Construction workers still have some finishing touches to put on the baseball field inside the race track at Bristol Motor Speedway in the coming week, but officials are expecting a record crowd on hand to watch the Atlanta Braves face the Cincinnati Reds in the MLB Speedway Classic on Aug. 2.
“We can’t wait for next Saturday night … when that first pitch is thrown out and the stands are full,” Jerry Caldwell, the president and general manager of the East Tennessee short track, said Friday. “We’ll be setting records, we’ll be having attendance records. We’ll be announcing all those details later on, but we’ll be there, I know we will.”
The largest crowd ever to see a baseball game was 115,300 for a March 2008 exhibition between the Boston Red Sox and the Los Angeles Dodgers at Los Angeles Coliseum. Bristol packed in 156,990 for the Battle of Bristol, a regular-season college football game between Tennessee and Virginia Tech in 2016.
Officials showed off the work Friday with a baseball field now sitting on top of the infield inside the half-mile bullring where cars and a building once sat for NASCAR races. Bristol has already hosted one Cup Series race this year, the Food City 500 in mid-April, and will host a second one, the Bass Pro Shops Night Race, to wrap up the final round of the playoffs on Sept. 13.
Murray Cook, an MLB field and stadium consultant with BrightView, said he’s excited to be at this point in the process of building a ballpark. Final touches still remain for the clay, along with all the padding and branding, which should be in place by Wednesday at the latest.
Crews held a light check this past Thursday night to make sure they meet MLB standards.
“We’ve had a blast building this,” Cook said.
The MLB Speedway Classic is set to be the third straight game between the Braves and the Reds, with the first two scheduled for Cincinnati’s Great American Ball Park on Thursday night and Friday afternoon. That should give any fans taking in the second game of the series before heading to Bristol — as well as the teams — a little extra time to make it to Tennessee.
Fans are being encouraged to settle in for the big party planned both outside and then inside the race track on game day. First pitch is scheduled for 7:15 p.m. with Fox televising the matchup, but Caldwell said spectators should show up by noon to enjoy the attractions outside the track, including music, a 110-foot Ferris wheel, a food truck row, pitching tunnels, batting cages and team mascots.
Once fans head inside, Tim McGraw and Pitbull are both scheduled to perform.
Atlanta and Cincinnati are both off the day after the Bristol game. That’s a rarity for MLB teams because it’s a Sunday, but it’s a safety net in case the weather is unfavorable Saturday.
Demolition started in early June, with heavy construction now in high gear to transform Bristol Motor Speedway into a ballpark for the first MLB game ever held in Tennessee.
There is grandstand seating for fans along both baselines, though there’s significantly more on the third-base side due to the configuration inside the track. Both teams will be wearing NASCAR-inspired uniforms, which were revealed last Monday, with details such as flames on the brim of the Braves’ caps and a finish-line checkerboard for the Reds’ caps.
The MLB Speedway Classic also will be included in the “MLB The Show 25” video game after an update scheduled for Tuesday.
Caldwell, who noted the project has been long in the works, said the track is “thrilled to be able to welcome everyone to Bristol and partner with Major League Baseball, the state of Tennessee and so many others to be able to pull this off.”