ONEOK Field

Archer and Elgin entrance to ONEOK Field (right center field), Sep-2011.

A mostly filled seating bowl on a Friday fireworks night.

The field, which faces east-southeast, looks out over the city skyline.

Chronological Tour: Stop 359

• Location: Archer Street & Elgin Avenue, Tulsa, Okla. (map it using Google Maps)
• Opened: 2010
• Home team: Tulsa Drillers, Texas League (2010-present); Tulsa Roughnecks, United Soccer League (2015-present)
• Capacity: 6,500

Rating: 4 baseballs

The park is located just north of downtown, just off the I-244 freeway and less than a mile from the BOK Center, an arena that hosts a WNBA franchise.

One unusual thing I noticed was that while the field does have a home plate entrance, that does not appear to be the main entrance to the park, as it is off an employee parking lot. Most fans will enter from the first-base side or from the outfield.

I had intended to see a game here during Fourth of July weekend in 2010, but the game was rained out as the remnants of Hurricane Alex drenched Tulsa. I returned in September 2011 and found a handsome park that, unfortunately for this baseball follower, did not post the starting lineups anywhere and announced them a good 40 minutes before the start, long before most fans are even in attendance. By 2019, the lineups were announced about 10 minutes before the start, but there was still no lineup board in evidence.

The park features not one but two kids’ play areas, with the second one designed for the littlest fans. It also has a wrap-around concourse with a field sunken from street level. The stadium is located in a historic district; Greenwood Avenue, one of the bordering streets, is known as Tulsa’s “Black Wall Street”, or at least was in 1921 when race rioting devastated the neighborhood. The 1921 riots are commemorated in local exhibits.