Our calendars tell us spring begins March 20. But for many Nashville sports fans, the first official day of spring arrives March 31 with the start of a new minor league baseball season for the Nashville Sounds.
Opening Day at First Horizon Park is always special for Nashville baseball fans who welcome the familiar sights, sounds and smells that have delighted generations. The stadium lights will shine on the lush green field in a magical glow as vendors hawk peanuts, popcorn and Cracker Jack in concourses and throughout the 10,000-seat capacity.
Play ball? You betcha.
“There’s a different excitement in the air. You know that spring has finally come,” says Mark Jent, a Sounds season-ticket holder and owner of Simply A Fan, a sports events booking company. “It just has a different intensity and a different feel than when you get to the regular season because everything is new. … There’s a bit more excitement and pomp and circumstance surrounding Opening Day. I’m a firm believer that Opening Day should be a day out of work and a day out of school.”
If you’re one of the thousands of transplants who moved to Nashville in the last decade, you might not be familiar with the Sounds and their history or the city’s longtime love for the national pastime. As we take a deeper look at some of the fans, the events and history of baseball in Nashville, we first look at the current team as the franchise launches its 45th season.
Baseball thriving in Nashville
The Sounds are the Triple-A affiliate of the Milwaukee Brewers and play in the International League, where they won the West division last season before losing to the Durham Bulls in the playoffs.
Coming off a league-best 91-58 season, the Sounds are managed by Rick Sweet, who last season was named IL manager of the year and recipient of the prestigious Mike Coolbaugh Award.
New York real estate investors Masahiro Honzawa and Frank Ward own the team through MFP Baseball, while Adam English is the general manager and chief operating officer.
The Sounds have led minor league attendance the last two seasons, attracting 555,576 in 2022 and setting a single-game attendance mark at the Germantown ballpark of 12,409 July 16 against the Memphis Redbirds.
By comparison, the next two teams in overall attendance were the Lehigh Valley (Pennsylvania) IronPigs with (544,220) and the Indianapolis Indians (534,610). In Tennessee, the second-highest attendance was in Memphis (239,605), followed by the Chattanooga Lookouts (213,685).
Largest crowds at First Horizon Park
1. 12,409 - July 16, 2022 vs. Memphis
2. 12,140 - August 13, 2022 vs. Gwinnett
3. 11,824 - March 24, 2018 - Texas Rangers Exhibition Game
4. 11,764 - July 3, 2017 vs. Oklahoma City
5. 11,759 - July 3, 2016 vs. Oklahoma City
6. 11,692 - September 2, 2018 vs. Memphis
7. 11,691 - July 4, 2018 vs. Iowa
8. 11,686 - July 4, 2021 vs. Louisville
9. 11,684 - June 25, 2016 vs. Omaha
10. 11,678 - June 17, 2017 vs. New Orleans
*121 sellouts in First Horizon Park history*
There are many reasons for baseball’s popularity in Nashville – from the team’s long-standing promotional flair to the Hit City and Band Box amenities of the ballpark that opened in 2015.
It replaced the aging Greer Stadium, which opened in 1978 off Chestnut Street in South Nashville as the brainchild of franchise founder Larry Schmittou. Before that, Nashville had been without a baseball team since 1963 when the Nashville Vols, who played at Sulphur Dell in the vicinity of the current ballpark since 1901, folded.
“You know, the Sounds are an interesting concept. Of course, they were started in 1978 by Larry Schmittou after a 15-year absence of professional baseball in Nashville. And it just seems to have been popular since 1978,” says baseball researcher and historian Skip Nipper, author of Baseball in Nashville (2007) and host of the Skip’s Corner podcast. “I think First Horizon Park is one of the best ballparks for the Triple-A baseball teams.
“It’s an event, just about the whole ballgame. You know, from the beginning to the end there’s something going on, either the game itself or some entertainment. My hat’s off to the Sounds. They do a wonderful job.”
Something for everyone
What is it about attending a baseball game at First Horizon Park that makes it so endearing to fans? Is it the game itself, the family atmosphere – with special promotions and mascot races – the social aspects of the Band Box area in right field where fans can play shuffleboard, Ping-Pong and foosball, or something else?
“I think it’s all the above. Nashville and Middle Tennessee just have so many passionate, diverse baseball fans that you have a lot of people who go to First Horizon Park to see the Sounds, just to see good Minor League baseball and to see guys who are one step away from being called up to the pros,” says Jent.
