Last week, the Pirates unveiled plans for their newest statue to be erected outside of PNC Park sometime next summer. As you can see from the picture to the right, it’s an awesome depiction of one of the Pirates’ most memorable moments: Bill Mazeroski’s Series-clinching home run over the Yankees in Game 7 of the 1960 World Series. In the statue, Maz is seen rounding second-base with his arms spread wide in jubilation, exactly as it happened fifty years ago. It just might be the single best statue in Major League Baseball today.

But what would be its competition? Living in Milwaukee, I’m very familiar with the Robin Yount and Hank Aaron statues outside Miller Park. I’ve also had a good chance to see the Bob Feller statue in Cleveland, the Willie Mays statue in San Francisco, and a few others around the country. That’s only a drop in the bucket, though. With 30 major league stadiums around the country, there are many, many statues that I’ve never had a chance to see – especially when you consider that, for the most part, teams can’t seem to stop at erecting just one.

Using Flickr and a few ingenious searches (e.g., “comerica park statues” or “busch stadium statues”), I went on a little statuary expedition last night, trying to compile a list of statues found in the major leagues. Now, I make no promises that this list is comprehensive. I did my best to make sure that I didn’t miss any statues at any given park, but, with the vagaries of people’s tagging at Flickr and the sheer number of statues, I’m bound to have missed one or two or ten, or mis-classified those that I did find. If you happen to see any errors or omissions, please drop me a line in the comments. And if you can include a link to a picture of said statue, even better.

But what would a list like this be without a little personal taste thrown in? I’ve listed the thirty ballclubs and their roster of statues below, in order of my most favorite collection of statues to my least favorite (based solely on their pictures, of course). This is in no way scientific, so I can’t say that the factors involved in each club’s rank are perfectly consistent across the league. However, the factors did tend to focus on uniqueness, execution, and number (I tend not to like too many statues). I’ll explain my choices as I list them. And if there’s anything the internet has taught me, it’s that most of you will disagree with me in some way. Which is fine. We’re only talking about team statues, after all.

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Major League Baseball’s Best Statues

There you have it. Every major league ballpark statue that I was able to find on Flickr, ranked by ballpark collection. Please let me know if I may have missed any. And if you have any disagreements with my rankings, I’d love to hear them.