BRISTOL, Tennessee (AP) — Bristol Motor Speedway is poised to hold Tennessee’s first Major League Baseball game, making history.
The MLB Speedway Classic between the Atlanta Braves and Cincinnati Reds on Saturday night is expected to draw the largest crowd for a regular season baseball game.
As MLB’s senior vice president of global events, Jeremiah Yolkut stated on Friday, “You can see how the venue looks on paper, but you really can’t get a true vision of it until you actually put grandstands on the track’s infield and you put 3,500 seats in the middle of 87,000 seats.”
Until you witness such things, they simply don’t become real.
Fans will witness a baseball diamond hidden inside Bristol’s half-mile bullring’s infield on Saturday. A press box sits atop a makeshift grandstand that encircles both sidelines. Along the third base line, the Colossus videoboard on the track hovers over foul territory. It will be foul if any balls are hit off Colossus.
Three-time All-Star The largest-ever baseball game attendance was 115,300 at the Los Angeles Coliseum in March 2008, when Sean Casey participated in an exhibition against the Red Sox and Dodgers. On Friday, Casey remarked that the spectators’ enthusiasm that day was amazing.
After spending some time on the field announcing with MLB Network, Casey stated, “I think the Reds and the Braves taking this field with 90,000+ people at Bristol Motor Speedway, the energy for this game is going to be off the charts.”
MLB blocked out seats in Turns 3 and 4 of the track, which has a racing capacity of 146,000, in an attempt to surpass the 2008 attendance record. On Monday, officials said that over 85,000 tickets had been sold, surpassing the previous record of 84,587 paid attendance established on September 12, 1954, when the New York Yankees played at Cleveland Stadium.The Cincinnati Reds and Atlanta Braves will play an MLB game at Bristol Motor Speedway on August 2. Facebook/Bristol Motor Speedway
According to Yolkut, one distinction between the 2008 game and this one is that it is a regular-season match rather than an exhibition. Setting a record and telling some spectators to watch the game on the videoboard wasn’t the only goal of this game.
According to Yolkut, we believed it was critical to have as few seats that would obstruct the view as possible and to ensure that the spectators attending would have an amazing time.
On Friday afternoon, the Reds defeated the Braves 3-2 in Cincinnati.
Everyone in Bristol had time to get ready for the extravaganza on Saturday as a result. The Braves’ clubhouse is next to the track wall, just past the right field fence, while the Reds’ is behind the grandstand on the baseball field.
The Braves hosted a watch party at the Bristol Paramount Theater a few miles away for Friday’s game. Free admission was offered, and there was a refreshment stand with a big-screen view and mementos for sale.
MLB also has a plan to ensure that fans arrive early on Saturday.
The 110-foot Ferris wheel, food trucks, pitching tunnels, batting cages, and club mascots are all part of the MLB Fan Zone, which is located just outside the speedway’s tall walls.Bristol will host a large pre-game event with Tim McGraw and Pitbull as the main acts.
Chipper Jones and Johnny Bench will take the first pitch in a scheduled flyover.
Fans came to Bristol’s campgrounds on Thursday to take advantage of the opportunity to see history. A contingent of Braves supporters set up tents after traveling from Charleston, South Carolina. The 40-year-old Rich Lorenzo grew up in Columbus, Georgia, and has been a Braves fan ever since.
Lorenzo sat by his tent and remarked, “I’m really excited because I’ve actually run Bristol in two different cars here, and it’s kind of cool to come for something other than racing.” Being a part of this event is very incredible. In addition, Tennessee hosted the inaugural Major League Baseball game.
Following the game, East Tennessee State University will receive the 124,000 square feet of AstroTurf as part of MLB’s Better Together social responsibility campaign. Forty-five players from ETSU were selected in the MLB draft.
On Friday, that program hosted a STEM event in the infield as well. The science and arithmetic involved in striking a baseball, running the bases, or the fast reactions required of players and NASCAR drivers were demonstrated to about 60 members of the local Boys and Girls Club.
According to April Brown, executive vice president of social responsibility for MLB, “we also get the opportunity to invest in the community that’s hosting us.” Since collaborations and education are essential to the things we wish to invest in, this is extremely crucial to our MLB Together pillars.
