The Uni-Trade Stadium is a
baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball sport played between two team sport, teams of nine players each, taking turns batting (baseball), batting and Fielding (baseball), fielding. The game occurs over the course of several Pitch ...
stadium in
Laredo, Texas
Laredo ( ; ) is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the county seat of Webb County, Texas, Webb County, on the north bank of the Rio Grande in South Texas, across from Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, Mexico. Founded in 1755, Laredo grew from a villag ...
. The stadium is the United States home to The
Tecolotes de los Dos Laredos, a bi-national
Mexican League
The Mexican Baseball League (, or LMB, ) is a professional baseball league in Mexico. It is the oldest running professional sports league in the country.
The league has 20 teams organized in two divisions, North and South. Teams play 114 games ...
professional baseball team, and the Laredo Roses, a women's full-contact
American football
American football, referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada and also known as gridiron football, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular American football field, field with goalposts at e ...
team in the Sugar N Spice Football League. The stadium is also used for youth soccer leagues, youth and prep baseball games, and concerts. It was the home of the
Laredo Lemurs, a baseball team in the
American Association, from 2012 to 2016.
History
The Laredo Ballpark project was first approved by the city council and was voted in favor of (with 61.32% of the votes in favor and 38.68% against) constructing it with money collected by a .25% sales tax increase for the LEC since 2004 of which there is a surplus of about $18 million. The project consisted of building a new multiuse
Baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball sport played between two team sport, teams of nine players each, taking turns batting (baseball), batting and Fielding (baseball), fielding. The game occurs over the course of several Pitch ...
field near the
Laredo Energy Arena (now Sames Auto Arena). On December 9, 2011, it was announced that the stadium would be named Uni-Trade Stadium, after Uni-Trade Forwarding LLC, a local
freight forwarder. The park opened on May 17, 2012, with the Lemurs defeating the defending American Association champion
Grand Prairie AirHogs
The Texas AirHogs were a professional baseball team based in Grand Prairie, Texas from 2008 to 2020. The AirHogs were members of the American Association of Independent Professional Baseball, which is not affiliated with Major League Baseball. B ...
5–1 in front of a crowd of 5,923.
Despite posting winning records in each of their five seasons, including the 2015 American Association championship, Lemurs attendance plummeted from 187,845 in 2012 (fourth in a 14-team league) to just 41,955 in 2016, lowest in the league. Less than three weeks prior to the 2017 season, the Lemurs left the American Association and folded as result of a lawsuit between owner Arianna Torres and other members of Laredo Baseball Holdings, the Lemurs' ownership group. Torres allegedly accumulated over $500,000 of debts as well.
After the stadium sat empty for the 2017 season, the
Rojos del Águila de Veracruz of the Triple-A
Mexican League
The Mexican Baseball League (, or LMB, ) is a professional baseball league in Mexico. It is the oldest running professional sports league in the country.
The league has 20 teams organized in two divisions, North and South. Teams play 114 games ...
relocated to the region and took the name of the
Tecolotes de los Dos Laredos, a franchise that previously played on both sides of the US-Mexico border (Laredo and
Nuevo Laredo
Nuevo Laredo () is a city in the Municipality of Nuevo Laredo in the Mexican List of states of Mexico, state of Tamaulipas. The city lies on the banks of the Rio Grande, across from Laredo, Texas, Laredo, United States. The 2010 census popula ...
) from 1985 to 2004. The team splits their home games between Uni-Trade Stadium and
Parque la Junta on the Mexican side.
Field
The baseball field playing surface was designed and built by sports field contractor Texas Multi-Chem of
Kerrville, Texas. The baseball field's natural grass surface is TifSport hybrid Bermuda and the root zone consists of an 8" layer of USGA sand and Dakota peat. The field also contains an internal drainage system to help avoid rain-outs.
References
External links
Uni-Trade StadiumTexas Multi-Chem , Sports Field Contractor
{{coord, 27.55399, -99.45544, type:edu_region:US, display=title
Minor league baseball venues
Sports venues in Laredo, Texas
Baseball venues in Texas
2012 establishments in Texas
Sports venues completed in 2012
American football venues in Texas
Mexican League ballparks