Okay, so I got this idea the other day, wanted to make an MLB baseball map. You know, just see where all the teams actually are. Seemed like a neat little project.
Getting Started
First thing, I figured I needed a list. A list of all the MLB teams. That was easy enough, just kinda recalled most of them off the top of my head, then did a quick search to make sure I didn’t miss any. Yankees, Dodgers, Red Sox, Cubs… yeah, the usual suspects. Got the full list, checked it twice.
Then, the tricky part. Where do they actually play? Not just the city, but the stadium. And more importantly, where is that stadium on a map? I needed locations, like addresses or, even better, those latitude and longitude numbers.
Finding the Spots
So, I started digging. Went team by team. Looked up “Fenway Park address”, “Wrigley Field location”, that sort of thing. Some were obvious, others took a bit more searching. I just copied and pasted the addresses into a simple text file first. Keep it organized, you know?
Getting the exact coordinates was a bit more work. I used one of those online map tools. Typed in the stadium name or address, found the spot, and then usually, you can right-click or look around the settings to get the lat/long numbers. Did that for all 30 teams. Took a little while, gotta admit. A bit tedious, clicking and copying, clicking and copying.
- Yankee Stadium? Got it.
- Dodger Stadium? Yep.
- Minute Maid Park? Found it.
- …and so on down the list.
Putting it on the Map
Alright, data collected. Now, how to actually make the map? I thought about different ways. Could I draw it? Nah, my drawing skills are terrible. Could I use some complicated software? Seemed like overkill.
I remembered seeing some websites where you can just paste in locations and it puts pins on a map. Simple. That sounded like my speed. Found one that looked easy enough. No fancy coding required, just needed my list of coordinates and maybe the team names to label the pins.
So I started plugging them in. Copied the coordinates for the first team, pasted it in, added the team name. Boom, a little pin showed up on the map. Nice! Did the next one, and the next. Watching the map fill up was kinda cool. You really get a sense of where the teams are clustered. Lots on the East Coast, a bunch in California, then some scattered around.
Making it Look Right
Just having pins wasn’t enough. I wanted it to be clear. Labeled each pin with the team name. Maybe I could have used logos, but that seemed like extra hassle. Team names were good enough for me. Adjusted the zoom so you could see the whole US (and Toronto, gotta include the Blue Jays).
The Final Result
And that was pretty much it. Ended up with a digital map showing all the MLB stadium locations. Wasn’t super fancy, but it did the job. It was neat to see it visually laid out instead of just reading a list. You can see the travel some teams must do.
It was a fun little exercise. Didn’t take too long, maybe an hour or two total, mostly just gathering the location data. Now I’ve got this map I can look at. Useful? Maybe if I plan a baseball road trip someday. But mostly, it was just about doing it, you know? Seeing an idea through. Pretty satisfied with how it turned out for a simple project.
