Bill Meyer Stadium was a baseball field located in Knoxville, Tennessee. Originally known as Knoxville Municipal Stadium when it opened in 1953, it was later renamed after Billy Meyer (1892–1957), a Knoxville native who was a catcher and manager in Major League Baseball and a longtime minor league skipper.
 | |
| Former names | Knoxville Municipal Stadium |
|---|---|
| Location | Knoxville, Tennessee |
| Coordinates | 35°58′50″N 83°54′50″W / 35.980446°N 83.913837°W |
| Capacity | 6,400 |
| Construction | |
| Opened | 1953 |
| Closed | 1999 |
| Demolished | 2003 |
| Tenants | |
| Knoxville Smokies (SAL/SL) (1957–1967, 1972–1999) | |
Baseball usage
editIt was used by minor league baseball teams, most recently the Knoxville Smokies, an AA Minor League Baseball team. It had a capacity of 6,400 people. The stadium was closed in 1999 after the team moved to a new stadium near Sevierville.[1] The stands were demolished, and bleachers with capacity for about 100 people were installed. The stadium is now called Neal Ridley/Todd Helton Field and is used as a venue for amateur baseball games.[2]
Football usage
editIn the early part of the 1970s, Bill Meyer Stadium was converted into a Pop Warner recreational football league facility. The 100 yard field was striped from the third base side of the diamond, extending out to the right field warning track area. A great majority of the football plays were snapped from the dirt area of the infield. It became the home field for the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) midget (11- to 12-year-old) football team which held daily practices throughout the fall in the dirt parking area outside the stadium.
References
edit- ^ "10 years at Smokies Park". Minor League Baseball. February 18, 2010. Retrieved February 9, 2013.
- ^ Gates, Nick (January 29, 2008). "Stadium was full of memories for Helton". Knoxville News Sentinel. Archived from the original on 7 September 2008. Retrieved February 9, 2013.
External links
edit- Bill Meyer Stadium at the Wayback Machine (archived 29 October 2013) at MinorLeagueBallparks.com
- Knoxville Smokies at Great American Baseball Trips
- Bill Meyer Stadium, Knoxville, Tennessee at BallParkReviews.com
- Bill Meyer Stadium at the Wayback Machine (archived 11 January 2016) at DigitalBallparks.com
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