Banner Island Ballpark is a baseball

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 Stockton, California

Stockton, California

Stockton, California, the seat of San Joaquin County, is the fourth-largest city in the Central Valley of the U.S. state of California. With a population of 291,707 at the 2010 census, Stockton ranks as this state's 13th largest city...

, which seats over 5,300 people. It is the home field of the Stockton Ports

Stockton Ports

The Stockton Ports are a baseball team in Stockton, California. The Ports play in the Northern Division of the Class A – Advanced California League and are a Minor League affiliate of the Oakland Athletics. Their home field is Banner Island Ballpark which seats over 5,000 people and opened in...

, a minor league

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...

 affiliate of the Oakland Athletics

Oakland Athletics

The Oakland Athletics are a Major League Baseball team based in Oakland, California. The Athletics are a member of the Western Division of Major League Baseball's American League. From to the present, the Athletics have played in the O.co Coliseum....

 in the Class A California League

California League

The California League is a Class A Advanced minor league baseball league which operates throughout the state of California. Before 2002, it was classified as a "High-A" league, indicating its status as a Class A league with the highest level of competition within that classification, and the fifth...

.

History

The $22 million Banner Island Ballpark opened with a game on April 28, 2005, during which the Stockton Ports defeated the San Jose Giants

San Jose Giants

The San Jose Giants are a minor league baseball team in San Jose, California, USA. They are a Class A - Advanced team in the Northern Division of the California League, and have been a farm team of the San Francisco Giants since 1988. Home games are played at San Jose Municipal Stadium...

 7-4 in front of a sellout crowd. The ballpark is a part of a revitalization project for the Downtown Stockton waterfront, it was built concurrently with the Stockton Arena

Stockton Arena

Stockton Arena is an indoor arena in Stockton, California. It opened in December 2005 and seats approximately 10,000 fans. The arena, at maximum capacity, can seat 11,800 people.It is primarily used for ice hockey, indoor soccer and arena football....

 and will be integrated with a waterfront park.

The Banner Island area is also the purported home of a previous Stockton baseball team that played in the late 1800s. Local residents claim that the team was the inspiration for the Mudville Nine in Casey at the Bat

Casey at the Bat

"Casey at the Bat: A Ballad of the Republic Sung in the Year 1888" is a baseball poem written in 1888 by Ernest Thayer. First published in The San Francisco Examiner on June 3, 1888, it was later popularized by DeWolf Hopper in many vaudeville performances.The poem was originally published...

, a poem by Ernest Thayer

Ernest Thayer

Ernest Lawrence Thayer was an American writer and poet who wrote "Casey at the Bat".-Biography:Thayer was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts and raised in Worcester. He graduated magna cum laude in philosophy from Harvard in 1885, where he was editor of the Harvard Lampoon...

. Before moving to the ballpark, the Stockton Ports were known as the Mudville Nine during the 2000 and 2001 seasons.

The name

The name "Banner Island Ballpark" is actually an unofficial name that is used among fans and the administration of the Stockton Ports. The City of Stockton owns the naming rights of the ballpark and until the rights are sold the stadium is officially known as the Stockton Ballpark.

The ballpark gets its unofficial name from the area of which it is located, Banner Island. Banner Island was once an island in the San Joaquin River

San Joaquin River

The San Joaquin River is the largest river of Central California in the United States. At over long, the river starts in the high Sierra Nevada, and flows through a rich agricultural region known as the San Joaquin Valley before reaching Suisun Bay, San Francisco Bay, and the Pacific Ocean...

 delta

River delta

A delta is a landform that is formed at the mouth of a river where that river flows into an ocean, sea, estuary, lake, reservoir, flat arid area, or another river. Deltas are formed from the deposition of the sediment carried by the river as the flow leaves the mouth of the river...

, through time the island was connected to the mainland through infill and only southern shore remains. Despite the fact the area is no longer an island, the Banner Island name has stuck.

External links

• ballparkreviews.com Banner Island Ballpark
• Stockton Ports Ballpark History
• Ball Parks of the Minor Leagues Banner Island Ballpark Views