Nelson W. Wolff Municipal Stadium

San Antonio Missions, Texas League

8/10

The front door is actually the pass gate. The peons can enter on either base side.

The finishing touches on the field, post batting practice.

The crowd enjoys things from the upper aisle.

I rolled into San Antonio late one June evening,on the last night of my June 2015 trip after driving down most of Texas from Oklahoma City. I accepted a 3 hour drive after the game to catch one more park prior to flying home and I'm glad I did. Nelson W. Wolff Municipal Stadium(or "The Wolff") for short, has been San Antonio's home for baseball since 1994. I would have pegged it as a late 80's park based on it's design, but was a little off. It's a little bit of a quirky design, but I liked it. There's your box seat sections, then loges behind an aisle, but there's an upper aisle behind that, which I really liked. There are also your run of the mill luxury boxes and some metal seats further back and further out. The park is on the edge of town, with an off ramp from a freeway almost directly into the lot. It was a cloudy night, but a few large planes could be heard taking off from the nearby Air Force base.

Concessions here were about average, there were lots of specialty kind of options, but they were made to order, which would have meant a wait of 10-15 minutes, which is a little much. I ended up with an average hot dog and drink.

The big thing that saves this from from being just another ballpark is the atmosphere. People want to come out and watch. The game featured the hometown San Antonio Missions, longtime AA affiliate of the San Diego Padres, against the Arkansas Travellers, who are tied up with the Angels at the moment. A Travs batter grounded out to Shortstop and decided against even moving towards first base, at which point, some random voice seated in the loge behind me yelled "There's little kids here! Run it out!" There were some promos and stuff, but on the whole, it's an enjoyable place to take in a game. I'll head back for sure and with a Texas trip towards the top of my list, it could be soon.

Update 2021: This place had a few interesting years since the last post. In 2019, the Colorado Springs franchise in the PCL moved here and the AA team moved to Amarillo. But, San Antonio's time in Triple A was limited to just the 2019 season, as 2020 saw the MiLB season cancelled outright and 2021 saw minor league contraction. The end result was San Diego selecting this park for it's AA team. I didn't write this at the time, but it did feel like there could have been Triple A here when I saw it. I'm sure the locals enjoyed their one year.

Linescore

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Arkansas Travelers (LAA)        010  022   000   5  10 1

San Antonio Missons(SD)         012 300   30x   9  10  1

Temp: 88F Time: 2:58 Att: 4,749