Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (November 2008)

Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium, often shortened to "Fulton County Stadium," was a multi-use (baseball, football, soccer, rock concert, revival meeting, and monster truck) stadium that formerly stood in Atlanta, Georgia. Completed in a then-record 50 weeks for $18 million, it opened in the spring of 1965 as Atlanta Stadium. It was intended as the home of the soon-to-be-relocating Braves, but court battles kept the team in Milwaukee as a lame duck for a year.^{[citation needed]} So the new stadium had a lame duck of its own for that first season: the Atlanta Crackers of the International League, whose previous home had been Ponce de Leon Park at 650 Ponce de Leon Avenue.^{[citation needed]} In its first year it also hosted Atlanta's only Beatles concert, August 18, 1965. In 1966, both the NL's transplanted Braves and the NFL's expansion Atlanta Falcons moved in. In 1967, the Atlanta Chiefs of the National Professional Soccer League (re-formed as the North American Soccer League in 1968) began the first of five seasons played at the stadium. ^[1] In a move intended to acknowledge the financial contributions of the taxpayers of Fulton County, the stadium's name was changed to the hyphenated Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium in 1976, the same year that Ted Turner purchased the Braves. ^[2] The Falcons moved to the Georgia Dome in 1992, while the Braves had to wait until the Olympic Stadium from the 1996 Summer Olympics was transformed into Turner Field to move out at the beginning of the 1997 season. The stadium sat 60,606 for football and 52,007 for baseball. The baseball competition for the 1996 Summer Olympics was held at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium.

[edit] Layout

The stadium was relatively nondescript, one of the many saucer-shaped multi-purpose stadiums built during the 1960s and 1970s, similar to RFK Stadium, Shea Stadium, the Astrodome, Three Rivers Stadium, Busch Memorial Stadium, Qualcomm Stadium, Riverfront Stadium, and Veterans Stadium. As was the case for every stadium that used this design concept, the fundamentally different sizes and shapes of baseball and football fields made it inadequate for both sports. In the baseball configuration, 70 percent of the seats were in foul territory.^{[citation needed]} In the football configuration, seats on the 50-yard-line--normally prime seats for football--were more than 50 yards away from the sidelines.^{[citation needed]} One unusual feature of this stadium is the fact that, unlike most multi-purpose stadiums - where the football field was laid either parallel to one of the foul lines or running from home plate to center field - the football field here was laid along a line running between first and third base......similar to that of the Oakland Coliseum. ^[3] Thus, a seat behind home plate for baseball would also be on the 50-yard line for football. The stadium was refurbished for the 1996 season prior to hosting the Olympic baseball competition.

It was also known for the playing field's poor quality. It didn't have a full-time grounds crew until 1989, instead relying on a city work crew.^{[citation needed]}

Due to the relatively high elevation of the Atlanta area (situated at the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains), the stadium boasted the highest elevation in baseball when it opened, at 1,050 feet above sea level.^{[citation needed]} It retained this distinction until the Colorado Rockies were born in 1993. The high elevation made it favorable to home run hitters, resulting in the nickname "The Launching Pad."^{[citation needed]}

The Native American mascot called "Chief Noc-A-Homa" was prominently featured from 1966 until the early 1980s, when the mascot was abandoned.^{[citation needed]}

Fulton County Stadium was designed by a joint-venture team of FABRAP (Finch Alexander Barnes Rothschild & Paschal) and Heery, Inc.

The site where Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium once stood is now a parking lot for Turner Field. The fence and wall display in the center of the picture commemorates the spot at which Hank Aaron's 715th home run landed on April 8, 1974.

Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium before opening in 1966.

A city view of Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium.

August 2, 1997, Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium being demolished.

[edit] Historic and notable events in Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium

• In 1972, the stadium hosted the Major League Baseball All-Star Game. Hank Aaron hit a home run during the game, and the National League won the game 4–3 in 10 innings.
• On April 8, 1974, Hank Aaron became baseball's all-time career home run leader by hitting his 715th home run off the Los Angeles Dodgers' Al Downing.
• On June 4, 1986, future home run king Barry Bonds hit his first career home run off of Craig McMurtry as a member of the Pittsburgh Pirates.
• The stadium hosted the World Series for the first time in 1991 when the Braves played the Minnesota Twins in what ESPN judged to be the best World Series ever played^[4]. The Braves won all three games played in Atlanta, two in their final at-bat, but lost the series in seven games.
• The 1992 World Series saw the Braves play the Toronto Blue Jays with the Blue Jays defeating the Braves four games to two, including two of three in Atlanta.
• On July 20, 1993, a fire occurred in the stadium press box during batting practice for that evening's game. This fire occurred on the same day that Fred McGriff joined the Braves.
• On October 28, 1995, the Braves clinched the 1995 World Series by defeating the Cleveland Indians 1–0 on a one-hit, 8-inning performance by pitcher Tom Glavine. The title was the Braves' first World Series championship in Atlanta, making one title in each of the three cities in which they have resided (also Boston and Milwaukee).
• The stadium's final event was Game 5 of the 1996 World Series; Andy Pettite of the New York Yankees closed down the stadium with a 1-0 shutout over John Smoltz of the Braves. Luis Polonia, made the final out in stadium history when Paul O'Neill of the Yankees robbed Polonia of a potential game-tying extra-base hit.

[edit] Demolition

Following the Olympics, Fulton County commissioner, Marvin S. Arrington, Sr., had a plan to save the stadium and use it as a professional soccer arena and share the parking facilities between it and Turner Field but he was unable to push it through.^[5] Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium was imploded on August 2, 1997. A parking lot for Turner Field now stands on the site, with an outline of the old stadium built in. The monument that marked the landing point of Hank Aaron's historic 715th home run stands in the same place it did when the stadium was on the site.

The stadium was demolished in the same week as another Atlanta sports venue, the Omni Coliseum. That arena was the former home of the NBA's Atlanta Hawks and the NHL's Atlanta Flames, and was replaced by Philips Arena on the same site.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Two vintage postcards showing the stadium from the air. Both cards were published around 1965 or 1966
• TerraServer photo of old stadium outline in parking lot, and Turner Field