The Angels apparently have decided to stick with their current stadium situation in Anaheim. The Los Angeles Times reported Saturday that team owner Arte Moreno said the Angels now plan on playing in aging Angel Stadium through 2028. According to the Times, that’s when the team’s lease at the 51-year-old stadium runs out, although Moreno has until October 2018 to exercise an escape clause that would terminate the lease after the 2019 season.
With less than two months until the first game is scheduled to be played at SunTrust Park, the Atlanta Braves’ new stadium in Cumberland, construction crews are working on the ballpark’s final touches. Mike Plant, the Braves’ president of development, said this week that much of the work being done at the ballpark in February will focus on the installation of furniture and equipment as well as the smaller odds and ends that need to get done before Opening Day.
We welcome another new ballpark to Major League Baseball in 2017, as the Atlanta Braves move from Turner Field, their home from 1997-2016, to SunTrust Park. SunTrust is a slightly smaller venue than Turner was; it measures just 375 feet to right-center field and 325 down the right-field line, which is 15 and 5 feet shorter than those same measurements at Turner. The tradeoff, however, is that those fences are twice the height, measuring 16 feet compared to 8 at Turner, and the distance to left-center field is 5 feet deeper (385-380) than at Turner.
Those fighting to keep the Astrodome from the wrecking ball and obsolescence won a major victory. The Texas State Historical Commission unanimously approved a measure to have the dome designated as a state antiquities landmark. “We thought it would never happen, but we never gave up,” said Cynthia Neely. “There were roadblocks. It cost us money. It cost us tons of time.”
There’s a mid-to-late-’90s vibe emerging at the corner of Carnegie and Ontario. The Indians will hold a press conference on Friday morning to announce that they will host the 2019 MLB All-Star Game at Progressive Field, multiple sources told cleveland.com. The city last hosted the sport’s Midsummer Classic in 1997, in the middle of a storied (albeit title-less) era in the franchise’s history.
The Texas Rangers are sticking with the home team to design their new stadium in Arlington. HKS, the Dallas-based firm that worked on both AT&T Stadium and Globe Life Park, has been selected as design architect for the Rangers’ $1 billion retractable-roof stadium, the team said Thursday.
As part of their efforts to secure a new ballpark, the Arizona Diamondbacks have sued Maricopa County over repairs to Chase Field, reports Rebekah L. Sanders of the Arizona Republic. The lawsuit was filed with the Maricopa County Supreme Court on Tuesday.
When NHL ice guru Dan Craig stepped out of an 18-wheeler in downtown St. Louis on Dec. 15, ready to start preparing Busch Stadium for the Winter Classic, he took a gaze at the surroundings. “Oh, this is gorgeous,” Craig marveled. “This is absolutely gorgeous. It’s fantastic, love it. You can feel it already.” The man who has been in charge of all eight of the NHL’s Winter Classics could instantly see what those with the Blues, Cardinals and anyone else who’s driven past the stadium have been envisioning.
Four of college football’s 40 bowl games this year are in MLB stadiums. Most major stadiums are multi-purposed in some fashion or another, but football games in baseball parks is a weird match. It requires fitting a 120-yard-long rectangular peg into a diamond-shaped hole. It doesn’t always look natural.
No, Busch Stadium III was not designed with hosting the National Hockey League’s Winter Classic in mind. “Why didn’t you build in the rink?” St. Louis Blues chairman Tom Stillman jokingly asked St. Louis Cardinals president Bill DeWitt III Thursday afternoon after the league’s $1 million mobile refrigeration unit arrived at the ballpark. “We probably should have thought about that,” DeWitt said with a chuckle.