Icons of “major-league cities.” Historical ball-fields for baseball and football—Fenway Park in Boston, MA, Comiskey Park in Chicago, IL, Candlestick Park in San Francisco, CA—provided centers and landmarks for metropoles imitated by later monumental public constructions like Houston’s enclosed Astrodome (Texas). As neighborhoods and audiences changed and owners sought to cash in on lucrative boxes, these stadiums have also become battlegrounds for urban planning. While Cleveland, OH and Baltimore, MD have used them to stimulate revitalization of waterfront areas, others question the public expenditures and corporate perks, including naming, that hold cities hostage to franchise-owners against the promise of sometimes ambivalent returns in jobs, revenues and image.