Blue Jays: Rogers Centre gets failing grade in recent stadium rankings

The Washington Post authored a recent MLB stadium guide while ranking all 30 MLB stadiums around the league. The Toronto Blue Jays retractable cement palace ranked 27th on their list of baseball stadiums.

The MLB stadiums were ranked by a group of Nationals experts that included Thomas Boswell, Chelsea Janes, Adam Kilgore, Lacy Lusk, and Dave Sheinin. The 1st rank sandlot was no other than AT&T Park where the San Francisco Giants call home.

Finishing behind the Rogers Centre was the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum (A’s – 28th), Guaranteed Rate Field (White Sox- 29th) and last but not least, the often empty Tropicana Field (Rays- 30th). In case you’re wondering Baltimore finished 3rd, Fenway 4th, and Yankee Stadium 11th respectively.

The guide also campaigned players for their insight on the respective ballparks. Former Blue Jay Adam Lind called the Rogers Centre home for 9 seasons and had this to say about playing on the turf at the dome.

“It’s definitely weird. When I was there, it was all carpet except for the five dirt patches. But they tried to figure it out year-to-year. Sometimes it was fast, sometimes it was obnoxiously slow. You couldn’t even hit a groundball to the wall. Sometimes it played to our advantage at home – bloopers bounced over fielders’ heads, turned into triples. It was just carpet, then cement. The Rogers family is a business-oriented group, so every road trip, the field is gone for concerts. It was a lot of seams, just square patches. There were some guys who got some black eyes from bad hops.” — Nationals first baseman Adam Lind

Oddly enough the experts highly recommended the buffalo cauliflower poutine while catching a game north of the border. In all my years attending the Rogers Centre, I have not eaten nor heard about this very un-Canadian concoction and have trouble understanding why anyone would add a vegetable to cheese curds and gravy.

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The poll mentions the CN Tower Edge Walk as having a view harder to beat than the 1992 Blue Jays while poking fun at the “Ok Blue Jays” song during the 7th inning stretch.

The article failed to mention the overpriced American beer although a couple of readers recounted their Rogers Centre memories and it involved a limited beer selection while they were in attendance.

All in all, I take the rankings with a grain of salt and realize the Skydome will never be as eloquent as some of the other yards around the league, however, 27th seems a bit harsh.

On the bright side, it never rains in our house and you are always guaranteed to see a game after making the trek to the city plus in our park bat flips are heard around the world.

Next: Blue Jays: Imagining what the 2020 lineup looks like

See the complete stadium rankings HERE.