include additions since the original posting... The attached now includes (in white font) the following:

-Lexington Park (St Paul, MN), by dfswans
-Bay Street Park (Rochester, NY), by asrivkin
-Scranton Athletic Park, aka Brooks Athletic Field, by asrivkin
-College Park (Charleston, SC), by asrivkin
-Sulpher Dell (Nashville), by asrivkin
-Gill Stadium, aka Manchester Athletic Field, by asrivkin
-Quebec Stadium, by Flying_Canuck
-Amadee Roy Stadium, by Flying_Canuck
-Westwood Park (Negro League park in Dayton), by asrivkin
-Hamtramck Stadium (Negro League park in Detroit), by Braden
-Mack Park (Negro League park in Dayton), by Braden
-Griffith Stadium (Negro League park in D.C.), by Braden
-Forbes Field (Negro League park in Pittsburgh), by Braden
-Hinchcliffe Stadium (Negro League park in N.Y.), by Braden
-South End Grounds (Negro League park in St Louis), by Braden

From asrivkin's post #2 above, he's added several of from his collection. These are the ones remaining (hint-hint ) that we'd love to see him post to his thread:

Originally Posted by asrivkin

I do have a few parks made that are among the red-letter ones, most of them I never posted (at least I think I didn't post them?) because I felt like they might be a bit niche:

• Island Park, Wichita
• West End Park, Houston
• McNulty Park, Tulsa
• Wearn Field, Charlotte
• Bayside Park, Portland

I'm happy to try to see if these are ready for prime time...

If I missed anything, please let me know.

[asrivkin]

Yep, fair enough. Work (and vacation!) erupted though most of the last month or so, but I'll see if I can get these posted sooner rather than later. I'm not super happy with the background for Wichita and may try to improve it but I think the others should be ready for prime time.

[thehef]

Originally Posted by asrivkin

Yep, fair enough. Work (and vacation!) erupted though most of the last month or so, but I'll see if I can get these posted sooner rather than later. I'm not super happy with the background for Wichita and may try to improve it but I think the others should be ready for prime time.

Awesome! Looking forward to them!

And I'll renew my call:

Originally Posted by thehef

neilsoncp's amazing work generally does not fit my goal, as his parks are mostly modern parks, and/or older parks given modern-fictional updates. However, I decided to include his parks where they filled gaps. (Looks like he hasn't been active for some time... I'm an aggregator, not an artistic creator, so if I may be so bold I think it would be an awesome endeavor for someone to take some of his ballparks and "age" them so we would also have more semi-historically accurate versions of older parks.)

If nobody answers the call, maybe someday I'll learn to edit parks and try it myself. But currently I'm consumed with a project to add older minor leagues to OOTP. That'll be my primary focus for awhile... (And I qualify this with: Although this is something I'm working on, I've no idea if it'll eventually be incorporated into delivered OOTP, though I am hopeful.)

[asrivkin]

I both encourage you to try your hand and also will confess that I'll probably try to tackle some of these (in my copious spare time ). To this point I've mostly been focusing on ballparks that are relevant to the league I'm running (just finished the 1921 season) but can branch out a bit...

I'm considering writing a blog post somewhere that talks about how I do research for the ballparks, I'll post a link in my thread if/when I do. For what it's worth, I'll note the following two things for anyone to keep in mind if modeling ballparks from before the 70s or so:

• Some ballparks had hills or even mesas in their outfields
• Some ballparks had very tiny dimensions to one or all fields

Neither of these things are handled well (to say the least) by OOTP and design choices have to be made, often on a case-by-case or designer-by-designer basis. Luckily, the game results seem to be divorced from the graphics aspect. I put the grid for Ponce de Leon in Atlanta at the start of the hill slope so the outfielders wouldn't run past it, but told the park factor algorithm the field was much bigger. The parks for the AAGPBL all have 90' basepaths (and OOTP won't accept anything else) but I don't think the league ever had anything that long. Recreation Park in SF (among others) has a RF line distance that's something like 250 ft from home plate, but OOTP doesn't handle fielders standing closer than 300 ft or so, so the right fielder is standing outside the park in the street until the play starts and he comes dashing through the wall. Some people will prefer the outfielders in the street for their parks, some people will prefer making the park big enough to contain them even if it's ahistorical, I've done both. There's really no overall right or wrong, just wanted to put this on the record somewhere.

[thehef]

Originally Posted by asrivkin

I both encourage you to try your hand and also will confess that I'll probably try to tackle some of these (in my copious spare time ). To this point I've mostly been focusing on ballparks that are relevant to the league I'm running (just finished the 1921 season) but can branch out a bit...

I sure hope to try once I finish (or mostly finish; it'll never be finished ) adding the early minors... Awesome if you tackle some of those in the meantime!

Originally Posted by asrivkin

I'm considering writing a blog post somewhere that talks about how I do research for the ballparks, I'll post a link in my thread if/when I do.

I very much look forward to reading that!

[thehef]

FYI: The attached has been updated to include the following parks:

MINOR LEAGUE PARKS
Modern Woodmen Park (Quad Cities, IA), by Flying_Canuck
State Mutual Stadium (Rome, GA), Flying_Canuck
Royal Athletic Park (II), 1978-2010 (Victoria BC0, by Flying_Canuck
Bay Side Park, 1913-30 (Portland, ME), by asrivkin
West End Park, 1907-27 (Houston), by asrivkin
Wearn Field, 1908-36 (Charlotte), by asrivkin
McNulty Park, 1919-29 (Tulsa), by asrivkin
Island Park (aka Ackerman Park) 1909-33 (Wichita), by asrivkin
Skeeters Park (aka West Side Park), 1902-33 (Jersey City), by asrivkin
Anchorage Base Ball Park, 1920's era (Anchorage), by asrivkin
Arm & Hammer Park (Mercer County Waterfront Park), 1994- (Trenton, NJ), by eriqjaffe; not a new, but I just noticed it

FEDERAL LEAGUE PARKS
Handlan's Park (St Louis), by asrivkin
Federal League Park (aka Greenlawn Park, Indianapolis), by asrivkin
Federal League Park (in International Fair Association Grounds, Buffalo), by asrivkin
Harrison Park (aka Peppers Park, Newark), by asrivkin

If anybody has any corrections or other updates please let me know.

[thehef]

Another update... This time just a few parks added in the attached...

Swayne Field, Toledo, by asrivkin
Fariview Field (aka Allentown Fairgrounds Field), Allentown, by asrivkin
Labatt Memorial Park, London, Ontario, by Flying_Canuck
Shaw Park (aka Blue Cross Park), Winnipeg, by Flying_Canuck
Viladecans Olympic Stadium, Barcenlona, Spain, Flying_Canuck

Note that the attachment in this post and the one in the OP are the same...

Just a reminder that this file is generally for minor league parks, which - for both OOTP's purposes and my own - include the Federal League and Negro Leagues. I also include a few foreign and other parks here and there if they look to me like they'd be useful to use as generic parks to fill gaps (where there is no minor league 3D park available). At this point I'm not including asrivkin's really awesome 19th century MLB parks, but at some point I might and I also mention them at the bottom of the file.

If anybody has any corrections or other updates please let me know.