Texas Rangers’ grand opening of new park will be 2020, and 2021
In the history of major U.S. sports venues, Globe Life Field will forever enjoy the paradox to be the first stadium to host a closed grand opening.
In 2020, you look for anything superlative you can find. Unfortunately, this is it.
The 40,300-seat venue is closed to the public for games, the parking lots will be locked to ensure no one can tailgate, and the adjacent party/bar area at Texas Live! will offer some, not all, options to watch the game.
That is your 2020 Texas Rangers Opening Day at its new $1.2 billion stadium, of which Arlington tax payers covered $450 million.
“It’s bittersweet, for sure, because Opening Day is supposed to mean it’s spring and you’re going to the World Series and it’s hope,” Arlington Mayor Jeff Williams said Thursday in a phone interview. “It’s extremely disappointing that this pandemic has come. We are all suffering losses.”
Other than Rangers’ co-owner Ray Davis, no one more than Williams beamed brighter at the thought of a new stadium when the duo announced this project in May of 2016.
Four years ago, the term “socially distanced” didn’t exist, and the idea of a pro sporting event without fans was some George Orwell creation.
For 2020, Major League Baseball has concocted a 60-game regular season that, for the Rangers, begins at home on Friday night (7 p.m. on Fox Sports Southwest) with a three-game series against the Colorado Rockies.
The baseball game itself will function like a typical regular season game, but everything else about this is irregular. There is considerable trepidation among officials that MLB can actually pull this off during a pandemic, even without fans in the parks.
While there was some initial hope that fans would be allowed to attend games at Globe Life Field, that plan, like so many these days, was erased by the coronavirus.
Mayor Williams is clinging to the hope that at some point in the 30 games the Rangers are scheduled to play in Arlington during this abbreviated regular season that fans will be permitted to attend games.
“It is fractional hope. It all depends on this virus,” he said. “We can’t plan more than two or three weeks out. That’s the infection rate. I hope we can do well over Labor Day weekend. The holiday weekends have been very tough. There is good evidence the masks are working and the numbers are plateauing.”
As of today, the only way people can watch the 2020 Texas Rangers is on a screen.
Globe Life Field will essentially serve as a broadcast studio rather than a conventional sports venue.
This version of Opening Day is not authentic, and the Rangers are not acting like it is, even though some traditions will be on display.
There will be bunting. Charley Pride will perform the National Anthem. Gov. Greg Abbott will throw out the first pitch. Virtually. From Austin. About 2,700 cutout cardboard figures of fans will be placed in seats.
The Opening Day you know is not coming until 2021, at the earliest. By then, Globe Life Field will be about one year old.
“There are probably three situations where we could celebrate an opening somehow,” long time Rangers public address announcer Chuck Morgan said Thursday. “The first is [Friday night]. It’s not typical. If we get down the road, and in a few weeks or a month and we are allowed to have fans in, we could have some type of celebration.
“But the big opening night or opening day for this park will be 2021, when we can have 40,000 fans in and celebrate it.”
Morgan will still handle his regular duties, including calling the dot race, as well as other limited in-game entertainment options. Michael Gruber of Sports Radio 1310 The Ticket was hired to handle other in-game entertainment music, and sound drops during the game. He will still do it.
That’s the 2020 Texas Rangers’ Opening Day at their new home.
Globe Life Field may look like how the planners envisioned, but no one thought the most memorable detail of its grand opening would be its locked doors.
This story was originally published July 24, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
