After a couple of weeks, I’m back with another weekend full of baseball! This time, it’s the second week of Atlantic League Baseball. After realizing that the Charlotte Knights were playing earlier in the day, I needed to make a quick adjustment to the schedule. I looked around for a few days, and nothing seemed to fit in well with my 5:00 landing, until I started looking outside of MILB stadiums. This was perfect because I never attended an Atlantic League game until this one! I forgot all about the team and the stadium that has only been around for a year, and this worked out perfect. As some of you may know, I’ve recently become a huge fan of independent baseball, and the grind these leagues have.
Gastonia was a little different compared to a lot of new ballparks. I loved how unique the stadium was made. The seats behind home plate sit back pretty far, and have a very wide angle. It almost felt like the field could be used as a football stadium. After doing a little research, I’ve learned that the stadium is designed to be used for numerous sports, and a concert venue.
As I arrived at CaroMont Health Park with my friend Mitch, we realized that parking is free, and at your own risk behind the left field wall. We assumed that hitting the ball to the parking lot would be a big shot, and we realized later that we were wrong. This stadium is only 315 ft to left field. There is a tall wall, but I guarantee that these players could still hit it over the wall easily. Luckily the car was never in danger.
This stadium is perfect for a local baseball game! I was curious to see how the attendance would be, especially being so close to Charlotte where there’s a team that’s AAA. I recommend checking it out if you’re in the Charlotte area for more than one game. There are so many stadiums in the area that are numerous levels of professional baseball. Charlotte is the perfect area to take an entire week if you enjoy seeing new stadiums.
This game was a very interesting one to catch. We arrived shortly after the beginning of the game, and there was a lot of baseball left to be played in this one. Gastonia had a 5-0 lead in the 2nd inning, and it looked like a comfortable lead at the time. However, this is baseball and no lead is ever safe. Staten Island, which is just two weeks into being part of the Atlantic League, almost came back. There were some exciting home runs throughout this game, and a great atmosphere. We were part of the largest attendance in their team’s history with 2,425 people in the crowd.
When planning a game in Gastonia, I do recommend ordering your tickets at least a day in advance, depending on when you plan on attending. As you can see in the pictures, there aren’t very many seats behind home plate. In this picture, I’m sitting in the back row of the section. Also, there are pictures, but they have plans to build an entire district right next to this stadium. With that being said, I recommend possibly waiting until that’s built, if you’re interested in the full experience of Gastonia.
While the Atlantic League and other independent leagues are non affiliated, they do have a lot of former minor/major league players. As we were walking around the stadium to go out of the outfield gate, the area where the players walk to the clubhouse was roped off. This was a great opportunity for the fans to have interactions with the players, and the kids loved being able to give the players high fives, as they were walking back. One thing I noticed during this process, were how many players had gear they were wearing, or bags with their former MLB affiliations on them. Another thing to keep in mind, is that these players can go straight to the AA or AAA levels from independent baseball. As always, I’ll include all of the pictures below. Thank you for checking out the blog! There will be another post coming soon. Don’t forget to check out seatgeek.com and use code APGAMING for $20 off your first SeatGeek order!
AP Ballparks 