Arlington Stadium
Encyclopedia
Arlington Stadium was a baseball
stadium
located in Arlington, Texas
, United States
, located between Dallas and Fort Worth, Texas
. It served as the home for the Texas Rangers
(MLB
) from 1972 until 1993, when the team moved into The Ballpark in Arlington (now Rangers Ballpark in Arlington).
The stadium was built in 1965 as Turnpike Stadium, a minor league
ballpark seating 10,000 people named for the nearby Dallas-Fort Worth Turnpike (Interstate-30 aka Tom Landry Highway). The Fort Worth Cats
of the Texas League
moved there as the Dallas-Fort Worth Spurs
, and played there for the next seven years, setting many Texas League attendance records, especially after it expanded to 20,500 seats in 1970.
However, the stadium's real purpose was to attract a major league team to the Metroplex
. It had been built to major league specifications, and was designed to be expandable to up to 50,000 seats. Due to its location in a natural bowl, only minimal renovations (such as connecting dugouts directly to the clubhouses) would be necessary to ready it for a big-league team. Although it was built primarily for baseball, its general shape was very similar to the major league multi-purpose stadium
s that were beginning to emerge in the mid-1960s. The Metroplex had been mentioned as a possible expansion site since the 1950s, and Arlington Mayor Tom Vandergriff
figured that Arlington, halfway between the two cities, would be the best site for a prospective major league team.
, Kansas City's Municipal Stadium
and Minnesota's Metropolitan Stadium
.
The park had a skeletal, jerry-built feel, and it was obvious that it had once been minor-league. An upper deck wasn't added until 1978; until then, fans entered at the very top of the stadium and walked down to their seats. It had the largest bleacher section in baseball, stretching from foul pole to foul pole. Unlike most stadiums built during this time, there were very few bad seats, due to its natural-bowl location and the field being 40 feet below street level. Early in the stadium's existence, the stadium could be converted for football by swiveling the third-base grandstands into the outfield. In the process, people sitting in the left-field bleachers had their view cut off. When a football game was played at the stadium, an auxiliary press box, located near the first base side, was used. The 1978 renovations, however, permanently fixed the seats in the baseball configuration for the remainder of the stadium's existence.
Although it had been built for baseball, Arlington Stadium had a number of drawbacks. There was no roof, and thus virtually no protection from the oppressive Texas heat. For nearly all of its existence, it was the hottest stadium in the majors. It was not unheard of for game-time temperatures to be well above 100 degrees. Combined with the Rangers' mediocre performance, this held down attendance considerably during the 1970s. Due in part to the heat, the Rangers scheduled nearly all of their games from May through September at night, a practice that continues today. Other than nearby amusement park Six Flags Over Texas
, there was no neighborhood around the park. In his book Storied Stadiums, Curt Smith
described it as "small, (but) not intimate."
The scoreboard in the Rangers' early days was a long, horizontal rectangle
with a panel shaped like the state of Texas
. It was replaced before the 1984 season with a new scoreboard and series of billboards that ran from foul pole to foul pole. "Cotton-Eyed Joe
" was played during the seventh-inning stretch for fans to dance to instead of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame." Arlington Stadium was also the first major league ballpark to sell nachos
(in 1974).
The stadium, though, had two advantages. First, before installation of the wrap-around scoreboard and billboards, the predominant gusty winds from the south knocked down many fly balls that would otherwise have been home runs. Second, the large number of metal bleacher seats would come in handy on Bat Night, the promotional game where children under age 12 would receive (in most years) a real bat that could be pounded on the bleachers. As Bat Night would (in some years) be the only sell-out for the usually poor Rangers squads, the spectacle of 10,000-15,000 kids banging their bats all at once would create a deafening sound.
, witnessed by 41,039 fans (it was also the final game in the career of Hall-of-Famer George Brett
). Following the season, the Rangers moved to the nearby Ballpark in Arlington and Arlington Stadium was demolished in 1994. The foul poles and home plate from Arlington Stadium were moved to the new ballpark, along with some of the bleachers. The bleachers are currently painted green, but their original blue color is occasionally visible in spots where the green paint has chipped. Home plate was inserted into place at the Ballpark in Arlington by Tom Schieffer (Texas Rangers
President), Richard Greene (then mayor of Arlington
), Tom Vandergriff (former mayor responsible for bringing the team to Arlington
), and George W. Bush
(then team owner; later Governor of Texas
and President of the United States
). The site of the old stadium is just west of the Arlington Convention Center and north of the youth ballpark. Legends Way, a road built to give access to Cowboys Stadium, goes directly through the center of the old location.
