Chase Field, formerly Bank One Ballpark, is a retractable roof stadium in downtown Phoenix, Arizona, United States. It is the ballpark of Major League Baseball's Arizona Diamondbacks. It opened in 1998, the year the Diamondbacks debuted as an expansion team. Chase Field was the first stadium built in the United States with a retractable roof over a natural grass playing surface, although it has used artificial turf since 2019.
History
The park was built during a wave of new, baseball-only parks in the 1990s. Although nearly all of those parks were open-air, it was taken for granted that a domed stadium was a must for a major-league team to be viable in the Phoenix area. Phoenix is by far the hottest major city in North America; the average high temperature during baseball's regular season is 99.1 °F, and game-time temperatures well above 100 °F are common during the summer.
Stadium funding
In the spring of 1994, the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors approved a 0.25 percentage point increase in the county sales tax to pay for their portion of the stadium funding. That happened during a huge county budget deficit and lack of funding for other services. The sales tax was very unpopular with local citizens, who were not permitted to vote on funding a baseball stadium with general sales tax revenue (use of public subsidies for stadium projects was prohibited by a 1989 referendum). The issue was so controversial and divisive that, in August 1997, Maricopa County Supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox was shot and injured while leaving a county board meeting by Larry Naman, a homeless man, who attempted to argue in court that her support for the tax justified his attack. In May 1998, Naman was found guilty of attempted first-degree murder.[12]
The cost of the stadium was estimated at $279 million in 1995,[13] but cost overruns, in part because of rising prices for steel and other materials, pushed the cost to $364 million.[14] As part of the stadium deal, the Diamondbacks were responsible for all construction costs over $253 million. The extra expenses, combined with the Diamondbacks and the other expansion franchise, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, not being allowed to share in national MLB revenue for their first five years of operations, left the Diamondbacks in a less-than-desirable financial situation, which came back to haunt team founder and managing partner Jerry Colangelo and his group.
Since 1996
Construction on the park began in 1996, and was finished just before the Diamondbacks' first season, in 1998. It was the third MLB stadium to have a retractable roof and the first in the United States (at the time, only Toronto's SkyDome (Rogers Centre) and Montreal's Olympic Stadium had them; others since are Daikin Park in Houston, American Family Field in Milwaukee, Globe Life Field in Arlington, T-Mobile Park in Seattle, and LoanDepot Park in Miami). It was also the first ballpark to feature natural grass in a retractable roof stadium.
The stadium hosted Games 1, 2, 6, and 7 of the 2001 World Series between the Arizona Diamondbacks and the New York Yankees. The Diamondbacks won all four home games, winning the title in seven games, and thus denying the Yankees a fourth consecutive championship. It was only the third time that the home team won all games of a World Series, with the other two instances occurring in and, both by the Minnesota Twins.
In March 2006, Chase Field played host to three first-round games of the World Baseball Classic.
Chase Field hosted the Major League Baseball All-Star Game in 2011.[15]
Chase Field hosted the 2017 National League Wild Card Game
Naming rights
The stadium was called Bank One Ballpark when Bank One of Chicago, Illinois (who had acquired locally based Valley National Bank of Arizona in 1992), purchased naming rights for $100 million over 30 years. After Bank One merged with New York-based JPMorgan Chase & Co. in 2005, Chase assumed the naming rights and the stadium's name was changed to Chase Field.[23]
Other events
The stadium hosts occasional concerts and international soccer games. For football and soccer, the field is set up with the end lines perpendicular to the third-base line and temporary bleachers added on the east side.
International baseball tournaments
Chase Field has hosted first-round games in the 2006 and 2013 World Baseball Classic tournaments, and hosted first round games in the 2023 tournament, from March 11, 2023, to March 15, 2023, which was postponed from 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[24]
College sports
The organizers of the Insight.com Bowl moved the game from Arizona Stadium in Tucson to Phoenix beginning in December 2000, and Chase Field became the game's host. After hosting six editions of the game, the bowl game moved to Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe, to replace the Fiesta Bowl, which had moved to State Farm Stadium in Glendale. The bowl, which has undergone several naming changes, remained in Tempe for nine playings, then returned to Chase Field starting with the January 2016 edition.
Roof and cooling system
Chase Field's roof is opened or closed depending on the game-time temperature. Even with the roof closed, the park's windows allow enough sunlight to play in daylight without overheating the stadium. The roof takes about 4½ minutes to open or close at a cost of $2–$3.
While the ballpark had a grass surface, the roof would be kept open to expose the turf to sunlight. When necessary, it would be closed three hours before game time using two 200-horsepower motors triggered from a control room in the upper deck above left-center field.[15] A massive HVAC system then dropped the temperature inside the park to about 78 °F (25.5 °C) by the time the gates opened. The chilled-water system, which has cooling power sufficient for 2,500 homes of 2000 sqft, also serves more than 30 buildings in downtown Phoenix.[15] The cooling plant, located in a separate building next to the ballpark, freezes water overnight to reduce daytime electricity demand.[15] Originally, the HVAC system did not cool above row 25 of the upper level, exposing fans in the higher rows to the brunt of Phoenix' oppressive summer heat. Subsequent improvements kept virtually all of the facility in air-conditioned comfort.[31]
Transportation
Chase Field is served by the A Line at 3rd Street/Jefferson and 3rd Street/Washington station of the Valley Metro Rail system.
Climate
External links
References
- Chase Field Facts & Figures Major League Baseball, retrieved 2021-02-06^
- Come See the D-Backs Get New High Tech Turfgrass Installed at Chase Field This Wednesday Giving Them a "Home Field Advantage" for 2018 Season 2018-02-26^
- Ellerbe Becket – Chase Field