Baseball at a racetrack? Braves, Reds players in for ‘unique experience’ at Bristol

Bob Pockrass

FOX Motorsports Insider

When players for the Atlanta Braves and Cincinnati Reds take to the field Aug. 2 for the Speedway Classic at Bristol Motor Speedway, they will venture into a stadium where they have never played.

Sure, Major League Baseball knows how to construct a field. But who knows how it will play and if there will be any quirky elements putting a baseball field in the “infield” area of the historic NASCAR racetrack.

As the promotions for the race continue, some former drivers had advice for the players as they compete in a new venue, which will serve as the site of the first-ever MLB regular-season game in Tennessee.

“Have fun and enjoy it,” said former Braves star Andruw Jones. “Because those things don’t happen that much.

“I know you’re going to be playing on a constructed surface that you’re not used to all the time, but I’m sure MLB will do a good job to put a good surface so those guys can go out there and show their talent.”

Former Reds star Sean Casey said it will be important for players to do the same thing they do before every game at a park they don’t normally play at.

“You want to see how the wall works — how does the wall play in the corner,” Casey said. “When I’m taking ground balls, I want to see how the infield plays. Where’s the lip … on the grass to the dirt.”

Casey likened it to playing a game at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum (which he has done), or playing in Japan.

“I look back at those things and I’m like, ‘I’m grateful that I took a second to really lean in and be like, wow, this is a unique experience,’” Casey said. “So I hope that the Braves players and the Reds players really lean into that — you’re two teams that are getting to experience Bristol and this historic track and play a baseball game there that the none of the other 28 teams will get to appreciate.”

Former NASCAR driver Michael Waltrip, a NASCAR analyst for FOX, said with a large crowd, the players are in for an experience. Track officials are hoping for a record-setting night.

That game that Casey played in at the L.A. Memorial Coliseum in 2008 drew 115,300, the biggest attendance for an MLB event (that was an exhibition game).

Bristol officials have not released the facility’s current capacity or what the capacity will be for the game, which also includes a concert lineup of Tim McGraw, Pitbull and Jake Owen.

In 2016, a football game between Tennessee and Virginia Tech at the track attracted an NCAA-record attendance of 156,990. The track has removed some seats since that event but certainly has enough to potentially break the Coliseum record.

“Bristol is a unique venue for NASCAR,” Waltrip said. “It’s one of the tracks you circle as a place where you want to be successful at and win at because it’s so electric.”

Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR and INDYCAR for FOX Sports. He has spent decades covering motorsports, including over 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @bobpockrass.