Photograph courtesy of the Atlanta Braves
Truist Park: The home of the Braves is an enigma. It’s an artificial mecca of baseball that displaced Turner Field to the chagrin of many, but now draws some of the best crowds in baseball. The stadium itself is a beauty, with faux red brick that creates an old-school ballpark feel in a sea of corporate office parks. Let’s leave behind its contradictions for a moment to focus on Truist Park and the great baseball played there since 2017.
Out in Droves
A combination of recent Braves success and Battery amenities has driven up attendance, with Truist ranking in the top five for average attendance in the MLB since 2020. Last October, standing-room tickets for the playoffs packed the place to the gills. For game two of the 2023 NLDS, a Truist-record 43,898 fans watched the Braves take down the Phillies in incredible fashion.
Moonshots
Braves star Ronald Acuña Jr. smashed a 495-foot shot to left-center field off the Boston Red Sox’s Chris Mazza on September 25, 2020. The home run is the longest to date in Truist Park and tied for the eighth longest in the MLB in the last decade.
No Doubter
The shortest home run in Truist Park belongs to Braves second baseman Ozzie Albies, who looped a 343-foot homer just over the right-field wall on July 2, 2023. A literal statistical anomaly, his hit would have been a home run in only 1 of 30 MLB ballparks—Truist Park.
Throwing Gas
Spencer Strider threw the fastest pitch by a Brave in 2023, at 101 mph. Maybe even more impressive is Strider’s sustained heat—last year, he averaged 97.3 mph on his fastball (third among all MLB starting pitchers). Strider’s fastball also has elite spin, creating the least vertical drop in the league, which induces a rising effect to batters.
Our Playing Surface
The Truist Park field is grown in Southern Georgia, from a hybrid of Bermuda overseed and ryegrass. Each year, 700 rolls of grass are transported to Truist Park on 35 trucks. The dirt used for the infield, warning track, and mound is a clay mixture from the area, blended to combat weather conditions.
Relishing the Moment
Marcell Ozuna hit a career-high 40 home runs in 2023, and enjoyed every second of it. His home run trot was the fifth longest among batters last season, averaging 28.6 seconds before he touched home. His celebrations gained notoriety in August 2023, when he hit a two-run homer against the Phillies. Ozuna stopped on the third base line to do a celebratory handshake with coach Ron Washington, which a Phillies broadcaster famously derided as a “little hand dance.”
Against the Odds
Michael Harris II has prevented 12 runs alone through his defense—his best was a diving play in September 2022, with a league-low 5 percent catch probability. He made another iconic play at Truist in game two of the 2023 NLDS. Phillies outfielder Nick Castellanos hit what looked like a game-tying double to a gap in right-center field. Harris made a leaping grab on the warning track, rebounded off the outfield wall, and found the cutoff man to throw out Bryce Harper at first base, ending the game.
Get Tossed
In a September 2023 game at Truist, Braves manager Brian Snitker was ejected for dissent with amazing speed, just five seconds and about a dozen steps out of the dugout. The Braves skipper has 19 career ejections, a bit behind Braves legend Bobby Cox, who holds the record at 162—one full season of ejections.
I’ll Cheers to That
Braves fans also put up amazing numbers in the 2023 season. How’s this for a stat line: approximately 550,000 hot dogs and sausages eaten, 1.6 million beers drunk, and (the dark horse) 585,000 chicken tenders gobbled down. Production like that is all but deserving of a curtain call.
This article appears in our April 2024 issue.
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Matt Walljasper
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