Arlington Stadium

A State on the Wall

Arlington Stadium began as something smaller. Turnpike Stadium opened on April 23, 1965, for minor-league baseball. When the Washington Senators relocated and became the Texas Rangers, the park was rebuilt and renamed in time for the franchise's first home game on April 21, 1972 — though a players' strike delayed the start of that season and pushed the opener. When the game finally came, Frank Howard hit the park's first major-league home run in the first inning, and the Rangers beat the California Angels 7-6.

The feature that made the place itself sat on the left-field facade: a scoreboard shaped like the state of Texas. After the 1983 season, a thirty-foot wall topped the outfield rim from foul pole to foul pole, installed to temper the prevailing winds that hampered home-run balls — particularly to right — and to carry billboard advertising. The park stood in the American League for twenty-two seasons.

What Happened There

Two afternoons carry the place. On September 30, 1984, California's Mike Witt retired all 27 Rangers on 94 pitches — a perfect game, 1-0, in one hour and forty-nine minutes. Only 8,375 fans were in the seats for the season finale. Seven years later, in 1991, a forty-four-year-old Nolan Ryan threw his seventh and final career no-hitter there, making him the oldest player to do it.

Ryan's arrival in 1989, coinciding with George W. Bush becoming managing partner, turned the franchise at the gate. The Rangers drew their first two-million-plus attendance season that year, and attendance stayed above two million every season through 1993 — the park's last. In that final summer, a forty-six-year-old Ryan answered a hit batsman by delivering payback to the White Sox's Robin Ventura, who charged the mound in front of 32,000 spectators. Ryan put Ventura in a headlock and landed several punches before teammates intervened. Ventura was ejected. Ryan stayed in the game.

The Rangers played their final game at Arlington Stadium on October 3, 1993, a 4-1 loss to the Kansas City Royals, and the stadium was razed in 1994. What would prove this profile wrong: a record placing the structure standing after the razing, or a major-league event sourced there outside 1972–1993. We already know — the park is gone.

Reporting: SABR, Texas State Historical Association, This Great Game. Park data: MLB StatsAPI and Retrosheet, via the Fever engine.