, but was host to several of Nolan Ryan
's greatest moments, including his 5,000th strikeout and his seventh no-hitter. Baltimore Orioles
shortstop Cal Ripken, Jr.
and Rangers outfielder Oddibe McDowell
, were the only two players to hit for the cycle in Arlington Stadium. It was also the site of the 11th perfect game
in Major League Baseball
history, when Mike Witt
of the California Angels
defeated the Rangers
on September 30, 1984, 1 to 0.
Baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...
stadium
Stadium
A modern stadium is a place or venue for outdoor sports, concerts, or other events and consists of a field or stage either partly or completely surrounded by a structure designed to allow spectators to stand or sit and view the event.)Pausanias noted that for about half a century the only event...
located in Arlington, Texas
Arlington, Texas
Arlington is a city in Tarrant County, Texas within the Dallas–Fort Worth metropolitan area. According to the 2010 census results, the city had a population of 365,438, making it the third largest municipality in the Metroplex...
, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, located between Dallas and Fort Worth, Texas
Fort Worth, Texas
Fort Worth is the 16th-largest city in the United States of America and the fifth-largest city in the state of Texas. Located in North Central Texas, just southeast of the Texas Panhandle, the city is a cultural gateway into the American West and covers nearly in Tarrant, Parker, Denton, and...
. It served as the home for the Texas Rangers
Texas Rangers (baseball)
The Texas Rangers are a professional baseball team in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, based in Arlington, Texas. The Rangers are a member of the Western Division of Major League Baseball's American League, and are the reigning A.L. Western Division and A.L. Champions. Since , the Rangers have...
(MLB
Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball is the highest level of professional baseball in the United States and Canada, consisting of teams that play in the National League and the American League...
) from 1972 until 1993, when the team moved into The Ballpark in Arlington (now Rangers Ballpark in Arlington).
1960s
Minor league baseball
Minor league baseball is a hierarchy of professional baseball leagues in the Americas that compete at levels below Major League Baseball and provide opportunities for player development. All of the minor leagues are operated as independent businesses...
ballpark seating 10,000 people named for the nearby Dallas-Fort Worth Turnpike (Interstate-30 aka Tom Landry Highway). The Fort Worth Cats
Fort Worth Cats
The Fort Worth Cats are a professional baseball team based in Fort Worth, Texas, in the United States. The Cats are a member of the South Division of the American Association of Independent Professional Baseball, which is not affiliated with Major League Baseball. Since the 2002 season the Cats...
of the Texas League
Texas League
The Texas League is a minor league baseball league which operates in the South Central United States. It is classified a Double-A league. The league was founded in 1888 and ran through 1892...
moved there as the Dallas-Fort Worth Spurs
Dallas-Fort Worth Spurs
The Dallas-Fort Worth Spurs were an American minor league baseball team in the Texas League from 1965 to 1971. The team played in Turnpike Stadium in Arlington, Texas....
, and played there for the next seven years, setting many Texas League attendance records, especially after it expanded to 20,500 seats in 1970.
However, the stadium's real purpose was to attract a major league team to the Metroplex
Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex
The Dallas–Fort Worth–Arlington Metropolitan Statistical Area, a title designated by the U.S. Census as of 2003, encompasses 12 counties within the U.S. state of Texas. The area is divided into two metropolitan divisions: Dallas–Plano–Irving and Fort Worth–Arlington. Residents of the area...
. It had been built to major league specifications, and was designed to be expandable to up to 50,000 seats. Due to its location in a natural bowl, only minimal renovations (such as connecting dugouts directly to the clubhouses) would be necessary to ready it for a big-league team. Although it was built primarily for baseball, its general shape was very similar to the major league multi-purpose stadium
Multi-purpose stadium
Multi-purpose stadiums are a type of stadium designed in such a way as to be easily used by multiple sports. While any stadium could potentially host more than one sport, this concept usually refers to a specific design philosophy that stresses multi-functionality over specificity...
s that were beginning to emerge in the mid-1960s. The Metroplex had been mentioned as a possible expansion site since the 1950s, and Arlington Mayor Tom Vandergriff
Tom Vandergriff
Tommy Joe Vandergriff was a politician from Texas. He served as Mayor of Arlington from 1951 to 1977, as a U.S. Representative from from 1983 to 1985, and as County Judge of Tarrant County from 1991 to 2007...
figured that Arlington, halfway between the two cities, would be the best site for a prospective major league team.
1970s–1980s
In 1971, the struggling Washington Senators announced their intentions to move to the Metroplex as the Texas Rangers. The stadium was expanded to seat over 35,700 people, and was renamed "Arlington Stadium." It was the fourth former minor league park converted for use by a major-league team (not counting instances where minor-league parks served as temporary homes), after Baltimore's Memorial StadiumMemorial Stadium (Baltimore)
Memorial Stadium was a sports stadium in Baltimore, Maryland, that formerly stood on 33rd Street on an over-sized block also bounded by Ellerslie Avenue , 36th Street , and Ednor Road...
