Cleveland Named Fifth Best Baseball City in America

Cleveland baseball season is in full swing: Parking is impossible on game day; the smell of hotdogs wafts from the ballpark; and fireworks explode, scaring the crap out of passersby.

But how does Cleveland stack up as a baseball city against other urban centers? Based on a study by WalletHub.com, a personal finance social network, The Land does pretty well.

The website analyzed 272 of the most populated cities to find out which are the best and worst places in the U.S. to follow America’s pastime.

To rank the cities, the website looked at 11 key factors such as ticket prices, stadium accessibility and team’s performance levels. These eleven metrics were then split into two overarching categories: “Teams and Performance” and “Costs andFans Engagement.”

Cleveland claimed the 18th spot for “Team and Performance” which took number of wins, championships and franchise value into consideration.

Tribe Town did better in the “Costs and Fan Engagement” ranking, snatching the 10th overall spot. The category analyzed average ticket prices, fan’s receptivity on social media and even the number of sports bars in the area.

Overall, Cleveland was named the 5th best baseball city in America, behind St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and Atlanta.

Not too shabby.

This article appears in Jun 3-9, 2015.