The Ports’ New Home

Third-base entrance to Banner Island Ballpark, Aug-2006.

The seating, as seen from the outfield concourse.

The view from behind home plate.

Chronological Tour: Stop 315

• Location: Fremont Street at Van Buren Street, Stockton, Calif. (map it using Google Maps)
• Opened: 2005
• Home team: Stockton Ports, California League (2005-present)
• Capacity: 4,000

Rating: 4 baseballs

The unpretentious new park features a center section with a press box flanked by a few luxury boxes, and stadium seating below that and down the lines. Concessions are located on the spacious concourse, with just a few behind the press box. Fans walk in at street level, and the field is somewhat recessed. There is also a fair amount of berm seating as well as a couple of party decks, all accessible via the wrap-around concourse.

While the exterior displays “Stockton Ballpark”, the facility is commonly referred to as Banner Island Ballpark. The park gets its commonly used name from its location. Channels wrap around the part of town where the park is located, and it has been known as Banner Island for years. Remarkably, Banner Island (though obviously not the current ballpark) was Stockton’s baseball home in the 1880s, when, it is said, Harvard graduate Ernest Lawrence Thayer may have been inspired by a game at Stockton to write Casey at the Bat.