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Greer Stadium an aging wonder

by Marc Viquez
July 27, 2007 - Pacific Coast League (PCL1) - Nashville Sounds


I have been following the news about the Nashville Sounds (AAA, Pacific Coast League) attempts to build a brand new ballpark in downtown. The deal is all but dead and GM Glenn Yaeger has mentioned that the team could leave town after their lease at their current home, Greer Stadium, is up after the 2008 season. I fully understand the need for a new ballpark, but it got me thinking of my two experience at the ballpark.

Back in the day when I was a teenager (sorry, had to use that line) my family and I spent the night in Nashville for the night en route to Las Vegas to see my brother. I knew that there was a minor league baseball team in town, so I checked the newspaper to see if a game was being played that night, didn't have something called the internet back then at my disposal.

I called up the front office at Greer Stadium for directions, hopped into my mom's car, and drove down to check out the game. I was surprised since the game I saw was the AA Nashville Xpress and not the AAA Nashville Sounds that I was more familiar with. Nevertheless, I was too inexperienced in the world of minor league baseball to notice the difference. This was minor league baseball and being from New Jersey, this was still very new to me. The Trenton Thunder and New Jersey Cardinals had only begun that season; bringing minor league baseball back to the Garden State after a long absence.

I remember the smell of mustard, stale beer, and peanut shells fragranced the concourse underneath. The narrow section is where I picked up a game day program, I used to collect them at every park I went to, but now they are not as vital for me after the game. What a shame, such treasured items from back in my youth; no disregarded as something of a novelty.

I walked up to my seats, program at hand, and watched the rest of the game that was currently in the 4th inning; I arrived somewhat late to game. The ballpark seemed fine to me, but what I remembered most was the large guitar shaped scoreboard behind the outfield wall. This guitar screamed Nashville and it was somewhat mythical for my young eyes. This uncanny shaped object was not like anything I had ever seen at a baseball stadium in my life.

I left the game, went back to the hotel, and the next night my family arrived in Oklahoma City for our next stop on our voyage out west. I attempted to catch an Oklahoma City 89ers game at the fairgrounds, but I was very late and missed the game completely. I always wondered what that experience might have been like, but I was happy to have checked out a game in Nashville at Greer Stadium.

I would not return to Nashville until a decade later and that is where I witness my second game at the ballpark. This time it was the Nashville Sounds and there was that same guitar blooming in the distance. I had visited many ballparks within those ten years and many more had been built, while many had been razed, but there was something a little more comforting here.

There had been a multitude of brand new ballparks built within those ten years at all levels of minor league baseball that offered a variety of accommodations not found at Greer Stadium, but the simple basic pleasure of watching a game was not surpassed. The giant guitar still donned the outfield wall and great AAA baseball was still being played. I also think the smell in the concourse area was still the same. Nevertheless, I enjoyed my second game at the stadium.

The park was built in 1978 and was intended for folks to pay a ticket and watch a baseball game. There were not any grass berm seats down the third base line, wide-open concourses in view of play, a fancy souvenir gift shop, and a giant children's play area behind the outfield wall (even though a children's area was added). Also, the area where the stadium was built is not in the most noticeably or desirable locations.

I had a friend relocate from Indianapolis, home of the spacious Victory Field, and was somewhat upset with the basic Greed Stadium. She thought that it was a dump and wanted a downtown stadium. However, my little cousin from Houston, who grew up with giant scoreboards with all the bells and whistles of the Astrodome, said she liked the simple pleasure of enjoying a baseball game outside. She said she there was something completely satisfying with watching a baseball game outside; she also loved the free parking.

I have enjoyed many of the new ballparks that have opened in both the International and Pacific Coast Leagues. There are many that are almost surreal to be minor league stadiums and they seem to fit into somewhere between the major and minor leagues. Greed Stadium is just a reminder of how ballpark designs were not less than 30-years-ago. I admit that the times have changed and new standards have been introduced that make playing in a stadium such as Greer futile.

Nashville is a great city that deserves a first class ballpark in a prime location. That may eventually happen one day, but sometimes it is hard to let go of the past. Attending a Sounds game is an inimitable experience and pretty soon the majority of AAA ballparks across the nation will be brand new facilities with everything you could want for and imagine. Not that it is a bad thing, but it will be just an end of era for ballparks like Greer.

There is still a lot more baseball to be played at Greer Stadium this season and next, and I suppose I would venture down there again to pay my last respects to the venerable fixture. I only hope that the end of Greer will not also mean the end of baseball in Nashville, now that would be the real shame.


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