Coors Field
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| Location | 2001 Blake Street, Denver, Colorado 80205-2000 |
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| Coordinates | 39°45′22″N 104°59′39″W / 39.75611°N 104.99417°WCoordinates: 39°45′22″N 104°59′39″W / 39.75611°N 104.99417°W |
| Broke ground | October 16, 1992 |
| Opened | April 26, 1995 |
| Owner | Denver Metropolitan Baseball Stadium District |
| Surface | Grass |
| Construction cost | $300 million |
| Architect | Populous |
| Capacity | 50,445 |
| Field dimensions | Left Field - 347 feet (106 m) Left-Center - 390 feet (119 m) Center Field - 415 feet (126 m) Right-Center - 375 feet (114 m) Right Field - 350 feet (107 m) Backstop - 56 feet (17 m) |
| Tenants | |
| Colorado Rockies (MLB) (1995-present) | |
Coors Field, located in Denver, Colorado, is the home field of Major League Baseball's Colorado Rockies. It is named for the Coors Brewing Company of Golden, Colorado, which purchased the naming rights to the park prior to its completion in 1995. The Rockies played their first two seasons, 1993 and 1994, in Mile High Stadium before moving to Coors Field, two blocks from Union Station in Denver's Lower Downtown (or LoDo) neighborhood. The park includes 63 luxury suites and 4,500 club seats.
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[edit] Construction
Coors Field was the first new stadium added in a six year period in which Denver's sports venues were upgraded, along with Pepsi Center and INVESCO Field at Mile High. It was also the first baseball-only National League Park since Dodger Stadium was built in 1962.
As with the other new venues, Coors Field was constructed with accessibility in mind. It sits near Interstate 25 and has direct access to the 20th Street and Park Avenue exits. Nearby Union Station also provides light rail access.
Coors Field was originally planned to be somewhat smaller, seating only 43,800. However, after the Rockies drew almost 4.5 million people in their first season—the most in baseball history—plans were altered during construction, and new seats in the right field upper deck were added. The center field bleacher section has its own informal name: "the Rockpile." During the 1993 and 1994 Seasons when the team played at Mile High Stadium, which was a hybrid football/baseball venue, the Rockpile was located in the South Stands which were in dead center field, and very distant from home plate. The same design was incorporated into Coors field, and is located in deep center field up high. The original rock pile seats cost a dollar each.
During construction, workers discovered a number of dinosaur fossils throughout the grounds. Because of this, "Jurassic Park" was one of the first names to be considered for the stadium. This later led to the selection of a dinosaur as the Rockies' mascot, "Dinger." [1]
[edit] Features
While most of the seats in Coors Field are dark green, the seats in the 20th row of the upper deck are purple. This marks the city's one mile elevation point.
The Blue Moon Brewery at The Sandlot is a microbrewery/restaurant that is behind the Right Field Stands, with an entrance from Coors Field, and from Blake Street. The brewery is operated by the Coors Brewing Company, and experiments with craft beers on a small scale. Every year, they receive awards at the Great American Beer Festival in many different categories. The popular Blue Moon, a Belgian-Style Wheat beer was invented here, and is now mass produced by Coors. The restaurant is housed in a building that is attached to the stadium.
Behind the center field wall is a landscape decoration that reflects the typical environment of the Rocky Mountains. This landscape area consists of a waterfall, fountains, and pine trees. After a Rockies home run or win the fountains shoot high into the air.
[edit] Reputation as a home run-friendly park
Coors Field once had a reputation as a home run-friendly park that at one point, arguably, equaled Chicago's venerable Wrigley Field, and earned it the nickname "Coors Canaveral" among critics [1] (a reference to Cape Canaveral, from where NASA launches spacecraft). Before the introduction in 2002 of a large humidor used for baseball storage, Denver's dry air tended to dry out baseballs, which made the balls harder and caused them to travel farther.[2] In addition, the curveball tends to curve less with the thin air than at sea level leading to fewer strikeouts and fewer effective pitches for pitchers to work with. [3]
Stadium designers knew beforehand that Coors Field would give up a disproportionate number of home runs because of its high elevation and dry air, and acted accordingly by placing the outfield fences at an unusually far distance from home plate; thus creating one of the largest outfields in baseball today. The result was a ballpark that, for many years, not only gave up the most home runs in baseball, but also gave up the most doubles and triples as well.[4]
Coors Field twice broke the major league record for home runs hit in a ballpark in one season. The previous record, 248, had been set at the Los Angeles version of Wrigley Field in 1961, its only year for major league ball. In Coors Field's first year, the home run total fell just 7 short of that mark, despite losing 9 games from the home schedule (or one-ninth of the normal 81) due to the strike that had continued from 1994. The next season, 1996, with a full schedule finally, 271 home runs were hit at Coors Field. In 1999, the current major league record was set at 303. Efforts to deaden the ball have apparently worked, as the annual home run figure dropped noticeably in 2002, and have fallen well below 200 starting with 2005. (Yearly totals are from Retrosheet: [2])
[edit] Notable events
The only no-hitter at Coors Field was thrown by Hideo Nomo of the Los Angeles Dodgers on September 17, 1996.[5]
The 1998 Major League Baseball All-Star Game took place in Coors Field.
