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Green Cathedrals: The Ultimate Celebration of All Major League Ballparks | 
 enlarge | Author: Philip Lowry
Publisher: Walker & Company
Category: Book
List Price: $26.95
Buy New: $3.95
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Rating:  5 reviews
Sales Rank: 289435
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 352
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.3
Dimensions (in): 11 x 8.8 x 1.1
ISBN: 0802715621
Dewey Decimal Number: 796.35706873
EAN: 9780802715623
ASIN: 0802715621
Publication Date: October 31, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Green Cathedrals is a celebration of the sport of baseball, through the lens of its ballparks—the “fields of dreams” of players and fans alike. In all, some 405 ballparks have, over time, hosted a Major League or Negro League game, and each one of them is given its due, from hard statistics about dimensions to nostalgic and current photographs, to anecdotes that will inspire the memories of fans all over the country. From Fenway Park and Gus Greenlee Field (home of the Homestead Grays and Pittsburgh Crawfords), to Ebbets Field, Camden Yards, and the brand-new parks that have opened in the past two years, Green Cathedrals presents a cavalcade of the most beautiful sporting venues in history. Fully revised and updated since its previous edition a decade ago, with more than 130 new ballparks and hundreds of new photographs, Green Cathedrals is an essential reference for baseball aficionados and a perfect gift for baseball fans everywhere.
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| Customer Reviews:
Great Reference, Tough to Read, Disappointing Design October 8, 2008
As ballpark reference books go, none is better than this one. Most if not all of the other ballpark books take their details from this. It's the best there is.
The updated version increases the number of parks covered, which is good in a way and bad in a way. On the one hand, it increases the thoroughness substantially. On the other, many of the ballparks included are pretty obscure and will be of only minimal interest to many ballpark fans.
The greatest disappointment is that the formatting is more or less the same as the last edition, and very hard to use as a reference or even to just browse.
The book is organized by city first, then by ballpark chronologically. But there are not page breaks by ballpark or even city. This means that one entry runs right into the next, with the ballpark entry titles only slightly larger than the subheadings, and the city titles only slightly larger than that (though there is a line to separate cities). This makes it hard for the eye to understand the organization.
At a minimum, entries for the current major league parks should be given different visual treatment from parks of other categories (i.e. current minor league parks, former major league parks, Negro League parks, etc.).
Additionally, the tops of the pages only contain the title of the book, rather than showing which city or ballpark is covered on the page (like you might find in a dictionary, encyclopedia, bible or even a phone book).
There is a fine index, but this shouldn't really be necessary because of the book's rock-solid organization.
This would be a greater and more useful publication if a graphic artist were employed for page layout and visual organization, and if the paper were of a higher quality that would allow for color photos (the book contains only black and white).
Beyond this, maps (perhaps with rough diagrams superimposed for those which are gone) would be immensely helpful for determining actual locations and configurations. It can be maddening to match old street names to current maps.
But I want to make it clear that I love this book, and it makes a great (if sometimes frustrating) reference.
 Green Cathedrals: a review. November 11, 2007
When I first received the book 'Green Cathedrals' in the mail I was initially disappointed in that all the photographs are in black and white. However once I really examined the book I realized this book is truly unique in that it is the only book I am aware of that lists every ballfield ever used by a major league team or negro league team. This book required a ton of research. For example, if you ever wondered where the 1876 New York Mutuals of the National League played (I Have), this book has the answer. It includes the street names surrounding the park. This book is for a true baseball historians.
If this book is ever revised I'd love to see it made into several volumes. One for the Negro league, one for the early (wooden ballbarks), one for the classic era (Steel and concrete), such as Forbes Field, Ebbet's Field, etc., one for the multi-purpose era, and one for existing and future parks. I'd love to see it include the best available photographs of each. I'd buy the whole set.
 Good reference but short on photo's July 28, 2007
Author Philllip Lowry did a nice job of reserach, and the result is an excellent reference source on big and minor league ballparks of past and present. But there are far too few photos (or illustrations) to give the reader an accurate feel for these wonderful green cathedrals. Also, I have the earlier (1992) edition which lacks much updated information on the many big-league ballparks (and some minor league ones as well) that entered the arena during the 1990's and 2000's.
