Crying Wolff Near the Alamo

Exterior of Wolff Municipal Stadium, Aug-2000.

The sun has already set behind the lighted roof.

Trees, and not much else, surround the outfield.

Chronological Tour: Stop 189

• Location: Route 90 near Callaghan Road, San Antonio, Texas (map it using Google Maps)
• Opened: 1994
• Home team: San Antonio Missions, Texas League (1994-2018, 2021-present), Pacific Coast League (2019)
• Capacity: 6,200

Rating: 3 baseballs

The most distinctive feature of the facility is the roof lighting. While most places with roofs don’t light them at all – or have lights in the roof so fans can see where they’re going &$0150; Wolff has lights mounted below the luxury box level that light up the roof itself and lend the park a distinctive appearance.

It might have been nicer had the outfield berm extended to right field as well, but that’s a small bone to pick. The park was certainly reasonable, with stadium seats for boxes and reserved seating and aluminum benches for general admission behind the reserved seats in all areas, including directly behind the plate.

One bone I could pick during my 2007 trip was that with the park in the middle of nowhere, they can charge what the market will bear for parking. On this trip, it was $5. That price has held through 2019.

I was unable to duplicate the beautiful picture of this ballpark on Gary Jarvis’ classic website (sadly no longer active), primarily because at the moment the sun set far enough, coaches from each side were being ejected, one arguing a non-balk call, the other arguing a balk call. Of course, one can never duplicate a photograph anyway, so why did I try?

Prior to moving to Wolff, the Missions played at V.J. Keefe Stadium on the campus of St. Mary’s University. In 2012 and 2013, the Missions repaid the favor by allowing the Rattlers to use Wolff Stadium for early-season games while the college stadium was being rebuilt.

In 2017, the Elmore Group, owner of the Missions and several other clubs, announced that Wolff Stadium would host a Triple-A team starting in 2019. The Colorado Springs Sky Sox would relocate here, with the current Missions moving to a new park in Amarillo. The Triple-A assignment lasted just one season, as the COVID-19 pandemic wiped out the 2020 season and then the Major League Baseball restructuring of the minors put San Antonio back into the Texas League for 2021.

Nelson W. Wolff, the honoree in the stadium’s name, is an area politician who was serving as mayor of San Antonio when the stadium was built. It was soon named for him. As of 2022, Wolff is continuing to serve as Bexar County Judge, the elected head of the county commission. Wolff is only the second person to have served as both the city’s mayor and the county judge; the first was in the 1880s.