, Kansas City's Municipal Stadium
Municipal Stadium (Kansas City)
Kansas City Municipal Stadium was a baseball and football stadium that formerly stood in Kansas City, Missouri. It hosted the minor league Kansas City Blues of the American Association from 1923 to 1954 and the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro Leagues during the same period...
and Minnesota's Metropolitan Stadium
Metropolitan Stadium
Metropolitan Stadium was a sports stadium that once stood in Bloomington, Minnesota, just outside Minneapolis. The area where the stadium once stood is now the site of the Mall of America...
.
The park had a skeletal, jerry-built feel, and it was obvious that it had once been minor-league. An upper deck wasn't added until 1978; until then, fans entered at the very top of the stadium and walked down to their seats. It had the largest bleacher section in baseball, stretching from foul pole to foul pole. Unlike most stadiums built during this time, there were very few bad seats, due to its natural-bowl location and the field being 40 feet below street level. Early in the stadium's existence, the stadium could be converted for football by swiveling the third-base grandstands into the outfield. In the process, people sitting in the left-field bleachers had their view cut off. When a football game was played at the stadium, an auxiliary press box, located near the first base side, was used. The 1978 renovations, however, permanently fixed the seats in the baseball configuration for the remainder of the stadium's existence.
Although it had been built for baseball, Arlington Stadium had a number of drawbacks. There was no roof, and thus virtually no protection from the oppressive Texas heat. For nearly all of its existence, it was the hottest stadium in the majors. It was not unheard of for game-time temperatures to be well above 100 degrees. Combined with the Rangers' mediocre performance, this held down attendance considerably during the 1970s. Due in part to the heat, the Rangers scheduled nearly all of their games from May through September at night, a practice that continues today. Other than nearby amusement park Six Flags Over Texas
Six Flags Over Texas
Six Flags Over Texas is a major amusement park located in Arlington, Texas , east of Fort Worth and about west of Dallas. It is the oldest park of the Six Flags chain. The park opened on August 5, 1961 following just a year of construction and an initial investment of US$10 million by real estate...
, there was no neighborhood around the park. In his book Storied Stadiums, Curt Smith
Curt Smith (author)
Curt Smith is an American author, media host and columnist.Smith is a 1973 graduate of SUNY at Geneseo. He worked as a Gannett Company reporter, a speechwriter to former Texas Governor John Connolly, and an editor at the Saturday Evening Post. In 1989 he joined the George H.W...
described it as "small, (but) not intimate."
The scoreboard in the Rangers' early days was a long, horizontal rectangle
Rectangle
In Euclidean plane geometry, a rectangle is any quadrilateral with four right angles. The term "oblong" is occasionally used to refer to a non-square rectangle...
with a panel shaped like the state of Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
. It was replaced before the 1984 season with a new scoreboard and series of billboards that ran from foul pole to foul pole. "Cotton-Eyed Joe
Cotton-Eyed Joe
"Cotton-Eyed Joe" is a popular American folk song known at various times throughout the United States and Canada, although today it is most commonly associated with the American South...
" was played during the seventh-inning stretch for fans to dance to instead of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame." Arlington Stadium was also the first major league ballpark to sell nachos
Nachos
Nachos are a popular food based on nixtamalized corn, of Mexican origin associated with Tex-Mex cuisine that can be either made quickly to serve as a snack or prepared with more ingredients to make a full meal. In their simplest form, nachos are tortilla chips or totopos covered in melted cheese...
(in 1974).
The stadium, though, had two advantages. First, before installation of the wrap-around scoreboard and billboards, the predominant gusty winds from the south knocked down many fly balls that would otherwise have been home runs. Second, the large number of metal bleacher seats would come in handy on Bat Night, the promotional game where children under age 12 would receive (in most years) a real bat that could be pounded on the bleachers. As Bat Night would (in some years) be the only sell-out for the usually poor Rangers squads, the spectacle of 10,000-15,000 kids banging their bats all at once would create a deafening sound.
1990s
The stadium eventually began to show its age and inadequacy, and the City of Arlington approved the construction of a new stadium for the Rangers. The last game was played in Arlington Stadium on October 3, 1993, resulting in a 4-1 win by the visiting Kansas City RoyalsKansas City Royals
The Kansas City Royals are a Major League Baseball team based in Kansas City, Missouri. The Royals are a member of the Central Division of Major League Baseball's American League. From 1973 to the present, the Royals have played in Kauffman Stadium...
