Choosing the Best Ballparks

Miller Park is among my favorites, but maybe I am biased.

The New York Times has a new post rating the ballparks. Nate Silver, who famously used sophisticated formulas to predict the 2008 elections at his fivethirtyeight.com, used ratings from Yelp.com to determine how fans feel about major league stadiums.

It's not scientific, and Silver has no information regarding why PNC Park, home of the Pittsburgh Pirates, rates as the best stadium.

Silver speculates that teams that spent money for a retractable dome might regret it because those parks didn't rate well. But I bet if you asked fans at those ballparks on a cold or rainy day their ratings would skyrocket.

Silver's sole basis for his ratings is an analysis of yelp.com stadium ratings. Other than being good for bar (and blogger!) talk, I'm not sure Yelp's ratings are meaningful.