Big Changes at a Big Ballpark

Chukchansi Park in Fresno, Calif., is another one of those great big, beautiful ballparks built in the 21st century, with wide, open concourses behind rows of seats that are close to the action on the field. Food and drink concessions are easy to get to and you don’t have to miss any of the game while you wait in line. 

Many of these ballparks follow the model of Baltimore’s Oriole Park at Camden Yards and Chukchansi Park was even designed by the same company. The stadium is well-suited for other uses, like music concerts, high school football and soccer. There are almost 11,000 seats for baseball, but plenty of open seating and standing room for thousands of additional fans. An exhibition soccer match in 2012 between two teams from Mexico’s Primera Division drew a crowd of more than 16,000.

Plenty of room for my friends Joyce and Malcolm and me.
Did the 104° temperature keep the fans away.

The ballpark opened in 2002 for the Grizzlies, the AAA team that arrived in Fresno a few years earlier when the major league Arizona Diamondbacks pushed the minor league team in Phoenix into Tucson, which in turn forced the Tucson team to find their new home in California.

From 1998 to 2014, the Grizzlies were the AAA team of the San Francisco Giants, then for six seasons they were an affiliate of the Houston Astros. In 2019, the team adopted bold new uniforms featuring a fierce bear that looks like it jumped right off the California Republic state flag.

Buy the big souvenir fountain soda and get $4 refills all season.

They also became the AAA team of the Washington Nationals, whose contract with the Syracuse Chiefs had come to an end. That made a long trip for any movement of players from the farm team to the big leagues, but in the musical chairs of minor league baseball, one or two teams have often been left in similar circumstances.

After the 2020 season, Major League Baseball attempted to mitigate the long-distance problem in its takeover and reorganization of the minor leagues. In the process, it meant there would be some losers among the minor league teams, and Fresno was one of those hardest hit.

My Trenton Thunder jersey, a symbol of solidarity with the Grizzlies.
Both teams were hit hard in the minor league shakeup.

The Minnesota Twins had decided to adopt the independent St. Paul Saints as their AAA team. This opened up Rochester for the Nationals to pick up as a team closer to their big league home. Two other AAA teams were pushed aside when the Miami Marlins promoted the Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp from AA, and when the Houston Astros invited the independent Sugar Land Skeeters to be their AAA team. The San Antonio Missions and the Wichita Wind Surge were both demoted to AA to make way for those additions.

But, for Fresno, a move to AA was not an option. There are no other AA teams nearby for them to play, in fact, there are no AA teams west of the Pecos. To make matters worse, the A-Advanced California League was converted to the Low-A West league in the new configuration. That meant Fresno would have to join those teams in Low-A or be left out of affiliated minor league baseball altogether.

Anatomy of a mitt on display at Chukchansi Park. Other displays
looked inside baseballs and showed how bats are made.

It took some effort for the Grizzlies to work out a new arrangement with the city of Fresno that would keep the minor league team at Chukchansi Park. Filling all those seats will be a challenge now that the team is showcasing players that are three levels further away from making it to the big leagues.

The Grizzlies, now affiliated with the Colorado Rockies, are holding their own on the playing field with a good lead in the standings for a likely spot in 2021’s scaled-down minor league postseason. The two top teams in each league from AA down will compete in a best-of-five series for their league’s championship. Fresno’s week-long series with the second-place San Jose Giants could be a preview for the Low-A West championship in September.

A real hand-operated scoreboard in the outfield.

In the first game of the series, the Giants took an early lead with a 3-run homer in the first inning and a 2-run shot in the third. The Grizzlies came within one run in the middle innings and were trailing 7-6 after eight. A single in the ninth with one out and a triple tied the score at 7 apiece. The Giants’ Casey Schmitt had trouble with Warming Bernabel’s grounder to third allowing the winning run to score. It looked a lot like an error, but it was ruled a fielder’s choice. Final: Fresno Grizzlies 8, San Jose Giants 7.