I’ve been thinking about this for a while now. With the announcement here a little bit ago that the Salt Lake Bees are leaving their longtime home of Smith’s Ballpark for a new stadium in Daybreak, that likely means the demise of Smith’s Ballpark for good. Well, that’s where the Utah Baseball team currently plays its home games. Which leads to the obvious question of where exactly are they going to play going forward? Is an on-campus stadium a realistic option? Or is it the demise of the program? That team has a soft spot in my heart because my brother played for them from 1999-2002. I went to their winter camps when I was a young teenager because my brother was on the team and I went to my brother’s games there all four years. But without a stadium to play in, what are they going to do? They have their on campus practice field across from the football practice facility, but that place has zero seating and would be very hard to expand into a full-fledged stadium due to its close proximity to Guardsman Way. It’s also restricted because of Salt Lake City’s unwillingness to sell the University the part of Sunnyside Park they need to move the field farther east away from the street, allowing them to add permanent seating/build an actual stadium. Any ideas? It would be extremely disheartening and frankly wrong if the school had to drop the baseball program solely because they don’t have a stadium to play in.
An on campus stadium has been in the works for almost a decade, though they need a land deal from the City to get it done. The City has been hesitant to the deal because Sunnyside Park is so heavily used by the city’s sports leagues and the purchase would affect those programs. The city needs an alternative to offset the impacts to the sports leagues before they will be ready to deal.
FWIW, I remember playing Beehive League games in Sunnyside Park on Sundays back in the 1980’s. As no one really attended those games except friends and family, the bleachers were plenty. What the school has at Red Butte back in the day wasn’t much better.
I figure the deal will get done and the stadium will be built. The City (like many cities throughout America) will likely enter into an agreement with the School District, to allow sports play on their open spaces (if they don’t already have one). Even though baseball has operated as a non revenue sport, there is simply too much money involved here to shut down the program.
I don’t have the quote but apparently Harlen was on the 700AM show and said the Guardsman deal will be done, and in two years or so they will be playing there.
I’m probably going to sound like an angry old man who can’t tolerate any sort of change, and there is probably a grain of truth in there…
But, I will personally never set foot in the to-be-built stadium in West Jordan. I’m not a regular at the old ballpark now, but do attend games there occasionally, and am moving into an age where I’ll have grandsons whom I would have expected to introduce to baseball there.
As I live within walking distance of Sunnyside Park, my grandsons will get their introduction to Baseball and Ute fandom at the same time.
Hey…get off my lawn! 
I’ll try and find the article but I read before that they only need to buy about a 12 ft deep step to shift the field and allow seating. There was something about it not affecting the use of the park but the city was reluctant to make the deal regardless.
Oh ok. Cool. I hope you’re right. 
Because the Bees are moving to South Jordan in 2025. 2024 is their last season at Smith’s. I assume they’re planning to tear down the old stadium after that.
I’m pretty sure I’ll never go to another Bees game again after they move. Smith’s ballpark was a fun place to go now and then when I wanted to have a relaxing evening watching baseball with friends. I’m not gonna drive out there to do that.
FWIW; Trax will drop you right next to the new stadium in DayBreak.
Still too much trouble for many casual minor league baseball fans.
Trax is a wonderful option, and if I ever do go there, I’ll certainly take Trax. My problem is the idea of abandoning a perfectly good stadium in an historic location. It’s move will be the final death knell to a neighborhood.
And now, get off my lawn!
Minor League Baseball is not Major League Baseball. The rosters are revolving doors, and unless your MLB parent club is hard-core into developing players, the teams are pretty meh as they aren’t playing for a championship. Winning the AAA title is kind of anticlimactic.
That said, getting to see Big Papi, Torii Hunter and many others make their way to stardom from SLC has been enjoyable. In so many ways the location of the ballpark has made the trips to games a bigger reason to attend. The view of the Wasatch is amazing.
I am sure that will all get lost at the new stadium; and it probably won’t be because the positioned the field wrong. It will be because the pollution will obscure the view. That said, I am sure the tax write-offs and tax giveaways from the South Jordan City RDA will be a tidy windfall.
Maybe the people who plan such things did some market research and decided that they’d get better attendance in the far southwest reaches of the Salt Lake Valley. That could be, I guess.
Just FYI: Murray Central to Ballpark - 11 minutes. Murray central to Daybreak - 24 minutes.
Daybreak is simply way the hell out there.
Daybreak is simply way the hell out there.
Agreed. As the crow flies the main U hospital and the South Jordan UofU health center are each ~10 miles from my house in Cottonwood Heights. Takes ~17-25 minutes to get to the main hospital and 30-50 minutes to South Jordan. Daybreak may as well be Ogden at that point.
As someone who lives by that station, people will try it once and give up.
For example. To get to the U from Daybreak on TRAX? It’s an hour plus trip.
For anyone not already on the red line it’s a transfer. For anyone south of Murray they would have to ride the tray to Murray, then back out to 118th South. Same with Frontrunner, rice it 60 blocks north of the new stadium to take a train back south.
I love where I live, but it’s not a convenient place to have 6,000-12,000 people commute to 50+ times
Reality?
The Miller family owns every inch of the land and is trying to create a destination for their development.
Are you referring to Daybreak, where Rio Tinto destroyed the aquifer for the next century? Or the land where the Smith’s ballpark is?
I was about to say the same thing.
Daybreak. The Millers bought all of Daybreak and are aggressively developing it.
Smith’s Ballpark is owned by Salt Lake City, the Bees leased the stadium, at a very favorable rate to the team.