It was - until Camden Yards opened in 1992.
Hit the nail on head right here. The moment I saw Camden Yards, I hated the Skydome. It was horrible timing. It was built right before the realization that fans loved the old classic ball parks with a bit of modern twist to them.
Ding, ding, ding ..... GAGNANT/WINNERS!
Camden Yards birth was the death knell of these plastic, antiseptic multipurpose arena stadiums of which the Skydome was the last to be built that were unsuited for football and especially unsuited for baseball. Think of all those 'toilet bowl stadiums that were built in 60's, 70's, 80's: Shea, Fulton County, Three Rivers, Riverfront, Anaheim, Oakland Coliseum, Astrodome, Veterans Stadium, Busch, Jack Murphy, the one in SF and the temporary bubble top stadiums in Detroit, Minneapolis, Seattle, Indianapolis.
I remember that Saturday in 1992 in when I saw a 2 - 3 page photo spread and article on Camden Yards in the Toronto Star. I went over to my brother-in-law's house, plopped that paper on his kitchen table and said, "the Skydome is dead".
It was that architectural firm out in Kansas I believe, not far from the 'Field of Dreams' corn fields of Iowa that came up with that blend of nostalgia, that longing for "a past no longer with us" and modernity that created Camden Yards and other similar type baseball stadiums.