On a cool September night, baseball fans trickled into Smith’s Ballpark, a 15,400-seat stadium in Salt Lake City. Families, groups of friends and couples on dates all headed to their seats or found a spot on the outfield lawn. They grabbed their favorite snacks, like hotdogs, nachos and beer. Kids ran around and played on the playground.
While they were there to watch the Salt Lake Bees play the Oklahoma City Baseball Club, many also came to mourn the team’s upcoming move.
This was one of the team’s final games in Utah’s capital city. The Minor League Baseball team will head south to the suburbs for the 2025 season.
It marks the end of about a century of baseball at the corner of 1300 South and West Temple in Salt Lake City.
Sam Smith went to the Thursday night game with his daughter Nova, his friend and his friend’s daughter. The Salt Lake resident said he has attended games at the ballpark since the 1990s. He remembers late nights lying on the grass by the outfield watching fireworks.
“You know, childhood stuff,” Smith remembered fondly. “And now my kid is here.”
After the team’s final game, Smith will no longer be able to bike to the ballpark and watch a game in the backyard of his city with his daughter.
“So, I’m bummed,” Smith said.
The Larry H. Miller Company owns the Bees and announced in 2023 that it would relocate the team to South Jordan’s Daybreak neighborhood. Salt Lake City leaders said they fought to try to keep the team but plans later turned to chasing a major league franchise. Now, the city is still figuring out a plan for the 13.5-acre park, which it owns.
For Smith, not only is he losing a place he has fond memories of, but as a taxpayer he fears he could end up footing the bill for what happens next. That makes him angry.
“It's these types of moves that have been going on for years and years now that have absolutely taken away this initial charming town, this little charming place that we used to have,” he said.
Smith thinks population growth is great and needed, but the way city leaders are handling it is by turning Salt Lake into what he calls a “beige city.”
He doesn’t plan on going to the Bees’ 2025 season in South Jordan. It’s too far away.
The first time Shay Hollinger took his daughter to a Bees game they caught a ball — quite a memory. The West Valley City resident has been going to Bees games for 20 years and remembers lots of special moments.
“It's mostly coming out with my friends and just sitting having a chance to sit here and watch games for hours and get away from everything else. So that is fun,” he said.
Unlike Smith, Hollinger plans to follow the Bees south and go to some games next season, but he’s still sad and doesnt like that the new stadium will have a smaller capacity.
“I'll wait to see how it really is compared to this field,” he said. “But this field is beautiful. It's too bad to see it go.”
The Salt Lake Bees final homestand at Smith's Ballpark runs though Sept. 22, 2024.
