There are a few cases that necessitate some remarks, in which the city that the ballpark is located in isn't the largest in that city's metropolitan area. Texas Rangers is based in Arlington, the third largest city in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area. Home of the Rays, St. Petersburg, is smaller than the city of Tampa. Anaheim is also part of the Los Angeles area. Nevertheless, because all of these cities are of fairly large size (all around 200K - 300K in population), it's fair to consider the distance from their center to the baseball for this exercise. Finally, it's worthy to note that the center location for New York was given as Broadway & Chamber St. in Lower Manhattan. While this location was indeed used for this exercise, it's important to note that there are tenable arguments for pushing Midtown Manhattan as the "center" of the city.
Here are the ranking in distance from the baseball stadium to the chosen city center:
Team | City | BallPark | Mile |
Mets | New York | Citi Field | 10.1 |
Yankees | New York | Yankee Stadium | 9.3 |
Royals | Kansas City | Kauffman Stadium | 7.6 |
Athletics | Oakland | The Coliseum | 5.8 |
Cubs | Chicago | Wrigley Field | 5.1 |
Brewers | Milwaukee | Miller Park | 4.2 |
White Sox | Chicago | US Cellular Field | 3.8 |
Phillies | Philadelphia | Citizens Bank Park | 3.6 |
Angels | Anaheim | Angel Stadium | 3.5 |
Nationals | Washington, DC | Nationals Park | 2.6 |
Rangers | Arlington | Rangers Ballpark | 2.3 |
Red Sox | Boston | Fenway Park | 2.2 |
Dodgers | Los Angeles | Dodgers Stadium | 2.1 |
Giants | San Francisco | AT&T Park | 2.0 |
Rockies | Denver | Coors Field | 1.4 |
Blue Jays | Toronto | Rogers Centre | 1.2 |
Mariners | Seattle | Safeco Stadium | 1.1 |
Braves | Atlanta | Turner Field | 1.0 |
Astros | Houston | Minute Maid Park | 1.0 |
Marlins | Miami | Marlins Park | 1.0 |
Rays | St. Petersburg | Tropicana Field | 1.0 |
Orioles | Baltimore | Oriole Park | 0.9 |
Twins | Minneapolis | Target Field | 0.9 |
Pirates | Pittsburgh | PNC Park | 0.8 |
Indians | Cleveland | Progressive Field | 0.7 |
Padres | San Diego | PETCO Park | 0.7 |
Tigers | Detriot | Comerica Park | 0.6 |
Diamondbacks | Phoenix | Chase Field | 0.4 |
Cardinals | St. Louis | Busch Stadium | 0.4 |
Reds | Cincinnati | Great American Ballpark | 0.3 |
Over half of the stadiums are located within 2 miles of the city center. At a first glance, it seems as though big cities have stadiums further out of the city center. This certainly is true for New York and Chicago. Indeed, Yankees and Mets have stadiums in The Bronx and Queens, respectively, away from the central business locations of Midtown or Downtown. White Sox and Cubs are known for being the team of "South Side" and "North Side," respectively. It may seem intuitive that for cities like New York and Chicago, with already heavily crowded downtown centers and limited parking spots, it may be more reasonable to have the ballpark crowds away from these centers. For smaller cities like Cleveland, sport events are great sources to attract people to be around downtown.
This is merely a hypothesis. In any event, even under such assumption, cities like Kansas City and Milwaukee are high on the rankings, seeming to contradict the trend. Bigger cities like Houston and San Diego are near the bottom of the rankings. It's important to note that other factors play into the location of the stadiums. While this exercise may give some insight, it's far from the comprehensive picture.
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