Texas Rangers

Location

Arlington, Texas, United States

Capacity

48,114

Opened

2020

Time zone

UTC -06:00 Central Standard Time (CST)

Globe Life Park in Arlington is a stadium in Arlington, Texas, located between Dallas and Fort Worth. It is home to the American League's Texas Rangers, and the Texas Rangers Baseball Hall of Fame. It was constructed as a replacement for nearby Arlington Stadium. It was known as The Ballpark in Arlington until May 7, 2004, when Ameriquest bought the naming rights to it and renamed it Ameriquest Field in Arlington. On March 19, 2007, the Rangers severed their relationship with Ameriquest and announced that it would be renamed Rangers Ballpark in Arlington. On February 5, 2014, Globe Life and Accident Insurance Company bought the naming rights to it. Globe Life is owned by Torchmark Corporation, which is based in McKinney, Texas, a northern suburb of Dallas. Funding was approved for a new home for the Rangers in 1991 by the City of Arlington. Construction began on April 2, 1992 a short distance away from Arlington Stadium, the stadium it would replace, and the new Ballpark in Arlington opened on April 1, 1994 in an exhibition contest between the Rangers and the New York Mets. The first official game was on April 11 against the Milwaukee Brewers. The largest crowd to watch a Rangers baseball game was on October 30, 2010, when 52,419 fans watched Game 3 of the 2010 World Series against the San Francisco Giants. The stadium was designed by David M. Schwarz Architectural Services of Washington, D.C. The Rangers chose to build a retro-style ballpark, incorporating many features of baseball's Jewel Box parks. A roofed home run porch in right field is reminiscent of Tiger Stadium, while the white steel frieze that surrounds the upper deck was copied from the pre-1973 Yankee Stadium. The out-of-town scoreboard (removed in 2009 and replaced with a state-of-the-art videoboard) was built into the left-field wall—a nod to Fenway Park, while the numerous nooks and crannies in the outfield fence are a reminder of Ebbets Field. The arched windows are a reminder of Comiskey Park. However, it has a few distinct features of its own. Several traditional Texas-style stone carvings are visible throughout it. A four-story office building in center field encloses it, with a white steel multilevel facade similar to the facade on the roof. As the stadium was built on one of the former Arlington Stadium parking lots, the irregular dimensions of the outfield were planned independently, rather than being forced by neighboring structures.