Minor League Baseball Urbanism

Asheville also has a great baseball stadium for its minor league baseball team, the Tourists, a Class A affiliate of the Colorado Rockies. The ballpark seats a few thousand people, looking out on the woods, with a number of the city's microbreweries on tap. It feels very much like a product of the city's culture, with an emphasis on local pride and a friendly community. In my road trip this summer to Asheville, Charleston, S.C., and Savannah, Ga., I found this to be true of all the parks -- they have a ambience distinctly tied to their place. In Charleston, my wife and I ate boiled peanuts (apparently a product of the Civil War) in a sharp-looking park that has the South Carolina marsh as its backdrop. The experience felt very much like the New South, as did our three days there.

Minor league baseball is a valuable entry point to exploring places. Our road trip began as an attempt to satisfy a craving I've had since I was 13 years old, when a colleague of my father's gave me, as a Bar Mitzvah present, a Fodor's guidebook for minor league baseball-themed vacations. The baseball, even if it's sometimes overshadowed by the between-innings entertainment, is good enough, the action is close, and the evenings, at least in the South in August, are wonderful. After flipping through that Fodor's guide many times, wondering if I ever could replicate a trip, I did it and might do it again sometime later.

But the trip quickly became an excuse to visit three places with excellent examples of urban planning, urban design and architecture. Minor league teams are often situated in secondary cities, if not tertiary ones and below, where major league teams are rare, so the lower circuits become a point of pride in town. And they're often in places that have quite a bit to offer over the course of a few days. In fact, the point might be that they're not on the Acela corridor: They have a surprising amount of vibrancy even if they're smaller, a defined sense of place, and interesting layers to uncover. Then again, I'm romanticizing small cities, as I often do. Tulsa, Okla., also has a baseball team.

Above are photos of each team's mascot: Ted E. and Mr. Moon, from the Tourists; Charlie, from the Charleston River Dogs; and Nate, from the Savannah Sand Gnats. Unfortunately, Nate was by far the most underwhelming mascot, though as a sand gnat, he isn't starting with a good baseline of material. The Sand Gnats are an affiliate of the Mets, whose Mr. Met is at the pinnacle of mascots. You'd think that the franchise's spring training would be a bit more rigorous.