Incorrect Minor League Ballparks

[mdtwnkfey]

Sorry if this is in the wrong place. I used to put this stuff in the roster set errors thread in previous years, which I noticed has now been moved into this forum. And before I start, I do want to thank the developers for making some of the corrections I mentioned last spring (stadiums in Biloxi, El Paso, Richmond, etc.)

This is a list I have compiled of stadiums that are incorrect in minor and foreign leagues. I have noticed these since at least OOTP 15, if not before. Some of these are a result of teams moving (such as the Carolina Mudcats to Pensacola), naming changes (e.g. Reno's ballpark), new stadiums being built (e.g. First Tennessee Park for the Nashville Sounds), are assigned to the wrong team (e.g. the Chiba Lotte Marines are playing at Tropicana Field in St. Pete). Some lower level and foreign teams are at stadiums which I assume are fictional.

These errors have been in the game many years, some since 2009. For someone who plays the minor leagues extensively like myself, I'd really love to see them finally be corrected! I am accustomed to spending some hours fixing these each time a new OOTP comes out. I understand these are issues in the master build of the game, and not the database, according to this post from last spring.

Feel free to add if you have more, or correct me as necessary. These are all corrections from last year's game, I'm sure some new stadiums opened this spring.

Pensacola Blue Wahoos should be at Pensacola Bayfront Stadium, not Five County Stadium, they moved from Carolina in 2012
Carolina Mudcats play at Five County Stadium, moved from Grainger Stadium in 2012
Bradenton Marauders at Calvin Falwell Field (Lynchburg Hillcats' stadium). Should be McKechnie Field
Lynchburg Hillcats listed at Ed Smith Field (Orioles ST home). Should be at Falwell
Hillsboro Hops Ballpark is Ron Tonkin Field, as in the Gulf of. Not Tonklin
Toledo Mud Hens and Dayton Dragons both play at stadiums named "Fifth Third Field". There are two in the game, however both teams are playing at the same one. The two stadiums in real life have different capacities and dimensions, so one of the two in-game should have different ballpark factors and capacity
Chiba Lotte Marines are playing at Tropicana Field, should be QVC Marine Stadium
Reno Aces' ballpark now called "Greater Nevada Field"
Columbia Fireflies' stadium has a capacity of 7501, not 8500
Nashville Sounds began play at First Tennessee Park in 2015, no longer at Greer Stadium


Arizona League
(this affects spring training games too it seems)
Dodgers still playing at their Florida Stadium, moved to Cactus/AZL in 2009
Athletics moved in 2015 to Hohokam Park from Papago Park/Phoenix Stadium
Reds have played at Goodyear Ballpark since 2010, not at Ed Smith Stadium in Grapefruit/GCL

Gulf Coast League
(also affects ST I'm guessing)
Yankees West playing at "Timberwolves Stadium", whatever that is. Should be Steinbrenner Field
Mets at "Ensigns Ballpark". Should be Tradition Field
Rays at "Louisville Grounds". Should be Charlotte Sports Park
Astros at "Ballpark of Belvedere". Should be at Osceola County Stadium
Tigers West at "Hackers Ballpark". Should be Joker Marchant Stadium

[groberts619]

Thanks for your post, it should be a big help with all the errors you mentioned that I was not aware of. I've also tried reporting some of the errors I've found to OOTP but I've never received any response back. There is also:

West Virginia Black Bears listed at Russell Diethrick Stadium. The Jamestown Jammers played there when they were the Pirates affiliate. Should be Monongalia County Ballpark for the Black Bears.

Hartford Yard Goats listed at New Britain Stadium. Rockies recently changed affiliates from the now defunct New Britain Rock Cats. The Yard Goats currently play at Senator Thomas J. Dodd Memorial Stadium in Norwich, CT until their new facility opens in a couple of months, Dunkin' Donuts Park in Hartford.

[Lukas Berger]

The info is much appreciated.

We'll try to find the time to deal with all of this soon, but no promises as to just when we can get to it.

[BigRed75]

Along those same lines...

The Tampa Bay Rays play in St. Petersburg, Florida, not Tampa, Florida
The Greenville Drive play in Greenville, South Carolina, not Greenville, North Carolina
The Delmarva Shorebirds play in Salisbury, Maryland, not Salisbury, North Carolina
The Burlington Bees play in Burlington, Iowa, not Burlington, North Carolina
The Charlotte Knights play in Charlotte, North Carolina. They left Fort Mill, South Carolina when they moved to their new ballpark (which is correct in the game)
In addition to the incorrect stadium listed above, the Hartford Yard Goats play in Hartford, Connecticut, not New Britain, Connecticut.

