Figural Row Ends - Volume 5 - NL West

Continuing the "Figural Row Ends" series, next profiled is the National League West. All five parks have were either built or renovated since 1995 and have interesting designs on their row ends.

AT&T Park

AT&T Park (formerly known as Pacific Bell Park and SBC Park) has been the home of the San Francisco Giants since 2000. Their row end design is quite simple. Just the Giants SF cap logo with a diamond and crossing bats. With all of the name changes that the park has had, the team was quite fortunate to go with a team-centric design rather than the sponsor's name.

Chase Field

Chase Field (formerly Bank One Ballpark), like AT&T went with a team-centric design. With the park's name change and team identity changes since 1998, the "A" logo actually is still relevant and in use.

Coors Field

Coors Field has been the home of the Rockies since their third season in 1995. All of the stadium's seats are green except for one row in the upper deck which is purple (pictured). Coors' row ends utilize a modified version of the Rockies primary logo with the flying ball/mountain/arch.

Dodger Stadium

When Dodger Stadium opened in 1962, the seats were the same color scheme as now but made of wood. Sometime in the late 70's early 80's the colors changed and the wood seats were replaced with plastic. Neither the first nor second generation of Dodgers Stadium seats had row ends. In 2006, the stadium's original color scheme was restored and with it the team added their "LA" logo to the row ends.

Of all the bad the McCourt ownership has brought to the franchise, if they did one good thing it was the color scheme restoration.

PETCO Park

Opened in 2004, PETCO Park is the newest ballpark in the NL West. Like the others, it too has a cool row end design. Unlike the others though, PETCO's actually have the corporate sponsor's name on them.

Though the name of the company hasn't changed, Petco (corporation) recently announced a re-branding. In the past the company's name was always represented in all caps. In the new version, its all lowercase. As far as I know, the Padres haven't changed the ballpark logo (which features the "all caps" Petco wordmark) yet.

New Marlins Ballpark

Lots of little details have been leaking out about the New Marlins Ballpark. The dome is progressing quite nicely as you can see in this webcam capture below.



Another detail that leaked this week is the figural row ends for the ballpark. With no naming sponsor for the park yet, the Fish seem to be going with their new "M" logo for the ends:
Image Per Uni-Watch

Also released this week is the Marlins new "Home Run Celebration" art piece. The Mets' apple is great. I like the Phillies' neon bell, Bernie's slide etc, but this thing is weird. Judge for yourself...

Per Biz of Baseball
I lived in Miami for four years (undergrad at U of Miami) and as strange as the new logo and HR celebration seem, they really do represent the city quite well. The park is set to open on April 4, 2012 vs the Cardinals. I hope to get down there sometime in the first few months of the season.

Check out construction progress: Here
Check out renderings: Here

Figural Row Ends - Volume 4 - AL East

Continuing the "Figural Row Ends" series, next profiled is the American League East. Four of the five parks have figural row ends and all four opened after 1990. Fenway Park, which opened in 1914, does not have them.


Yankee Stadium

The new Yankee Stadium's row ends feature the Yanks' interlocking NY logo throughout the park. The park opened in 2009 and has already hosted a World Series.


Rogers Centre

Rogers Centre opened in 1991 as the Skydome. The row ends originally featured the Skydome logo, but when the name was changed a few years ago, each dome logo was covered up by the grey plastic Rogers Centre Logo. On a few of the rows in the upper deck, fans actually removed the grey plastic and you can see the original Skydome logos.


Tropicana Field

Tropicana Field's row ends do not feature the current logo for the park or even the Rays logo. The logo on the row ends is actually the Florida Suncoast Dome logo. This was the name and logo of the dome when it first opened in the early 1990's.


Oriole Park at Camden Yards

The row ends at Camden Yards feature the Orioles "Baltimore Baseball Club" logo. I've heard that the player in the middle is supposed to represent Hall of Famer Wee Willier Keeler who played for the National League Baltimore Orioles in the late 1800's. Its a classic logo and its cast into the steel of each row end. A very nice touch at an incredible ballpark.

Fenway Park

Fenway Park does not have row ends in any part of the ballpark. Although row ends were at ballparks from the early 1900's, Fenway's original grandstand seats do not have them. Most of the rest of the seats were replaced from the 1970's on, but also do not feature figurals.

Check out these and thousands of other photos at StadiumPage.com.

Figural Row Ends - Volume 3 - NL Central

Continuing the "Figural Row Ends" series, next profiled is the National League Central. Five of the six parks were built since 2000 and have figural row ends. Wrigley Field, which opened in 1914, does not have them.


Great American Ball Park

Great American Ball Park's row ends feature the Reds' "wishbone c" logo throughout the park. GABP is one of only two parks in the majors to feature red seats.


