Jan 1, 2023

Tempe, Arizona

It was announced today that Knights stadium is getting a new face lift. After receiving their final permits from the Tempe building commission, the Knights organization went ahead with construction on a new renovation that will include an addition of 2,500 more seats bringing the capacity to a total of 37,500.

“It’s taken 4 years of planning and preparation to get to this point” said Tempe Knights owner Chris Van Hauter. “But it’s gonna be well worth it.  We’ve also updated our concessions stands, our scoreboard, modernized our restrooms, put in new beer gardens, installed cool down stations throughout the park and put up a new 5 story high shining Black Knight mascot riding a Black Stallion in center field. I’m gonna have to hire a crew just to keep that thing polished up.”

“Along with these stadium improvements comes prolly the biggest, most expensive  and most important renovation of this project, which is redesigning the ball field dimensions. We are extremely excited to reshape this ball field into a more traditional park. We love our open air stadium and the grass field. It just smells like baseball when you walk through those gates. Now it’s going to look more like a true baseball field as well. When our fans walk through those gates and get that first look at the field before looking for their seats, we want them to say to themselves, wow.”

The ball parks new dimensions include lowering the outfield wall to 11 ft from foul line to foul line with the exception of leaving the center field wall down at 8 ft so the view of the Black Knight monument can be seen from any seat in the stadium. The field has been shortened considerably. The left field line has been lengthened though from 280 ft to 318, left field has been left at 367, left center has been brought in to 390 ft vs the 460 ft in was. Center field has been moved in to 405 ft from the monster 483 ft that it was. The home plate umpire almost needed binoculars to see a ball hit out to that wall. Right center field was also brought into the 390 ft mark. It used to take a 454 ft shot to get a ball out of there. Right field was left at 352 ft and the right field line was moved out from 258 ft to 318 ft to match the left field line.

When opposing teams come in for the first time this year they won’t recognize the place. The park is more dimensional and should have a lot more action for the fans. The days of the 410 ft fly out are a thing of the past in Tempe. With all the changes and modernization, there is also new decor throughout the whole stadium that will make you feel like your at a baseball game in the late 1800’s. “We wanted to give the fans a different experience vs all the modern day ballparks. We want fans to feel that good ole fashion baseball feel. Vendors and ushers alike will dress the part. It will we a fun time for all”.

And with all the new changes will come a new name for Knights Park. The new name will be “The Keep”. It was reported that there were several potential corporate sponsors that were willing to pay big cash to have the park named after them. But Knights brass decided that in order to keep that ole fashion baseball feeling in the park that the name needed to stay clear of that stale corporate grip. “The Ballpark renovations should be ready for the start of the season if everything stays on schedule”, stated Van Hauter. “We can’t wait til spring”.

In other Knights news, popular relief pitcher Raul Cruz ventured into free agency. His absence cost Tempe 4 fan interest points by doing so. This new stadium renovation deal regained 2 of those points and hopefully as the fans will like their experience with the change to bump it up even more. The Knights market area increased from 2022. They have increased the size from tiny to small. Most likely do to last years unexpected successful season and Cinderella Playoff run. That’s a lot of news for one winter, but of course the winter isn’t over yet.