The Drive and Shorebirds errors have been in the game for as long as I can remember. I know I'm not the first person to report them. Frankly, I'm sick of fixing them every year.

[groberts619]

Just another update. There are a few teams in the DSL with fictional ballparks. Here are the ones I found:

-Diamondbacks 2 play in Baseball City Complex, not Moonmen Ballpark.
-Cubs 1 play at Chicago Cubs Complex, which isn't listed, not Baseball City Complex.
-Cubs 2 also play at Chicago Cubs Complex, not Ballpark of Villa Jaragua.
-Astros Blue play at Houston Astros Blue Complex, not Houston Astros Complex Orange. Keep in mind, Houston Astros Blue Complex is slightly misspelled with a space before Houston, so you would find it at the very beginning of the list before A in alphabetical order.
-Astros Orange play in Houston Astros Complex Orange, not Houston Astros Blue Complex.
-Dodgers 2 play in Las Palmas Complex, not Ballpark of Castanuelas.
-Phillies 2 play in Philadelphia Phillies Complex, not Jicome Grounds.
-Rays 2 play in Tampa Bay Rays Complex, not Twisters Ballpark.
-Rangers 2 play in Texas Rangers Complex, not Pittsburgh Pirates Complex.

[Spritze]

I gave BidRed75 the teams/cities/ballpark names file for updating a few weeks ago but he seems to have not fixed it nor sent it back.

If someone else wishes to volunteer I would be pleased to send them the file.

[BigRed75]

Sorry I hadn't gotten back to you Spritze - the historical file actually looks pretty good - I'm not seeing the errors in the historical file that seem to show up in the quickstart as listed above. Not sure what else to say/do with that file.

I remember reading somewhere that the changes to the master build are a Markus thing? Is that still the case?

[thehef]

Hi All... I just realized this thread existed and wish I would've seen it sooner. Back in April/May I provided a file to BigRod (who sent it to Spritze, who presumably compliled it and sent it to OOTP) of minor-league ballpark names. Under the assumption that I will providing an updated file at some point (maybe for inclusion for OOTP v18?), I would be happy to include any corrections, updates, additions, etc., that any of you might have. That said, here's some background...

1. Where applicable, I used the common park name rather than the full name. For example, for the ballpark in Utica in the 40's I used McConnell Field rather than the full name of Ambrose M. McConnell field. My thinking was that the common name would look better when used in OOTP text.

2. There were numerous occasions of parks that have been named simply "League Park" or "Athletic Field." If there was also an "aka" for these, such as "Bears Park" or "5th Street Field" then I went with the aka because, well, it adds more color than a generic name, IMO.

3. Other times, where an aka wasn't found, I often added the name of the city to distinguish these short/generic/frequenty-used park names. Examples: Greenwood Legion Field instead of Legion Field; Wasau Athletic Park instead of Athletic Park; Bradford Community Park instead of Community Park...

4. For about 45 parks (covering about 85 city-team/years) where I was unable to find any information on a park's name, I used the format of [name of city] followed by "City Ball Field." for example, for the Franklin, VA teams that played from '48-'50, the ball park name I used was Franklin City Ball Field. If you know the actual name for any of these ballparks, please let me know!!! EDIT: this number is actually lower (20 ballparks over 35 city-team/years; the rest are for teams/seasons that have not yet made it into OOTP yet).

5. I added ballpark names for VSL and DSL teams. However, I wasn't able to find much info on actual park names. Most of the names were assigned by me as simply "Dodgers Field" or "Red Sox Field" and so forth. This is true for ALL of the VSL, however some of the DSL varies a bit... EDIT: VSL & DSL is not yet in OOTP historical minors.

6. For the Gulf Coast League, especially back into its early years, the park names were a guess based upon the fields that appeared to exist in those cities at the time. Available info was sometimes sketchy, but these are pretty educated guesses and should be mostly (?) correct.

7. For teams that moved mid-season, I used the final destination ballpark. An exception to this would be if a team moved temporarily, in the middle of the season, due to a tornado or fire or something like that, then moved back by the following season. This exception may not be a strict rule, though.

8. Several parks changed names, often based upon the name of their team and/or affiliate. A good example is the park in Columbus, OH originally known as Red Bird Stadium: Once the team became known as the Jets, the park became Jets Stadium. It was later renamed Franklin County Stadium, and then Cooper Stadium. I generally went with these names as they were known at the time, with the changes when they occurred (as best that I could determine). For various reasons, that simply made the most sense.