In June of 2002, the New York Yankees made their first regular season trip to Coors Field. The series was a slugfest, with the two teams combining to score 70 runs. The Yankees won the first two games by scores of 10–5 and 20–10, and the Rockies took the series finale in 10 innings by a score of 14–11.
There have been eight 1-0 games in Coors Field history, as of July 6, 2009. The first 1-0 game at Coors Fields was on July 9, 2005[6], meaning all eight games have occurred since major league baseball allowed the Rockies to start using a humidor on May 15, 2002:[7]
- July 9, 2005, when the Rockies beat the San Diego Padres[6]
- April 16, 2006, when the Philadelphia Phillies beat the Rockies[8]
- July 25, 2006, when the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Rockies[9]
- August 1, 2006, when the Milwaukee Brewers beat the Rockies[10]
- June 11, 2008, when the Rockies beat the San Francisco Giants[11]
- September 14, 2008, when the Rockies beat the Los Angeles Dodgers in 10 innings[12][13]
- September 17, 2008, when the Rockies beat the San Diego Padres[14]
- July 6, 2009, when the Rockies beat the Washington Nationals[15]
Games 3 and 4 of the 2007 World Series against the Boston Red Sox were held at Coors Field. The Red Sox won the World Series at Coors Field.
[edit] The "Voice" of Coors Field
Alan Roach was the main PA announcer since Coors Field opened in 1995. In the spring preceding the 2007 Rockies season, Roach announced his retirement from his post at Coors Field to spend more time over the summer with his family. Although he did come back to substitute for Reed Saunders for 2 games in 2008.[16] Roach is also the PA announcer for the nearby Colorado Avalanche hockey team of the NHL and provides voice-overs for local sports introductions in the region, in addition to hosting a local sports talk radio show. He is also one of the voices of the train system at Denver International Airport, and has also been heard as the PA announcer at recent Super Bowls. Reed Saunders, 23, was chosen to be the new voice of Coors Field on March 16, 2007.
[edit] In popular culture
Coors Field appears in the South Park episodes Professor Chaos and The Losing Edge.
[edit] References
- ^ http://www.denverpost.com/portlet/article/html/fragments/print_article.jsp?article=3689029
- ^ Troy E. Renck (2006-06-21). "More humidors likely on horizon". Denver Post. http://www.denverpost.com/rockies/ci_3961497. Retrieved on 2007-06-12.
- ^ "What to pack for Denver". http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/what-to-pack-for-denver/.
- ^ Lowry, Phillip (2005). Green Cathedrals. New York City: Walker & Company. ISBN 0802715621.
- ^ Coors Field
- ^ a b "ESPN - Padres vs. Rockies - Recap - July 9, 2006". http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/recap?gameId=250709127.
- ^ "Baseball gives Rockies' humidor its OK". USA Today. 2002-05-14. http://www.usatoday.com/sports/baseball/rockies/2002-05-14-humidor.htm.
- ^ ESPN - Phillies vs. Rockies - Recap - April 16, 2006
- ^ ESPN - Cardinals vs. Rockies - Recap - July 25, 2006
- ^ ESPN - Brewers vs. Rockies - Recap - August 1, 2006
- ^ ESPN - Giants vs. Rockies - Recap - June 11, 2008
- ^ Only scoreless game through nine innings at Coors Field.
- ^ ESPN - Dodgers vs. Rockies - Recap - September 14, 2008
- ^ ESPN - Padres vs. Rockies - Recap - September 17, 2008
- ^ ESPN - Nationals vs. Rockies - Recap - July 6, 2009
- ^ Rich Draper (2007-02-26). "Roach steps down as Rox PA man". MLB.com. http://colorado.rockies.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20070226&content_id=1817412&vkey=spt2007news&fext=.jsp&c_id=col. Retrieved on 2007-06-12.
[edit] External links
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Coors Field |
- Ballpark Digest visit to Coors Field
- Ballparks of Baseball
- Coors Field images and information
- Aerial photo of Coors Field from Microsoft TerraServer
| Preceded by Mile High Stadium |
Home of the Colorado Rockies 1995 – present |
Succeeded by Current |
| Preceded by Jacobs Field |
Host of the All-Star Game 1998 |
Succeeded by Fenway Park |
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