Stadium Preview: Part XIII
What originally fueled the B4B idea was to visit each major league baseball stadium across the country. Now that our dreams will become reality beginning in 2012, we will want to share our greatest experiences with followers of our journey. We’ll report on fan devotion, best concessions, most memorable park moment in history and video blogging each 7th inning stretch the B4B crew will sing along to all season. We really want our readers to experience each stadium along with us.
Over the next few months, the B4B blog will be providing previews of each major league stadium. We will give some historical background, along with plenty of pictures. We would love to get fans perspective on each park as well, so please provide feedback on your favorite stadium on facebook and twitter. Our posts will take us from the oldest stadium all the way to the brand new Marlins Stadium. We hope you enjoy.
Turner Field
Turner Field has been home to the Atlanta Braves since 1997. It was originally built as Centennial Olympic Stadium for the 1996 Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta. Therefore, it holds the distinction of being the only major league stadium to serve as the centerpiece of the Olympics. Dodgers Stadium served as the venue for baseball games in the 1984 Olympics.
We all know that the Braves were, and in some ways still are, the model franchise in the 90’s. They won something like 40 straight division titles,* and they went to 5 World Series during that time. The Braves had by far the best pitching staff of the decade, winning 6 NL Cy Young Awards between Tom Glavine, Greg Maddux, and John Smoltz. All of this started when Bobby Cox took over as manager full time in 1991. In 1990, they lost 97 games and Cox turned them around to win 94 the next year. Impressive!
*Actually they won 14 straight from 1991 to 2005. I’ve read that exaggeration gets your point across better, so I thought I’d try.
Enough about the Braves, Turner Field was the Olympic Stadium in 1996! The great Muhammad Ali lit the Olympic torch at the opening ceremonies. I vividly remember that powerful scene in which the greatest boxer of all time was the center of the sports world’s attention. His trembling from Parkinson’s made the moment even more lasting in my mind.
During the games, Turner Field was home to the track and field events. World Records were set in both the men’s 100m and 200m. Donovan Bailey won the 100m with a time of 9.84 seconds, and Michael Johnson won both the 200m and 400m with a world record of 19.32 seconds in the 200m. Each of these records has since been broken by the great Usain Bolt in 2009 with 9.58 seconds and 19.19 seconds, respectively. Old man Carl Lewis won his fourth gold medal in the long jump at Turner Field at the age of 35! The men’s marathon winning time was 2:12:36, which is a full hour and ten minutes faster than my best time. Looking on the bright side, the 100m record time is only about 3 or 4 seconds faster than I could run.
After the games were complete, major renovations took place to have the stadium ready for baseball the following season. The main portion of the stadium was built in a way that it could be converted to a baseball stadium easily, because there would be no use for an 85,000 seat track and field facility in downtown Atlanta. The southwest corner of the stadium was originally built to accommodate future infield seating, which can be seen from aerial views with the seats not placed next to the oval running track. During reconstruction, the north half of the stadium was demolished, reducing the capacity to 49,000.
B4B is looking forward to getting into the Olympic spirit and catching a game at this historic stadium. We’ll stage our own Olympic events by seeing who can run to the beer stand the fastest or who can catch the most home runs in batting practice. Early odds are on Adam winning the beer race and Rex snagging the most fly balls. It should be as epic as the 1996 Olympic Games.