The Park at the Battery
Third-base gate of SunTrust Park in Cobb County, Aug-2017.
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A pre-game look at the seating bowl from behind the right-field foul pole.
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From high behind the plate, with the game in progress.
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 Chronological Tour: Stop 392 |
Quick Facts:
- Location: 755 Battery Avenue, Wind Ridge Parkway at Circle 75 Parkway, Cumberland, Cobb Co., Ga. (map it using Google Maps)
- Opened: 2017 as SunTrust Park
- Additional names: Truist Park (2020)
- Home team: Atlanta Braves, Major League Baseball (2017-present)
- Capacity: 41,149
Rating:
4 baseballs
SunTrust Park replaced Turner Field as the home of the Atlanta Braves for the 2017 season. The move was seen as somewhat controversial for two reasons. For one, Turner Field only served the Braves for 20 seasons (after having been the featured site of the 1996 Olympic Games). For another, the move placed the Braves’ home outside of city limits, in an area less accessible to city dwellers but supposedly more attractive to the team’s more affluent fans, many of whom live in well-to-do areas in and around Marietta, the seat of Cobb County.
The naming sponsor, Truist, is a regional banking institution based in Atlanta and serving the Southeast. The park bore the name SunTrust until that bank’s merger with BB&T, from North Carolina, was approved in early 2020.
Getting to the Game
The ballpark is within shouting distance of the northwest interchange of I-75 and beltway I-285, a spot known to locals as “Dysfunction Junction”. Traffic on your average weekday is difficult to deal with, though they do better here than at the Gwinnett County home of the Stripers, the Braves’ Triple-A team. As a result, weekday evening starts the first two seasons were at 7:35, half an hour later than the customary start time around professional baseball. For 2019, the start time had been moved up to 7:20.
In addition, Cobb County is not part of the metropolitan Atlanta rail system known as MARTA, so mass transit from Atlanta entails long bus rides. There is sufficient parking if one drives to the games, although many fans have resorted to utilizing ride-sharing services like Uber or Lyft. There are also a few hotels within walking distance.
Watching the Game
SunTrust Park has typically decent sight lines for a modern ballpark, and most folks have rated it as a good place to watch a game. As with many newer parks, there is a premium seating area directly behind the plate on the lower level, and there is a club level, but there is also an upper deck with economically priced seats even directly behind the plate. As usual, though, food and beverage options are more limited on the upper level.
Enjoying the Game
The Braves have made SunTrust Park the cornerstone of a development called The Battery Atlanta (never mind that it’s not in Atlanta) that includes a residential component along with year-round attractions such as theme restaurants. Unlike, say, Citi Field, the Mets’ home, which has no neighborhood of any kind around it, The Battery Atlanta is intended to be a destination for pre- and post-game activities. Some of the restaurants open out onto the ballpark and are restricted to ticket holders on game days.
A friend with whom I attended a game in 2018 remarked that on those days when the game draws exceptionally well, the upper concourse gets overly crowded. I attended a game in 2023 with attendance of over 40,000 that bore out that observation. The park was built within a small footprint in order to maximize the area dedicated to The Battery Atlanta development.
More photos from 2017 in this Facebook album (public, no account required)
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This page updated 17-Jun-2024