If you're a baseball fan you'll probably want to move ahead to the 2:00 mark of this video. That's when you'll really start to see the Alamodome's remarkable transformation into a temporary baseball stadium.
As you've probably heard, San Antonio's massive sports and entertainment facility played host to a pair of exhibition games between the Texas Rangers and San Diego Padres over the weekend. It was a first time ever event for the Alamodome, which was originally built to house football and basketball while serving as a convention center for the city and accommodating up to 65,000 fans. When it opened in May of 1993, it immediately became host to the Alamo Bowl. The NBA's San Antonio Spurs also called it home from 1993-2002 before moving into their new arena.
Throughout it's near two decade existence though, the building had never hosted a baseball game until this past weekend, and it certainly made for an interesting experience. Not to mention a lot of hard work for the arena staff tasked with turning a non-baseball stadium into something resembling a ballpark.
It wasn't easy, but I think they did a fine job.
Without question the most interesting thing to note here is that due to the configuration of the building, the wall down the line in right field was a mere 285 feet away from home plate. That makes the short porch at the new Yankee Stadium feel like any portion of Petco Park in San Diego before they started moving the fences in. There was also a 16 foot high wall that was draped by blue tarp. That gave the stadium a little bit of that old school Metrodome feel.
And yes, that screaming you hear is Hawk Harrelson going nuts at the mere mention of the Twins' former home.
As for the actual games, one would think those hitter-friendly dimensions in right would have led to a two-day offensive showcase. However, the team's only combined for a reasonable six home runs and 16 total runs. I guess you just have to tip your cap to the pitchers when that happens, but we understand batting practice lived up to the hype at least.
Here's a better look at the finished product when the teams took the field on Friday.
There's no word yet if Rangers plan on utilizing the building again in the future, but the experiment would have to be considered a success after drawing 75,210 fans over the two days.
Big BLS H/N: Cut 4
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