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Smith's Ballpark (formerly known as Franklin Quest Field, later Franklin Covey Field, and more recently Spring Mobile Ballpark) is a
minor league Minor leagues are professional sports leagues which are not regarded as the premier leagues in those sports. Minor league teams tend to play in smaller, less elaborate venues, often competing in smaller cities/markets. This term is used in No ...
baseball park A ballpark, or baseball park, is a type of sports venue where baseball is played. The playing field is divided into the infield, an area whose dimensions are rigidly defined, and the outfield, where dimensions can vary widely from place to pla ...
in
Salt Lake City Salt Lake City (often shortened to Salt Lake and abbreviated as SLC) is the capital and most populous city of Utah, United States. It is the seat of Salt Lake County, the most populous county in Utah. With a population of 200,133 in 2020, th ...
,
Utah Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to its ...
. It is the home field of the
Salt Lake Bees The Salt Lake Bees are a Minor League Baseball team of the Pacific Coast League (PCL) and the Triple-A affiliate of the Los Angeles Angels. They are located in Salt Lake City, Utah, and play their home games at Smith's Ballpark. The ballpark o ...
of the
Pacific Coast League The Pacific Coast League (PCL) is a Minor League Baseball league that operates in the Western United States. Along with the International League, it is one of two leagues playing at the Triple-A level, which is one grade below Major League Ba ...
and the collegiate
Utah Utes The Utah Utes are the intercollegiate athletics teams that represent the University of Utah, located in Salt Lake City. The athletic department is named after the Ute tribe of Native Americans. The men's basketball team is known as the Runnin' ...
of the
Pac-12 Conference The Pac-12 Conference is a collegiate athletic conference, that operates in the Western United States, participating in 24 sports at the NCAA Division I level. Its football teams compete in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS; formerly Divisi ...
.


History

Smith's Ballpark opened in 1994 with a
seating capacity Seating capacity is the number of people who can be seated in a specific space, in terms of both the physical space available, and limitations set by law. Seating capacity can be used in the description of anything ranging from an automobile tha ...
of 15,400, the largest in the PCL. It is located on the site of its predecessor,
Derks Field Derks Field was a minor league baseball park in the western United States, located in Salt Lake City, Utah. It was the home field of the Salt Lake Bees, Angels, and Gulls of the Pacific Coast League, Bees, Giants, and Trappers of the Pioneer Bas ...
, with a similar unorthodox southeast alignment, toward the
Wasatch Range The Wasatch Range ( ) or Wasatch Mountains is a mountain range in the western United States that runs about from the Utah-Idaho border south to central Utah. It is the western edge of the greater Rocky Mountains, and the eastern edge of the G ...
. The
elevation The elevation of a geographic location is its height above or below a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational surface (see Geodetic datum § ...
at street level is above
sea level Mean sea level (MSL, often shortened to sea level) is an average surface level of one or more among Earth's coastal bodies of water from which heights such as elevation may be measured. The global MSL is a type of vertical datuma standardis ...
. In its inaugural season in 1994, the Buzz set a PCL attendance record with 713,224 fans. The team led the PCL in attendance in each of its first six seasons in Salt Lake. The largest crowd at the ballpark is 16,531 in 2000; the Saturday night opponent was the
Albuquerque Dukes The Albuquerque Dukes were a minor league baseball team based in Albuquerque, New Mexico. History The first Dukes team was formed in 1915 as part of the Class D Rio Grande Association. The team finished in third place with a 32-25 record. Frank ...
on July 22. Besides hosting the Salt Lake Bees, Smith's Ballpark has played host to two exhibition games featuring the
Minnesota Twins The Minnesota Twins are an American professional baseball team based in Minneapolis. The Twins compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Central Division. The team is named after the Twin Cities area w ...
, a spring training game featuring the
Seattle Mariners The Seattle Mariners are an American professional baseball team based in Seattle. They compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) West division. The team joined the American League as an expansion ...
and the
Colorado Rockies The Colorado Rockies are an American professional baseball team based in Denver. The Rockies compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) West division. The team plays its home baseball games at Coors Fi ...
, concerts, soccer matches, and high school and college baseball games, including a Mountain West Conference tournament. The ballpark has hosted the
Triple-A All-Star Game The Triple-A All-Star Game was an annual baseball game held from 1988 to 2019 between professional players from the affiliated Triple-A leagues of Minor League Baseball. These leagues were the International League (IL) and Pacific Coast League ...
twice. In 1996, a team of
National League The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the National League (NL), is the older of two leagues constituting Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, and the world's oldest extant professional team s ...
-affiliated All-Stars defeated their
American League The American League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the American League (AL), is one of two leagues that make up Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada. It developed from the Western League, a minor league b ...
opponents, 2–1. Salt Lake's
Todd Walker Todd Arthur Walker (born May 25, 1973) is a former professional baseball infielder who played in Major League Baseball (MLB) from 1996 to 2007. Listed at and , he batted left-handed and threw right-handed. Walker played college baseball at Lo ...
was selected as the PCL MVP. The game returned to the park in 2011 with the
International League The International League (IL) is a Minor League Baseball league that operates in the United States. Along with the Pacific Coast League, it is one of two leagues playing at the Triple-A level, which is one grade below Major League Baseball ( ...
All-Stars beating the PCL team, 3–0. After Franklin Covey's 15-year naming rights agreements expired in 2009, an agreement with Spring Mobile, an
AT&T Mobility AT&T Mobility LLC, also known as AT&T Wireless and marketed as simply AT&T, is an American telecommunications company. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of AT&T Inc. and provides wireless services in the United States. AT&T Mobility is the th ...
authorized retailer, made the ballpark's name Spring Mobile Ballpark for five seasons. Leading up to and during the Salt Lake Winter Olympic Games in 2002, the ballpark served as a ticketing and service center. In March 2014, it was announced that Salt Lake City-based Smith's Food and Drug had signed a six-year naming rights deal, giving the park its current name.


