Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium
Encyclopedia : A : AT : ATL : Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium
 | |
| Location | Atlanta, Georgia |
| Opened | April 12, 1966 |
| Closed | October 24, 1996 |
| Capacity |
52,013 (baseball) 62,000 (football) |
| Owned By | City of Atlanta and Fulton County |
| Architect: | Heery & Heery and Finch, Alexander, Barnes, Rothschild & Paschal |
|
Dimensions:
1966-68 Left Left-Center Center Right-Center Right 1969-72 Left Left-Center Center Right-Center Right 1973 only Left Left-Center Center Right-Center Right 1974-96 Left Left-Center Center Right-Center Right |
330 ft. 385 ft. 402 ft. 385 ft. 330 ft. 330 ft. 375 ft. 402 ft. 375 ft. 330 ft. 330 ft. 375 ft. 402 ft. 385 ft. 330 ft. 330 ft. 385 ft. 402 ft. 385 ft. 330 ft. |
Layout
The stadium was relatively nondescript, one of the many saucer-shaped multipurpose facilities built during the 1960s. The stadium was long known for the poor quality of the field of play – no one bothered to hire full-time groundskeepers until the early 1990s, instead relying on a city work crew. The relatively high elevation meant that the stadium was relatively favorable to long-ball hitters, giving rise to the nickname The Launching Pad. That factor certainly helped boost Henry Aaron's home run output, and he reached the all-time record sooner here than he might have in Milwaukee. One unusual feature of this stadium is the fact that, unlike most baseball stadiums used for football where the football field is 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. Thus, a seat behind home plate for baseball would also be behind the 50-yard line for football. (It shared this characteristic with the Oakland Coliseum). The stadium was refurbished for the 1996 season because it hosted the Olympic baseball competition. It probably looked better in many ways in its last season than it had in its first.Demolition
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, and a plaque marking the spot where Hank Aaron's historic 715th career home run landed on April 8, 1974, in what was formerly the Braves bullpen. That was one of the two most historic events ever to occur in the old park. The other came on October 28, 1995, when the home team defeated the Cleveland Indians on a one hit, 8 inning performance by pitcher Tom Glavine, to achieve the only Atlanta Braves World Series championship thus far (they have one in each of the three cities in which they have resided). The 1972 Major League Baseball All-Star Game was also held at the stadium.External links
- * Satellite image from [WikiMapia], [Google Maps] or [Windows Live Local]
- * Street map from [MapQuest] or [Google Maps]
- * Topographic map from [TopoZone]
- * Aerial image from [TerraServer-USA]
| Preceded by: Milwaukee County Stadium 1953–1965 | Home of the Atlanta Braves 1966–1996 | Followed by: Turner Field 1997–present |
| Preceded by: First stadium | Home of the Atlanta Falcons 1966–1991 | Followed by: Georgia Dome 1992–present |
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.