Bristol<\/a> Motor Speedway even with overcast skies.<\/p>\n\u201cWe\u2019re really glad that they played the game today instead of last night because we sat here a couple hours in the rain and everybody was saturated even with rain gear,\u201d Morton said. \u201cThe kids are happy so we\u2019re happy.\u201d <\/p>\n
This MLB Speedway Classic was first announced nearly a year ago as part of Commissioner Rob Manfred\u2019s push to take MLB to places where baseball isn\u2019t played every day live. MLB played a game at the \u201cField of Dreams\u201d movie site in Iowa in both 2021 and 2022. Alabama and North Carolina, too.<\/p>\n
MLB didn\u2019t try to sell every ticket inside the speedway that drew 156,990 for the Battle of Bristol college football game in 2016. The track with a racing capacity of 146,000 meant the final attendance number could reach 90,000 or more even with sections blocked off.<\/p>\n
The previous paid attendance of 84,587 was set Sept. 12, 1954, when Cleveland Stadium hosted the New York Yankees.<\/p>\n
Simply canceling this game wasn’t an option. The Reds are in the chase for a wild-card spot, and this is the last time these teams meet this season. Teams had police escorts to make sure they got back to Bristol on Sunday.<\/p>\n
For fans, the commute back to Bristol Motor Speedway, billed as \u201cThe Last Great Colosseum\u201d with its history as a half-mile bullring of a racetrack, was easier for some than others.<\/p>\n
Steven Long of Atlanta, Georgia, was on a party bus to his hotel in Knoxville with a bunch of distributors. He drove the 110 miles back to Bristol on Sunday by himself even though he had hoped to be driving home. He couldn’t miss the first MLB game at a racetrack.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had to come back,\u201d said Long, who wore his Braves jersey hoping for a win.<\/p>\n
MLB will be announcing an attendance figure later Sunday. Officials already knew this event would draw a record crowd with 85,000 tickets sold as of Monday.<\/p>\n
The big question Sunday was how many people would return for baseball itself after the big party that MLB and Bristol threw for fans Saturday. For Lowe and Jason Lawson, this is a moment they couldn’t miss after buying tickets in May.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe history, the nostalgia of Bristol Motor Speedway combined with Major League Baseball all in one I think,\u201d Lowe said.<\/p>\n
Long was being joined by a couple of friends. He saw one benefit of returning even if others chose not to.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll have more space around us, so we won\u2019t be on top of each other,\u201d Long said.<\/p>\n
Indeed. Fans had plenty of room to spread out, dance and enjoy the capping event of the MLB Speedway Classic.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP MLB: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/MLB and AP auto racing: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/auto-racing<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":315487,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8818],"tags":[381,748,393,4884,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-315486","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bristol","8":"tag-bristol","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-england","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114966870248643391","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=315486"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315486\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/315487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=315486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=315486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=315486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}