When you hear the phrase “great American pastime,” your mind goes right to baseball. But what about our other great American pastime? That’s right, I’m talking about LEGO. Although its origins are in Denmark, generations of Americans have turned to this dynamic building block to recreate iconic landmarks and vehicles from our pop culture. Today, we combine the sport of baseball and LEGO as we determine just how many pieces it would take to recreate some of our favorite Major League Baseball stadiums — in full size, not miniature. Find out approximately how many bricks are needed in these “ballpark estimates.”
Concerning the methodology we took into consideration, we started with the total surface area of the standard 2×4-peg brick, 0.79 in2. From that number, we were able to calculate that it would take 181.45 LEGO to fill a square foot. In addition, our research found that it would take 3,000 LEGO just to build one stadium seat. We also determined just how many LEGO are needed to build each stadium’s respective scoreboards and signs. Our total estimations were drawn from seating capacity, field size and signage.
We explored data on 29 of the most memorable stadiums, from Yankee Stadium to Dodger Stadium. Our findings revealed a fascinating range of statistics; on the lower end of the spectrum, the Oakland A’s home field, the Oakland Coliseum, had a seating capacity of only 35,067 seats while the St. Louis Cardinals’ Busch Stadium topped the list at 63,102 seats. When it comes to field size alone, the Houston Astros’ Minute Maid Park had the largest field size, requiring 501 million LEGO to build. The Cleveland Indians’ Progressive Field boasted the largest scoreboard, which could be recreated in 375 million LEGO. There were a few arenas that had unique structures we took into account, including the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim’s fireworks-shooting rock formation, the California Spectacular, which would need 53 million LEGO to construct. Who could forget AT&T Park’s Coca-Cola Superslide? This Coke slide takes 18 million LEGO. Finally, when determining our total stadium sizes, our smallest facility was the Pittsburgh Pirates’ PNC Park, at 552 million LEGO, while our largest park was Cleveland’s Progressive Field at a staggering 913 million LEGO!
We know how much baseball fans love statistics, so we didn’t stop at just the stadiums. We calculated the number of LEGO needed to build the additional elements associated with the sport of baseball. It would take 47 LEGO to make a baseball, 830 LEGO for a bat and 73 LEGO for a piping hot dog. Keep in mind that our calculations are rough estimates and may be off by a few bricks. Now it’s time to get in the game and see for yourself how many LEGO you’d need to create your all-time favorite baseball moment.
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