Bullpen Blueprints
The bullpen areas are not the first thing that most people would notice when they walk into Southwest University Park. Freshly cut Bermuda grass, the Franklin Mountains peeking through the El Paso skyline, the 28-foot tall video board, or the Peter Piper Pizza Porch that hangs over the left field wall are features to the downtown facility that has attracted the attention of the nearly 1.2 million visitors since 2014. The bullpen configuration makes the home of the Chihuahuas just as unique as the team's name.
Dugouts line each baseline. That is one universal configuration in all ballparks with the lone difference being which side the home team claims as their own. Bullpens are another essential piece to a ballpark, but they can appear in a variety of arrangements from one stadium to the next.
Many modern stadiums across both Major and Minor League Baseball have situated bullpens in the outfield, marooning relief pitchers out of sight from spectators. The "old-school" approach has made relievers part of the entertainment with the bullpen mound tucked in foul territory for everyone to see when someone is warming up like they are at Wrigley Field and AT&T Park. The ballpark in El Paso embodies both concepts.
Chihuahuas relief pitchers at Southwest University Park prepare for game action in foul territory along the third base line. Their guests, however, camp out in right-center field below Santa Fe Pavilion until they are called upon to enter the contest.
Brad Taylor, general manager of the Chihuahuas, explains why this happened. "We had to get creative because the space was five-and-a-half acres for this whole ballpark," says Taylor. "We are bound by three streets and a railroad. Most ballparks give themselves a minimum of 7.5 acres."
The railroad along the first base side is what forces the visitor's bullpen out in right field. There is less seating and that side of the ballpark is built vertically. All that separates the visiting bullpen and the sidewalk along Santa Fe Street is a fence, allowing El Pasoans a chance to heckle the opposition while taking a stroll downtown.
On the Santa Fe Plaza bullpens, Taylor adds, "It's actually a neat place to just to watch a game. When the Padres were here they thought it was fantastic."
Mere curiosity sparked the research to discover just how many teams across baseball arranged their bullpens in a similar manner. Without including El Paso, you need just one hand to count all the ballparks that place the relief pitchers for one team in the field of play and the other group out of play.
In addition to Southwest University Park, the Pacific Coast League has one other venue to resemble the Chihuahuas bullpen set up. The home of the Tacoma Rainiers, Cheney Stadium, was not originally planned to have just one bullpen in play. Cheney Stadium was renovated extensively in 2011 that shifted both bullpens from foul territory to beyond the left field wall. Another construction project in 2014 pushed the visitor bullpen back in play along the right field line where it is today while the vacant bullpen in left field became a hospitality area.
The other venues with 'pens positioned like the Chihuahuas and Rainiers are Frawley Stadium (Wilmington Blue Rocks), John Thurman Field (Modesto Nuts), Municipal Stadium (Hagerstown Suns), and Lake Olmstead Stadium (Augusta GreenJackets). However, Augusta is anticipating a new ballpark so the list may shrink by the time Opening Day 2017 or 2018 rolls around.
If anything, the Chihuahuas bullpen has allowed relief pitchers a chance to be more intimate with baseball fans in El Paso. "Our players sit in the front row of that patio," says Taylor referring to the Budweiser Bullpen Patio that is built around the home bullpen on the third base side.
"That is an engagement area. It provides a neat area for fans to be right on top of the action. Not many people get that close to a live 92-mph fastball," Taylor explains.
Southwest University Park was designed by Populous, a worldwide sports architectural firm. Populous also mapped out Cheney Stadium in Tacoma in addition to several facilities tied to the San Diego Padres. These buildings include the Padres home stadium of Petco Park, the Peoria Spring Training complex, the Padres Dominican Academy, and Parkview Field in Fort Wayne, Indiana, the home of the Padres Single-A affiliate.
Even though the "cookie-cutter" stadium era in baseball is well behind us, where baseball stadiums were built with symmetric dimensions to easily host multiple sports, most ballparks are still built with some form of uniformity. Traditional bullpens are either both in foul ground or separated from the playing field by a wall or fence.
El Paso is already one of only 30 cities with a Triple-A franchise, but that fact clearly is not the only one to separate the Chihuahuas and Southwest University Park from the rest of the pack.
See one of baseball's rare stadium quirks this season at Southwest University Park with single-game or season seat options. For information on tickets or upcoming promotions, visit EPChihuahuas.com or call (915)-533-BASE.