Baseball returns to Atlanta site where Hank Aaron hit his 715th home run

ATLANTA (AP) — Baseball returns to the site where the Braves first played in Atlanta and Hank Aaron hit his record 715th home run.

Georgia State has finalized plans for a new 1,000-seat baseball stadium in a parking lot that includes the footprint of the old Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium.

This venue helped attract the Milwaukee Braves in 1966 and is best known as the ballpark where Aaron broke Babe Ruth’s home run record on April 8, 1974. The mark has since been eclipsed by Barry Bonds.

Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium served as the home of the Braves throughout the 1996 season, when it was replaced by a new facility a few hundred yards away, originally built as the main venue for the Centennial Olympics .

The old stadium was imploded and replaced with parking for the new venue, which was transformed into Turner Field. The Braves played at “Ted” until moving to suburban Truist Park in 2017.

Turner Field was later sold to Georgia State, which converted it into a college football facility known as Center Parc Credit Union Stadium. Now, with development in full swing in what was once a strip of parking lots, the state Board of Regents approved plans for a $15.85 million ballpark that will allow the Panthers to move their baseball program from a facility about 12 miles away to a less remote location. less than a mile from their downtown campus.

As part of the project, the Hank Aaron statue currently located on the Center Parc stadium plaza will be moved to the new baseball stadium. There’s already a modest display honoring the spot where his 715th home run cleared the left-field wall.

After Aaron’s death in 2021, his funeral procession took a detour to the former site of Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium.

“There is a lot of work to do, but this is an exciting day for Georgia State,” athletic director Charlie Cobb said in a statement.

The new stadium is expected to open in time for the 2026 college baseball season. The Panthers also plan to build new facilities for their softball program, adding to an athletics complex that already includes the football stadium and a soccer arena. basketball open in 2022.

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AP College Sports: https://apnews.com/hub/college-sports