This is not an easy list. How do you determine a great baseball town?

With attendance? Too simplistic.

By atmosphere? It's hard to get rowdy when your team isn't any good.

By scarcity? A one-sport town is going to have an advantage, but that doesn't mean it'll take it.

By jersey sales? You don't have to live in Chicago to have a Kris Bryant jersey.

It's an amalgamation of all of it, and it's an inexact science at best. But as someone who has been to all but a small handful of Major League parks (the two Pennsylvania yards, Citi Field, and the new Braves' suburban home) I feel marginally qualified (which is about as good as you can get) to amalgamate those things into an overall ranking.

It wasn't easy — not by a long shot — and it will probably offend the easily offended.

But this is the list.

So with apologies to Pittsburgh (a football town, first and foremost, then hockey), Seattle (a great place to see a game, but ultimately a Seahawks and outdoors town), Milwaukee (it's all about the Packers, even in the summer), Washington (not enough of a track record, but it's getting there), Minneapolis (great park, but it's clearly a Vikings' town), and Philadelphia (it's all about the Eagles, baby), here are the top 13 baseball towns in North America.