Rainy days at Big 12 baseball tournament to end in 2022 with move to Globe Life Field
It’s not that Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark in Oklahoma City hasn’t been a good host for the Big 12 baseball tournament in 20 of the past 23 seasons.
Globe Life Field, though, has a chance to raise the game — and keep the tournament running on time.
The Big 12 Conference made it official Wednesday that Globe Life Field will play host to the conference tournament for a three-year run that begins in 2022. Bricktown Ballpark will play host to the Big 12 this year and in 2021.
Commissioner Bob Bowlsby said the retractable roof played a factor in the Big 12’s decision to return the tournament to Arlington for the first time since 2004, but it wasn’t the only reason.
“You take weather out of play,” Bowlsby said. “But more than anything else it’s an opportunity to really elevate our baseball championship and to say to our players it’s important to us and we want to provide a venue that is second to none.”
The tournament is held in late May, when rain is a threat. TCU felt the impact of rain last year, when two elimination games were halted by rain in 24 hours.
The Horned Frogs beat Baylor the morning of March 25 to finish a game that had been suspended a night earlier, beat Oklahoma State that afternoon, and saw their night game against the Cowboys postponed because of rain.
“This is an exciting move for the Big 12 and for the DFW baseball community,” TCU coach Jim Schlossnagle said. “Oklahoma City is an incredible experience, and we look forward to building on that for our student-athletes in a brand new MLB stadium and climate-controlled environment.”
Bowlsby said that Big 12 coaches can use the move as a recruiting tool. Every player wants to play in the major leagues, but playing in an MLB venue might be as close as many of them get.
Former Rangers outfielder David Murphy, who played at Baylor, played in three MLB ballparks in 2002 with the Bears and remembers hitting a home run that year during the tournament at Globe Life Park.
Unsure where baseball would take him — he was a first-round selection a year later — he said playing in those ballparks would have been a fond memory.
“My mom was videoing from somewhere around center field and you can hear her tear up because it’s such a cool experience,” Murphy said. “I didn’t know what my future held in baseball, so if my career had ended after college, I could have said easily that was one of the coolest experience I ever had.”
Globe Life Field is scheduled to host its first baseball game March 23, an exhibition between the Texas Rangers and the St. Louis Cardinals, before the 2020 home opener March 31 against the Los Angeles Angels.
The Big 12 tournament is the first non-Rangers sporting event to be booked at the new ballpark.
This story was originally published February 5, 2020 at 2:39 PM.