9. Unlike that which is common with MLB ballparks, I do not use I, II, III... indicators to designate the iteration or version of a ballpark. In the minors, these designations - especially as we go back a few decades or more - would be mostly unofficial, not always based upon solid info, and often there are often conflicting accounts & definitions... And, IMO, it looks ridiculous in pbp text to see "Welcome to City Island Ballpark III," so I don't see the point.

10. For reasons to which I'm not privy, some ballpark names (that I provided) ended up as blank in the csv file (which means OOTP will generate one). Probably has to do with the ballparks being just a small tail-end part of an overall massive historical minor-leagues endeavor, and some things may have gotten overlooked...

At any rate, feel free to post corrections, updates, additions, etc.

Finally, re post 1 from mdtwnkfey, post 2 from grobets619, and post 4 from BigRed75, I don't believe the source for those parks, etc., needing correction is the same as the source for the historical minor league teams that was introduced into OOTP17. The reason I say that is because nearly all of the corrections in those three posts were not incorrect in my file. Rather, I'm guessing the source is some other file that OOTP uses for adding recent minor leagues. (Perhaps the quickstart that BigRed75 mentions immediately above, which would make sense since post 5 from groberts619 includes DSL corrections, and DSL is not yet included in OOTP minors history.)

[Spritze]

A small number of HISTORICAL minor league ballparks were changed and will show in OOTP18.

The vast majority of incorrect ballparks are in the standard and quickstart games. OOTP does not currently share information between its various modes.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by BigRed75

In addition to the incorrect stadium listed above, the Hartford Yard Goats play in Hartford, Connecticut, not New Britain, Connecticut.

Hartford 'home' games were played at a variety of parks in 2016:

3 games at Altoona, PA (vs. Altoona)
10 games at Binghamton, NY (7 vs. Binghamton, 3 vs. Portland)
4 games at Bowie, MD (vs. Bowie)
2 games at Harrisburg, PA (vs. Harrisburg)
11 games at Manchester, NH (3 vs. Richmond, 8 vs. Harrisburg)
6 games at New Hampshire (vs. New Hampshire)
19 games at Norwich, CT (3 vs. Akron, 3 vs. Bowie, 3 vs. Erie, 3 vs. Portland, 3 vs. Trenton, 4 vs. New Hampshire)
4 games at Portland, ME (vs. Portland)
3 games at Reading, PA (vs. Reading)
4 games at Richmond, VA (vs. Richmond)
3 games at Trenton, NJ (vs. Trenton)

(The attendance for Hartford, as given at MILB.com for 2016, was 41,569. But this figure only reflects some of the club's 'home' games for the season: there were 7 'home' games for which no attendance data was reported in the box score, all of which were played at Binghamton, NY.)

[bwburke94]

Interestingly, Dunkin Donuts Park in Hartford is in OOTP 17, but no team is listed as playing there.

[PSUColonel]

I am noticing a number of Korean ballparks which are now out of date.

[thehef]

Originally Posted by thehef

4. For about 45 parks (covering about 85 city-team/years) where I was unable to find any information on a park's name, I used the format of [name of city] followed by "City Ball Field." for example, for the Franklin, VA teams that played from '48-'50, the ball park name I used was Franklin City Ball Field. If you know the actual name for any of these ballparks, please let me know!!! EDIT: this number is actually lower (20 ballparks over 35 city-team/years; the rest are for teams/seasons that have not yet made it into OOTP yet).

For any minor league history buffs, I would invite you to open your MiLBTeams.csv file, and filter on ballpark names that include "City Ball Field." And if you happen to know the real name of that park, let me know!

[PSUColonel]

Another bump as a reminder

[bwburke94]

Originally Posted by PSUColonel

Another bump as a reminder

This is one of the bigger legacy issues in OOTP. I'm hoping for a fix.

[Spritze]

16,931 Ballparks have been updated for OOTP18 Historical Leagues.

The same info is available for the Standard League, Quickstarts, Rooster Makers and all the rest if they choose to update their files. I do not know those details.

[Lukas Berger]

Originally Posted by PSUColonel

Another bump as a reminder

It's on my list

[pstrickert]

Originally Posted by Spritze

16,931 Ballparks have been updated for OOTP18 Historical Leagues.

Minor league ballparks, correct? I updated the era_ballparks.txt file to match info from Seamheads. Not ballpark factors, but name, capacity, dimensions. I ask because I hope we didn't duplicate some of the same work.

[Spritze]

This update was names only. Minor Leagues. Contact thehef for more duplication of effort info since if you used some different names than himself did your data may be skipped in that instance. I'm just guessing.

[PSUColonel]

Reading & Richmond need to flip divisions in the Eastern League. The Divisions in the Eastern League are East & West....NOT north & south.


This entire list needs reviewing, as I can see none of it has been changed since last year.