I love capturing baseball stadiums up close so on a recent morning in Atlanta I headed over to the old ball field. It wasn’t Turner Field, the current baseball home of the Braves that I wound up at first, but literally the old ball field, what was once Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium.
The old stadium was demolished but has definitely not been forgotten. It’s now a parking lot across the street to the north from Turner Field…
…which is surrounded on one side by a blue outfield wall marking where the stadium was. Hey, there’s the infield, pitchers mound and home plate. I hit an air home run and circled the bases and baseball history buffs can probably guess what I was thinking.
Number 715 is what I was thinking. Henry Aaron. A portion of the metal, outfield fence marking where he hit the record-breaking home run in 1974 sits in place. Babe Ruth’s record of 714 had stood since 1935.
Before homering and circling the bases, I captured the Downtown Atlanta skyline as it sat over the outfield wall. Always looking for that next skyline shot! π
Do a complete 180 and Turner Field is straight ahead. I got my baseball stadium shot too.
I walked up a stair case along the blue outfield wall and looked back at both past and present. Lot’s of baseball memories in such a small area. The last game was played at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium on October 24, 1996. It was demolished and turned into the parking lot a year later. It was also the home of the Falcons football team until 1991.
It was time to walk across the street and capture some shots of Turner Field up close. More history sat in front.
I immediately found the Number 44 and the statue of the retired great Henry Louis “Hank” Aaron. Obviously one the greatest players to ever play, who wound up with 755 home runs, a record which stood until 2007.
A bronze statue of Ty Cobb sliding into first sits in front of Turner Field. Cobb played most of his career for the Detroit Tigers, but was a native of Georgia, nicknamed the “Georgia Peach”.
Enlarged Braves baseballs were on display as well as other numbers of Braves greats…
…such as Number 29, belonging to recently retired pitcher John Smoltz.
There were also some of bronze plaques set into brick on the ground, like this one for long-time broadcaster and Braves pitcher Ernie Johnson.
It was a fun time hanging out and running around where Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium was. It brought back memories of watching all the Braves success in the 1990’s. Seeing the plaques, statues and numbers of Braves greats in front of Turner Field gave me the chills too.
Have you ever visited the former site of a baseball or other sports stadium? What statues of famous athletes have you seen and captured in your travels?
I love baseball stadiums too and I’m on a never-ending MLB tour. π Will have to make it to ATL someday!
Want to see up close as many stadiums inside and outside that I can. π Yes, yes!
Pretty cool perspective. I never attended a game at Fulton County. I did attend the first day of track and field at the Olympic Stadium (now Turner Field), and walked around the old ballpark, which was being used for Olympic baseball at the time. I’ve also since attended a couple of baseball games at Turner Field. I’ve been to a few spots where new parks sit next to old ones, and unless I just didn’t notice it, this is the only instance I know of the old park being remembered in such a unique way. My only issue with Atlanta is that they moved the Olympic torch to what seems like such a random spot.
That’s great you got to checkout the Olympic Stadium. Yeah I’ve been to other cities where they don’t showcase where a stadium was and all it’s history or there is very little. Agree with torch spot. While I was there I did go up the blue stairs alongside the blue Fulton County wall and ran across the parking lot to capture the torch. Everything right around it was blocked off parking-wise if people wanted to come and check it out.