Final Opening Day at Globe Life Park bittersweet for longtime fans
Opening Day is always emotional for baseball fans.
But Thursday’s edition for Texas Rangers’ fans meant something even more special. It’s the final season for Globe Life Park, first known as the Ballpark in Arlington when it opened in April 1994. The team will move into the retractable-roof Globe Life Field in 2020.
For longtime season-ticket holders, it’s a bittersweet start for the long goodbye to the ballpark they’ve considered their baseball home for 25 years.
“I always consider Opening Day of the baseball season to be the best day of the year,” said Harry Davis, of Far North Dallas, and longtime season-ticket holder who attended his 28th Opening Day. “This is a special one because I was here for the very first game in ‘94. I’m going to be very sad to see this stadium go. A lot of great things happened here. We had a lot of great, emotional moments here.”
Thursday’s opener against the Chicago Cubs, with 48,538 in attendance, wasn’t exactly one of those magical moments. The Cubs beat up on Rangers pitching in a 12-4 rout.
Fans such as Davis are trying to reconcile a stream of mixed emotions about the final season in the ballpark. So many memories, so many defining moments. And most importantly for most fans, the building remains a beautiful cathedral to the game. It hasn’t become outdated or technologically unfit. The only real obvious improvement with Globe Life Field will be the retractable roof which will prevent players and fans alike burning up in July and August.
“Actually it’s kind of a sad/happy day. Every year it’s a special day,” said Mike Morris, of Bedford, who has been a season-ticket holder for decades. “I have mixed emotions, but there are at least 10 to 15 games [each year] where I’ve lost eight pounds [in the heat].”
So he’s happy about the roof, but not about the price increase for seats at Globe Life Field. His seats in Section 33 for the final season at Globe Life Park are $70. Similar seats at Globe Life Field are $350. In 1994, they were $14.
“We had been prepared for it because of similar [price increase] at other ballparks around the country,” he said, including the Busch Stadium in St. Louis and the new Yankee Stadium in the Bronx. Morris was born and raised in Oak Cliff, graduated from Duncanville High School in 1974 and attended Dallas-Fort Worth Spurs minor league games in the 1960s and early ‘70s at Turnpike Stadium, before it was enhanced and renamed Arlington Stadium. The Rangers, of course, moved there from Washington D.C. in 1972 and played there before moving into what is now known as Globe Life Park.
Davis, who estimates he’s attended over 1,000 Rangers games and been to every playoff game played at the ballpark, said the mixed emotions are likely to linger throughout the season.
The steep price increase, however, is tough to swallow, Davis said.
“The best seats in the stadium have increased by 400 percent. So there are going to be a lot of people like me, a lot of little guys who just love baseball, who are ether going to have to move way back if we want to stay, or be priced out,” he said. “It’s going to be more of a corporate atmosphere because those are the only ones who can afford a season ticket.”
Equivalent seats in the new ballpark (two rows behind the Rangers dugout) would cost him $50,000, Davis said. He’s paying $12,500 for the final season at Globe Life Park.
“So the seats I have in the new stadium are a little further back,” he aid. They’re still not cheap. He has two $300 seats, which is about $25,000, twice what he’s paying now. “I’m really going to have to swallow hard to make that work. But I love baseball,” said Davis, who shares the concern with a lot of fellow season-ticket holders he’s befriended over the years. “I think we’re all a little sad and confused and uncertain as to how we’re going to navigate these new ticket prices. It’s going to be a lot of corporations and a lot of very rich folks.”
Neither Davis nor Morris hesitated when asked for their favorite all-time moment at the ballpark.
“It’s got to be when they struck out A-Rod,” Morris said. “First time they won the AL and it was against the Evil Empire.”
Morris snapped a photo of the moment Neftali Feliz struck out Alex Rodriguez and hugged catcher Bengie Molina to clinch their first American League pennant in October 2010.
“Probably one of the greatest moments in my life was when Neftali Feliz threw Strike 3 past Alex Rodriguez in 2010 to get us to our first World Series,” Davis said.
This story was originally published March 28, 2019 at 6:02 PM.
