Rangers Ballpark in Arlington

Greene's Hill

The center field fence at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington did not end at a wall. Beyond it, a sloped section of turf rose up — Greene's Hill — serving as the batter's eye and giving fans a surface to run onto for home runs that cleared the fence. The playing field around it was deliberately asymmetrical: 332 feet down the left field line, 400 to center, 325 to right.

Architect David M. Schwarz designed the park as a retro-style structure that incorporated features of classic Jewel Box parks. It opened on April 1, 1994, with an exhibition against the New York Mets, built a short distance from the older Arlington Stadium it replaced. The regular season began on April 11, when a sellout crowd of 46,056 watched the Rangers lose to the Milwaukee Brewers, 4-3. The park carried several names over the years — The Ballpark in Arlington, Ameriquest Field, Globe Life Park — before closing after the 2019 season.

What the Air Did

Fans and players alike cursed the conditions. High Texas temperatures, relatively short fences, and winds that swirled and lifted balls out of play made the park hitter-friendly. The design was so conducive to home runs that the Rangers eclipsed 200 in multiple seasons during the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Pitching held its own at times. Kenny Rogers threw a perfect game there on July 28, 1994, against the California Angels. On June 12, 1997, the stadium hosted the first regular-season interleague game in MLB history: the Rangers against the San Francisco Giants, one of four interleague games scheduled that night, and the one that started earlier than the others.

The Rangers won their first American League pennant at the park, a 6-1 victory over the New York Yankees in Game 6 of the 2010 ALCS.

Reporting: Texas State Historical Association (tshaonline.org), Wikipedia. Park data: MLB StatsAPI and Retrosheet, via the Fever engine.