“(But) there’s more to do than just watch a baseball game, which for purists and traditionalists might seem absurd or hard, but they have stuff there for the kids. It’s a social gathering place to go and just have fun with friends. They may or may not be baseball fans. They may or may not be able to say the final score at the end of the game, but they will have supported the Sounds by going to the ballgame and enjoying a good time with their friends.”
Nick and Laura Munn have been season-ticket holders since First Horizon opened in 2015, switching their primary allegiance from the Titans to the Sounds. They also have season tickets for the MLS Nashville SC team at Geodis Park.
“It’s primarily the baseball. We are not long-term baseball fans,” Nick says. “What happened is we had Titans’ tickets for 19 seasons and it just got tiresome. And so, when they opened the new stadium, we said, ‘Let’s try it,’ and we’ve been going ever since.
“It’s just easy compared to trying to get into a Titans game where you have to get there 1½ hours early. It’s a simple thing to do to drive down there, watch the game and drive home. So for us, it just works out.”
Laura Munn says she likes both the smaller crowds and getting to know the players.
Only Lehigh Valley and Indianapolis came close to matching the Sounds attendance last year.
-- Photograph Provided“I like the crowds, I like the people that we’ve met there. That’s probably what I like the best – the friends we’ve made who like baseball,” she says. “I like learning about the new kids or boys who are playing baseball. I like to read about their families; we’ve met a few of the families there. I like the food, and it’s just an overall good time.”
Nipper says that’s a big part of a night at the ballpark – there’s something for everyone.
“You know, there are traditionalists who say there’s too much that goes on at the ballpark that doesn’t really mean a lot to them,” Nipper says. “I know my dad would not necessarily have been crazy about the loud music and things like that, but he always appreciated seeing kids around the ballpark.
“So you’ve got to give everybody their due, whatever appeals to them. If that appeals to them at the ballpark and there’s a game going on, too, that you don’t want to necessarily keep up with the players, you’re still enjoying the game.”
Speaking of music, Nick Munn raves over the team’s organists and the team mascot, Booster.
“That mascot they have is just fantastic,” Munn says. “He is amazing. The kids love him. He does such a good job. He may be the best mascot I’ve ever seen.”
For the baseball purists, there’s not a bad seat in the park – from the club suites to the $10 berm seating out in left and center field, where fans can take a blanket and plop on the grass to enjoy the game.
“The layout of the ballpark is so fan-friendly. I mean, you basically are never without a view of the ballpark,” says David Thomas Eric Gumz, a club and suite fan host for the Sounds. “The organization does an excellent job in catering to all types of fans. They have things for the kids, things for both the parents and the kids.”
Gumz has been with the team for 23 seasons, starting when he was teaching and coaching at Mt. Juliet Christian Academy – and when Greer Stadium was showing its age.
“In its day, Greer was a very nice ballpark, but there toward the end, it had gone into disrepair – it was just old – and needed major upgrades,” he says.
Opening Day attendance by year
2015 – 10,459 – April 17 vs. Colorado Springs (ballpark opening, only Opening Day sellout to date)
2016 – 7,536 – April 7 vs. Oklahoma City (45-minute rain delay pregame)
2017 – 8,871 – April 11 vs. Oklahoma City (completed after 6 innings due to rain)
2018 – 8,240 – April 10 vs. Iowa
2019 – 7,475 – April 4 vs. Iowa
2021 – 4,000 – May 11 vs. Memphis (limited capacity due to pandemic)
2022 – 6,136 – April 5 vs. Durham
“Obviously it made more sense to build a new stadium, more of a state-of-the-art stadium than to try to fix that one because of the amount of work and repair and things like that that it needed.”
Gumz points out that while he does have a bird’s-eye view of action on the field, “my first responsibility is to the service of the fans. So, making sure that their experience is what they paid for, I help solve any issues that they might have with their seats. It’s just something that I enjoy.
“(It’s important) that we give a good first impression because if something happens that one of us falls down on our job, fans can get a bad taste in their mouth from the get-go and it can snowball and go downhill,” he says.
Hat tip to baseball’s past
One of the things Nipper says he appreciates about current Sounds’ management is the many ways they acknowledge baseball’s roots in the city. Everywhere around the stadium, there are historic photos and markers paying tribute to bygone days.