Features

Smith's Ballpark is noted for its views of the
Wasatch Mountains The Wasatch Range ( ) or Wasatch Mountains is a mountain range in the western United States that runs about from the Utah-Idaho border south to central Utah. It is the western edge of the greater Rocky Mountains, and the eastern edge of the G ...
over the left and center field walls. The stadium is located one block east of Ballpark station on the TRAX light rail system. On August 4, 2022 Mayor Erin Mendenhall announced that a substation for the SLCPD would operate from the ballpark, citing that the success of the future of the Ballpark neighborhood depends on addressing policing and public safety.


Naming rights

When the ballpark opened in 1994, it was called Franklin Quest Field, for which the Franklin Quest Company paid $1.4 million in the summer of 1993 for 15 years of naming rights. It changed its name to Franklin Covey Field in 1997 after Franklin Quest merged with the Covey Leadership Center, becoming Franklin Covey. In 2009, the Bees announced on April 7 that they had reached a multi-year naming-rights deal with Spring Mobile (a Salt Lake City-based
AT&T AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the world's largest telecommunications company by revenue and the third largest provider of mobile ...
authorized retailer) to provide the ballpark's new name of Spring Mobile Ballpark which ran for five seasons. In 2014, Smith's Food and Drug signed a six-year agreement to rename it Smith's Ballpark.


See also

*
List of NCAA Division I baseball venues This is a list of stadiums that currently serve as the home venue for NCAA Division I college baseball teams. Conference affiliations reflect those in the coming 2023 NCAA baseball season. In addition, venues which are not located on campus or ar ...
*
List of Pacific Coast League stadiums There are ten stadiums in use by Pacific Coast League (PCL) baseball teams. The oldest stadium is Cheney Stadium, home of the Tacoma Rainiers, which opened in 1959. The newest stadium is Las Vegas Ballpark, home of the Las Vegas Aviators, which ...


References


External links


Smith's Ballpark
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