, witnessed by 41,039 fans (it was also the final game in the career of Hall-of-Famer George Brett
George Brett (baseball)
George Howard Brett , nicknamed "Mullet", is a former Major League Baseball third baseman, designated hitter, and first baseman. He played his entire 21-year baseball career for the Kansas City Royals. Brett's 3,154 career hits are the most by any third baseman in major league history, and 15th...
). Following the season, the Rangers moved to the nearby Ballpark in Arlington and Arlington Stadium was demolished in 1994. The foul poles and home plate from Arlington Stadium were moved to the new ballpark, along with some of the bleachers. The bleachers are currently painted green, but their original blue color is occasionally visible in spots where the green paint has chipped. Home plate was inserted into place at the Ballpark in Arlington by Tom Schieffer (Texas Rangers
Texas Rangers (baseball)
The Texas Rangers are a professional baseball team in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, based in Arlington, Texas. The Rangers are a member of the Western Division of Major League Baseball's American League, and are the reigning A.L. Western Division and A.L. Champions. Since , the Rangers have...
President), Richard Greene (then mayor of Arlington
Arlington, Texas
Arlington is a city in Tarrant County, Texas within the Dallas–Fort Worth metropolitan area. According to the 2010 census results, the city had a population of 365,438, making it the third largest municipality in the Metroplex...
), Tom Vandergriff (former mayor responsible for bringing the team to Arlington
Arlington, Texas
Arlington is a city in Tarrant County, Texas within the Dallas–Fort Worth metropolitan area. According to the 2010 census results, the city had a population of 365,438, making it the third largest municipality in the Metroplex...
), and George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
(then team owner; later Governor of Texas
Governor of Texas
The governor of Texas is the head of the executive branch of Texas's government and the commander-in-chief of the state's military forces. The governor has the power to either approve or veto bills passed by the Texas Legislature, and to convene the legislature...
and President of the United States
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
). The site of the old stadium is just west of the Arlington Convention Center and north of the youth ballpark. Legends Way, a road built to give access to Cowboys Stadium, goes directly through the center of the old location.
Notable moments
Arlington Stadium never saw a playoff game or an All-Star GameMajor League Baseball All-Star Game
The Major League Baseball All-Star Game, also known as the "Midsummer Classic", is an annual baseball game between players from the National League and the American League, currently selected by a combination of fans, players, coaches, and managers...
, but was host to several of Nolan Ryan
Nolan Ryan
Lynn Nolan Ryan, Jr. , nicknamed "The Ryan Express", is a former Major League Baseball pitcher. He is currently principal owner, president and CEO of the Texas Rangers....
's greatest moments, including his 5,000th strikeout and his seventh no-hitter. Baltimore Orioles
Baltimore Orioles
The Baltimore Orioles are a professional baseball team based in Baltimore, Maryland in the United States. They are a member of the Eastern Division of Major League Baseball's American League. One of the American League's eight charter franchises in 1901, it spent its first year as a major league...
shortstop Cal Ripken, Jr.
Cal Ripken, Jr.
Calvin Edwin "Cal" Ripken, Jr. , nicknamed "Iron Man", is a former Major League Baseball shortstop and third baseman. He played his entire 21-year baseball career for the Baltimore Orioles ....
and Rangers outfielder Oddibe McDowell
Oddibe McDowell
Oddibe McDowell is a former center fielder in Major League Baseball who played from to for the Texas Rangers, Cleveland Indians and Atlanta Braves. McDowell was the first player to hit for the cycle for the Rangers when he accomplished that feat on July 23, 1985...
, were the only two players to hit for the cycle in Arlington Stadium. It was also the site of the 11th perfect game
Perfect game
A perfect game is defined by Major League Baseball as a game in which a pitcher pitches a victory that lasts a minimum of nine innings and in which no opposing player reaches base. Thus, the pitcher cannot allow any hits, walks, hit batsmen, or any opposing player to reach base safely for any...
in Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball is the highest level of professional baseball in the United States and Canada, consisting of teams that play in the National League and the American League...
history, when Mike Witt
Mike Witt
Michael Atwater "Mike" Witt is a former Major League Baseball pitcher.At just twenty years of age, Witt made his major league debut with the California Angels in 1981. Standing 6 feet, 7 inches tall and possessing a great curveball as well as a good fastball, Witt's breakout season came in...
of the California Angels
Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim are a professional baseball team based in Anaheim, California, United States. The Angels are a member of the Western Division of Major League Baseball's American League. The "Angels" name originates from the city in which the team started, Los Angeles...
defeated the Rangers
Texas Rangers (baseball)
The Texas Rangers are a professional baseball team in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, based in Arlington, Texas. The Rangers are a member of the Western Division of Major League Baseball's American League, and are the reigning A.L. Western Division and A.L. Champions. Since , the Rangers have...
on September 30, 1984, 1 to 0.