From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C., a typical cookie cutter stadium.

Cookie cutter stadiums are stadiums built primarily in the 1960s and 1970s in the United States, designed for use by multiple teams playing baseball, American football, and soccer. They have also been called "concrete donuts".

Most of these stadiums were open-air, but some were domed. Nearly all, at one time, had Astroturf playing surfaces. And they had a reputation for looking pretty much identical, like cookies from a cookie cutter. All exhibited a round (or rounded-square) grandstand design and similar field layouts. From the spectator standpoint, their circular nature made them ideal for none of the sports contained within them, due to having so many seats so far away from the action. It is fair to say that they "seemed like a good idea at the time", as most public comments about them were neutral at worst. It was a few years later, as their newness wore off, that the criticisms began to mount. During the 1990s and 2000s, they have been demolished one by one and replaced with "retro" style ballparks, which themselves have been criticized^[1] for being clones of the original "retro" park, Camden Yards in Baltimore.

• "In the big leagues, the classic ballparks lasted into the 1960s, when the big show moved to the suburbs and ballparks got round." — Michael Benson, Ballparks of North American, 1989.
• "RFK Stadium... The first of the cookie-cutters." — ibid.
• "Stereotyped stadiums." — Lowell Redenbaugh, Take Me Out to the Ball Park, 1983
• "...today's cold, concrete ovals." — Lawrence S. Ritter, Lost Ballparks, 1992.
• "When I go up to bat, I can't tell whether I'm in Cincinnati, Philly, Pittsburgh or St. Louis. They all look alike!" — Former major leaguer Richie Hebner, quoted in Lost Ballparks.
• "Symmetrical concrete sterile ugly ashtrays." — Philip J. Lowry, Green Cathedrals, 1992.