“I’ve always appreciated the fact that First Horizon Park was built in the vicinity – and there’s actually some overlap – of good, old Sulphur Dell, which was home to Nashville baseball for so many years, beginning in as early as 1870, they say, and all the way up till 1963 when the Nashville Vols folded,” Nipper says. “Nashville has just kind of been blessed with a couple of pretty good ballparks and with people that understood how important baseball was.
“When they embrace baseball at all angles like that, I think it tells a lot about how important baseball history is to the Sounds.”
Larry Woody, a three-time Tennessee sportswriter of the year, credits Sounds founder Schmittou for paving the way for today’s pro sports landscape with the Titans, Nashville Predators and Nashville SC teams.
“There wouldn’t be a (First Horizon) park without Larry Schmittou. And there wouldn’t be pro baseball and, frankly, I don’t know if we’d have other pro sports because Larry Schmittou’s success with the Nashville Sounds and Greer Stadium attracted national attention,” says Woody, author of Schmittou: A Grand Slam in Baseball, Business and Life (1996).
“Sports Illustrated was doing stories about setting the minor league attendance records, and the Sounds got national attention. It was the place to be here in the spring and summer. You had the country music celebrities hanging out – Conway Twitty, Loretta Lynn, Jerry Reed, (the Oak Ridge Boys’) Richard Sterban – a who’s who of country music showed up at Greer Stadium. You might go out to watch a ballgame and end up sitting next to Conway Twitty."
Where was Nashville 45 years ago, sports-wise?
Rick Sweet, last year’s International League Manager of the Year, is back for his fourth season here.
-- Photograph Provided“Pre-Schmittou, there were two things to do in Nashville during the spring and summer – play golf and go to stock-car racing at the fairgrounds,” Woody says. “Schmittou gave sports fans another option … go hang out at Greer Stadium, have fun with all the wacky promotions, see the celebrities. It was the place to be in Nashville and I think it set the stage for the pro sports that followed … it set the stage for what Nashville’s enjoying now.”
Savannah Bananas visit in June
Schmittou’s legacy for promotional flair continues today at the ballpark, with programming like fireworks or the nightly country music mascot races featuring likenesses of George Jones, Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton and Reba McEntire.
But First Horizon Park’s promotional schedule also features events designed to draw in the region’s wider baseball-loving audience. At 6 p.m. Tuesday, the ballpark is scheduled to host the second game of the All 4 Lou Showdown between Vanderbilt and Lipscomb. (Vandy was scheduled to meet Belmont March 14.) Tickets start at $10 for general admission seating, and $4 from each ticket will go directly to fund ALS (more widely known as Lou Gehrig’s disease) research at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
Another way in which the present-day Sounds help reach into baseball’s past (and potential future) will be when the park hosts the barnstorming tour of the innovative Savannah Bananas club June 2-3.
The Bananas were founded in 2016 by entrepreneur/promoter Jesse Cole. He, his wife and college friends transformed a small-town summer league team into a new kind of night at the ballpark, prioritizing fan engagement and showcasing games with massive tweaks to the rule book that has become known as “Bananaball.”
The team is hitting 22 states on its ’23 swing, and the two-night stand at First Horizon Park will surely be a hot ticket when they’re scheduled to go on sale in early April.
“To be able to showcase this truly unique and creative brand of baseball to the best fans in Minor League Baseball is a great opportunity,” GM English said last October when the event was announced.
Both nights are expected to be sellouts, and sports events agent Jent says he’s booked 436 fans for the appearance – the largest event he has hosted.
“I had friends and family from all over who bought tickets,” Jent says. “I had a company call me two weeks ago from Spokane – somehow, came across my website – who are bringing their leadership team to Nashville for that week. They wanted to buy about 30 tickets to watch the Bananas while they were here.”
The unexpected
Just hope it doesn’t rain on those June dates. An open-air stadium means the weather is always in play at the park, from the chilly nights in early April to the August heat to the perpetual threat of rain.
Just ask Woody, who tells about his first and only game at First Horizon a couple of years ago with his son and in-laws. And what happened?
“It rained all night. It was one of those deals where we got there and it was drizzling. They would put the tarp down and then it would quit. (It started again) and they couldn’t take it up,” Woody says with a laugh.
“We sat there and watched them try to get the field ready all night. And we never saw an inning. They finally called the game after a couple hours. So I have been to the ballpark but I’ve never seen a ballgame there. I’ve only been inside it one time and, again, it was for a rainout.”