Busch Stadium

The other red seat park is Busch Stadium. Busch's row ends are quite nice. They have the Cards' "bird on bat" logo cast into the seat post and the features of the logo painted on. It is clearly one of the best and well thought out in the entire league.


Miller Park

Miller Park has green seats and throughout the park on the row ends feature the above logo. It appears to be a giant batter hovering over the Miller Park dome. I don't know the significance of the logo, but it is also on the park's dedication plaque.


Minute Maid Park

Minute Maid Park, formerly Enron Field, features the above row ends. Luckily for the Astros, they did not incorporate the Enron Field logo on to the row ends. This logo is actually also the logo for Houston's Union Station, the rail station that neighbors MMP. I don't know if this logo is a historic one or if it only dates back to the renovation of Union Station that was part of the ballpark's construction. In the planning stages of the ballpark, it was actually known as "The Ballpark at Union Station".


PNC Park

PNC Park is one of the better parks in MLB. It features a simple Pirates logo on its row ends. Since yellow or black would be odd seat color choices for a MLB park, they went with blue. (The neighboring Heinz Field football stadium actually does have yellow seats.)


Wrigley Field

As I mentioned above, Wrigley Field does not have row end figurals. Since all of its seats are plastic, the seat posts likely only date back to the 1970's which was a dead period of sorts for these ornaments. I have never seen any pre-plastic era seats for Wrigley that feature these.

Check out these and thousands of other photos at StadiumPage.com.

Figural Row Ends - Volume 2 - AL Central

Continuing the "Figural Row Ends" series, next profiled is the American League Central. All five parks were either built or renovated since 1994 and all have figural row ends.


Target Field

The new home of the AL Central champions is Target Field. The seat posts are of the same model as Citi Field, and as such have "sticker" logos. As you can see in this picture, the Twins installed wooden seats in some of the club areas. An interesting throwback to ballparks of the past. The only other current parks with any wooden seats are Fenway Park and Dodger Stadium.


Comerica Park

Comerica Park, home of the Detroit Tigers, also has an interesting row end setup. They depict a tiger in a batting stance. This is actually a throwback to the original row ends at Tiger Stadium (then known as Briggs Stadium). Its a really nice touch that appears on every seat row in the ballpark.


US Cellular Field

US Cellular Field was renovated in parts throughout the 2000's. The park opened with non-descript blue seat posts which had no figural row ends. (At right in the above image.) After the renovations, all rows in the park now are dark green with various White Sox logos. The above picture features the 80's "Sox" logo.


Progressive Field

The row ends at Progressive Field in Cleveland have an outline of the field's dimensions with the silhouette of a batter mid swing.


Kauffman Stadium

With Kauffman Stadium's recent renovation which was completed for opening Day 2009, all seats now are blue with a painted on Royals logo.

Check out these and thousands of other photos at StadiumPage.com.

Figural Row Ends - Volume 1 - NL East

"Figural Row Ends" (aka Figural Seats) are the logos that are cast on the end of a row at a ballpark. I'm sure they go unnoticed by most fans, but they're an interesting touch that really personalizes the ballpark. Sometimes they have the park's logo and sometimes the team's logo. While a lot of the multipurpose stadiums from the 60's and 70's did not have this feature, the tradition goes back to baseball's beginnings. They were seen in parks as far back as Cincinnati's Crosley Field and New York's Polo Grounds.

In this blog entry, I'll go through the figural row ends of the National League East.


Citizens Bank Park

Starting with the three-time defending champs of the NL East, the Citizens Bank Park row ends feature the team's logo. With the ballpark's large neon liberty bell that rings for home runs, it was natural for the Phillies to use the liberty bell logo on the seat ends. Along with the bell is the Phillies script logo.


Citi Field

The NL East's newest ballpark, Citi Field, features two different row ends. The two logos alternate from row to row. One row has the Mets logo and the next has the Citi Field logo. Unlike most of the row ends in the league, Citi Field's are actually just a blank circle on the iron with a big sticker on it. While it seems cheap, its probably a good idea to have replacable logos when your naming sponsor is basically under government control.


Turner Field

The row ends at Turner Field in Atlanta are very interesting. The red script Braves logo catches the eye, but behind it seems to be a silhouette of the great Hank Aaron in a home run swing. Behind Hammerin' Hank is the outline of a baseball field. Its all cast in iron right on the row end.


Nationals Ballpark

Nationals Ballpark keeps it pretty simple. A simple version of the Nationals' "Curly W" logo is cast onto the side of the seat post.


SunLife Stadium

At SunLife Stadium (formerly Dolphin Stadium and Landshark Stadium), the row ends feature the logo not of the stadium or the Marlins, but the logo of Marlins current landlord the Miami Dolphins. With the Marlins slated to open their new park in 2012 this will change.

Check out these and many other images at StadiumPage.com.