Ken Smoller (aka “Stadium Vagabond”) is a photographer and writer based in Brookline Massachusetts, with childhood roots in Chicagoland. In over three decades of extensive traveling, he has photographed over 2,250 stadiums in 47 states and 24 countries. Ken’s mantra is that one of the best ways to understand the culture and fabric of a city or country is through its sporting arenas and stadiums. This quixotic never-ending photographic scavenger hunt began while Ken was a Photo Editor at the Michigan Daily in the early nineties, the student-run newspaper for the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. While Ken had the privilege of a media access during his college days, most of the photographs are from the perspective of a ticket-buying fan. 

 

Ken started the “Stadium Vagabond” blog (www.stadiumvagabond.com) during the pandemic in 2020 as a way to share his photographs and stories from years of sporting journeys. The site gives a small window into Ken’s photo archives, which total over a million images. Many photographs predate digital photography and are scans of film prints or negatives.  These scans vary in degrees of quality based on the age and quality of the negatives/prints.

 

Most recently, Ken Smoller’s photographs of old Comiskey Park’s final years, the longtime home of the Chicago White Sox until 1990, were featured in the documentary “Last Comiskey”, including the film’s poster. The widely acclaimed film is available for viewing at https://www.youtube.com/@lastcomiskey1990/videos.