Country: USA
Distance: 7,844 km
Travel time: 196 days
On postcard: Atlanta. Turner Field
Turner Field is a stadium in Atlanta, Georgia, home to Major League Baseball's Atlanta Braves since1997. Turner Field was originally built as Centennial Olympic Stadium, it was completed in 1996 to serve as the centerpiece of the 1996 Summer Olympics. After the games, the stadium was converted into a baseball park to serve as the new home of the Braves.
The ballpark was built across the street from the former home of the Braves, Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium, which was demolished in the summer of 1997. From 2002 to 2004, the failed Fanplex entertainment center was located adjacent to the stadium's parking lot. The stadium contains 5,372 club seats, 64 luxury suites, and three party suites.
The most popular name choice among Atlanta residents for the new stadium at the time of its construction (according to a poll in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution) was Hank Aaron Stadium. After the ballpark was instead named after Ted Turner, the city of Atlanta renamed the section of Capitol Avenue on which the stadium sits Hank Aaron Drive, giving Turner Field the street number 755, after Aaron's home run total. The stadium is sometimes referred to as "The Ted," after Turner's first name.
1996 Summer Olympics
The stadium was originally constructed as the 85,000-seat Centennial Olympic Stadium and used for the 1996 Summer Olympics. Immediately after the 1996 Summer Paralympics, which followed the Olympics, much of the north end of the stadium was removed in order to convert it to its permanent use as a 49,000-seat baseball park. The stadium has hosted the Atlanta Braves of Major League Baseball since 1997, following a multimillion-dollar renovation to retrofit the stadium for baseball by removing the temporary stands that had made up nearly half the stadium and building the outfield stands and other attractions behind them. It was the site of the 2000 MLB All-Star Game.
After the 1996 Olympics were complete the stadium was officially leased by the Atlanta Braves. Private entities, including NBC and other Olympic sponsors, agreed to pay a large sum of the cost to build Centennial Olympic Stadium (approximately $170 million of the $209 million bill). The Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games (ACOG) sought to build the stadium in a way that it could be converted to a new baseball stadium, and ACOG paid for the conversion. This was considered a good agreement for both the Olympic Committee and the Braves, because there would be no use for a permanent 85,000 seat track and field stadium in Downtown Atlanta, as the 71,000 seat Georgia Dome had been completed 4 years earlier by the state of Georgia. Furthermore, the Braves had already been exploring opportunities for a new stadium. The Atlanta Fulton County Recreation Authority owns Turner Field and the Atlanta Braves have leased the field through 2016.
Because of the need to fit a track within the stadium in its earlier incarnation, the field of play, particularly foul territory, while not large by historical standards, is still larger than most new MLB stadiums.
College baseball
Since 2003, the NCAA baseball teams of Georgia Tech and the University of Georgia, which had previously played two games on each school's campus, replaced one of the home and home pairs in favor of a third game at Turner Field. This rivalry game at Turner Field is one of the most attended games in college baseball, with the 2004 game drawing 28,836—larger than that year's College World Series games.
Renovations
Significant renovations to the stadium were put into place for the 2005 season. Among the improvements was installation of a $10 million video display, which was at the time listed by the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's largest high definition video board. Since then, other stadiums including Sun Life Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida,Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium in Austin, Texas, the current Yankee Stadium in The Bronx and a horse track in Tokyo have installed larger boards. The current world record is the high-definition video board at Cowboys Stadium inArlington, Texas followed by Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City.
Other renovations in that year included the addition of a 1,080 foot (329 meter) long LED display to the stadium's upper deck, primarily for advertising purposes.
Turner Field's left field vista is dominated by advertising fixtures from two iconic Atlanta corporations. In 2009, a new large Coca-Cola bottle was installed behind left field. Replacing an earlier version made of various pieces of baseball equipment, the new bottle features a HD display around the label, as well as LED lighting. Next to this second iteration of Turner Field's Coca-Cola bottle is a 40-foot (12 m) Chick-fil-A cow, added in 2008. Wearing a Braves hat, the cow does the tomahawk chop along with fans while holding a sign with rotating slogans which tie in to the fast-food chain's successful "Eat Mor Chikin" advertising campaign.
Major League Baseball stadium records
The highest recorded attendance for a Braves regular season game in Atlanta is 54,296 and was set at Turner Field on October 2, 2010, against the Philadelphia Phillies. The highest recorded attendance for a Braves playoff game (and overall) in Atlanta is 54,357 and was set at Turner Field on October 5, 2003, against the Chicago Cubs. Both games included standing room tickets.
The longest game in Turner Field history was played on July 6, 2008 between the Braves and the Houston Astros. The game lasted 5 hours and 35 minutes, with the Braves winning 7-6 in 17 innings.
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