There are two problems with this text. The first is that it was written not for the baseball fan, but for the architect. The writers focus more on the design and construction of the parks than on the historic moments that etch the ballparks in our minds. That, however, can be forgiven. The biggest problem lies in the editing - or the lack thereof. Errors pop up nearly every other page of text. This ranges from spelling errors to grammatical errors to just plain lazy stupid errors. There are several notes about where pictures are supposed to go that were left in the text. There are points where dates are wrong (like a park's opening date occurring after the last game was played) and other reviews I've read have even mentioned other factual errors. Also, they updated the book for the 2010 season and the copyright page says the book was published in 2007. On top of that, they never went in to update other things, so it says things like "the ballpark is scheduled to open for the start of the 2007 season." My favorite aside from the picture notes was when they talked about the best built ballparks from the "2th" century.
A few simple mistakes are excusable, but the amount of errors in this book prove that this was never meant to be anything except a coffee table book. There are some nice pictures of ballparks, so if you are really into the architectural design of ballparks, you may enjoy this book. Otherwise...save your time and money.
Rating: 1.5 out of 5 stars
(84/100)
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