Baseball fans will love it. December 12, 2006
Green Cathedrals: The Ultimate Celebration of Major League and Negro League Ballparks offers up a history of each of the ballparks that have hosted Major League and Negro League baseball, and appears in a revised, updated edition which has seen many changes since its initial appearance a decade ago. Over a hundred new ballparks and hundreds of new photos make for essentially a different presentation, covering each park's location, dimensions, capacity, and history. Baseball fans will love it.
Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch
Lowry Missed the Boat to Cuba November 14, 2006
7 out of 16 found this review helpful
I have just received from SABR a copy of the new revised edition of Phil Lowry's long-awaited latest version of GREEN CATHEDRALS (Walker & Company). I can't judge the overall quality or accuracy, since I am not a ballparks expert. But if the two entries on Cuban ballparks (pp.96-97) are any measure, than there is much to be judged as most disappointing. It is a shame that Lowry didn't have the Cuba entries checked by someone who knew anything at all about Cuban ballparks.
The first stadium, El Cerro or Gran Stadium is named incorrectly as Estadio Gran (which would be totally inappropriate in Spanish; it should be Gran Estadio del Cerro). It is also indicated that the occupant was the Negro National League Havana Cuban Stars of 1920, an absurdity, of course, because the Negro leagues club of that name played in the States (not Havana) and this park was not built until 1946, long after the team's demise.
The July 25, 1959 Cuban Sugar Kings contest (the one with the shooting incident) that is mentioned in the text was played before a crowd estimated at 25,000 (not 2572, as given by Lowry).
Gran Estadio was built in 1946 and was the first and only park on this site in the Cerro neighborhood. There was no Gran Stadium II which replaced some number one version as Lowry states. (He is apparently confusing the two Almendares ballparks: Almendares Park I (original home of the pro Cuban League) was destroyed by a hurricane in 1926 and promptly replaced by Almendares Park II, which gave way in the early 1930s to La Tropical Stadium. There has only ever been one Gran Stadium (Cerro Stadium), which was renamed Latin American Stadium in 1971 by the Castro government, on the occasion of its refurbishing that year for the Amateur World Series.
The second stadium listed by Lowry is Estadio Cerveza Tropicale, which was technically Gran Stadium Cerveceria Tropical (or familiarly La Tropical Stadium). It has no E at the end of the name.
The occupant is listed as the NNL Cubans but again this was not a stadium used by a Negro leagues team (for "neutral cite games" as Lowry has it). It was a stadium which housed Cuban amateur play and also the bulk of Cuban League pro games between 1930 and 1946. It was perhaps most famous for hosting the Amateur World Series games of 1939, 1940 and 1941.
Lowry claims the park was built in 1930 for the Pan American Games. The Pan Am Games didn't start until 1951; the park was built to hold the second Central American and Caribbean Games in the fall of 1930.
Lowry lists current uses for the park (today called Estadio Pepe Marrero, after a minor hero of the 1950s revolution) as lacrosse, soccer, and track and field. I have spent a lot of time in Cuba in the past dozen years and have never heard of a single lacrosse match being played on the island. (Field hockey yes, but that is not lacrosse.)
But worst of all, the photo Lowry uses at the top of page 97 and identifies as Havana's La Tropicale (sic) is not La Tropical at all but rather Gran Stadium in Cerro, taken sometime in the late forties or early fifties. La Tropical is easily identified by the running track that was its main feature (it circled the baseball playing area) and would be clearly visible in any aerial shot. The track and some of the grandstand is still there, but the oval now circles a soccer field. The park was also set in a wooded area (not an urban center like Cerro), had only a small grandstand and no outfield fences.
For good photos of both Cerro (Gran) Stadium and La Tropical, one can look at Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria's The Pride Havana, which also details the history of these historic venues. RGE's fine book has been a best-seller since 1999 and was readily available to Mr. Lowry.
All this does not bode well for the information on other obscure parks. Is the scholarship better there? Perhaps. I hate to play "I gotcha!" and this is far from my attention here. But I also hate to see Cuba baseball continue to be so shrouded in misinformation and even dis-information. Especially when there are now so many good sources out there on the subject.
Peter C. Bjarkman
Author of A History of Cuban Baseball, 1864-2006 and (with Mark Rucker) Smoke: The Romance and Lore of Cuban Baseball
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