While college baseball season might be over, College Baseball Daily is keeping you covered by counting down the Top 10 Stadiums in the country. Each day we’ll have a different stadium, including the history and fun facts, until we reach the number one stadium in all of college baseball.Checking in at number 8 today is Ole Miss’ Oxford-University Stadium at Swayze Field.
On a list with five SEC schools, Swayze Field comes in low on the list, but still has a great deal of tradition attached to it. The field was originally opened in 1948 and expanded twice to accommodate 8,500 faithful Rebel fans. In left field, fans can enjoy Oakes Pavillion, which features picnic areas, grills, and a play area for children. The area can hold around 2,500 fans and has become a popular area for families and non-students. However, if you’re ever at Swayze Field for a game, the right field terrace is the place to be. The hill past the fence is the main area for students to gather and watch the game, drawing crowds of close to 4,000 on big weekends. Students get to the hill almost three hours before game time just to get a seat, and to take part in the traditions that Swayze Field holds. Students will scream at the opposing outfielders, give beer showers after home runs and walk off hits, and before the game starts, write messages on baseballs that the team throws into the area after warmups in between innings. Attendance has never been a problem for the Rebels, who ranked third with an average of almost 8,000 fans in the 2013 season. To accommodate the Rebs, Swayze Field underwent a renovation in 2007, and six years later, they recorded an attendance of 11,729 against Alabama. Even though Swayze Field offers great tradition in a city that is pretty cool, the Rebels still have to compete with the baseball field 150 miles away in Starkville.
You can check out the rest of the top 10 by clicking here.
6 comments
What a joke this list is. First, Kate Moser studied broadcasting at Miss. State? Really? Talk about competing with the rival 150 miles away. I’m guessing she’s one of about 10 people to study broadcasting at Miss. State this millennium. What’s next? Students going to Ole Miss to study milking cows?
Second: biased much?
Third: How many of these stadiums has Ms. Moser actually been to? Because if she hasn’t been, how could she possibly make any kind of judgment call on this? If she’d been to LSU, Ole Miss and MSU as a fan, there is no way Alex Box would be No. 1 on this list. Or maybe she really does enjoy sitting in a hard, tiny stadium seat and paying outrageous prices for heat-lamped concessions more than sitting in a comfortable lawn chair, eating fresh food straight off the grill and drinking ice cold beer bought from a grocer for less than $8 a can from a cooler at her feet. Yeah, that makes sense.
Fourth: She clearly tried not to show her bias by making MSU No. 2 behind LSU. She failed, horribly and most obviously by putting Ole Miss at No. 8. Not a chance. Consistently in the top 3 in attendance, a new renovation, loads of backed seats and two outfield sections that allow BYOB and food, grills to cook the food on and a playground for the kids. Instead, Ms. Moser just made herself look ignorant and naïve about people not thinking she’s biased. MSU is a far, far more fun place to watch a baseball game than LSU. I’m speaking from experience and no bias whatsoever between the two schools. I went to Ole Miss. Of the stadiums I’ve been to, MSU is No. 1.
Fifth: having another great stadium in your state should have no bearing whatsoever on where a stadium places in a Top 10 Stadium in the NATION. It’s not like MSU is so great that is just makes Ole Miss’ stadium look terrible sitting in its giant shadow. Give me a break. If anything, the fact that a state as small as Mississippi has two of the best baseball stadiums in the country should bump up both stadium’s stock. UCLA can win National Championships in the one of the largest cities in the nation and still struggle to get 2,000 people in the seats. Mississippi has less than 3 million in the whole state and can consistently put 8,000+ in the seats at Ole Miss and MSU.
I commend your effort, I suppose, though I don’t see evidence of much research outside of Wikipedia here. I don’t blame you though, I suspect you probably took most of your college courses in a smelly back stall of a barn somewhere with two foreign exchange students while a class of 300 learned to castrate bulls in the next stall. We shouldn’t hold you to the same standards as the people who studied at Ole Miss’ Meek School of Journalism.
If you’d like to discuss this, please email me at the address above and we will talk about why I picked Swayze to be number 8. Also, if I was going to bias about this, Ole Miss wouldn’t have even made the countdown 🙂
Lol Dudy Noble #2 yeah right
That field and stadium is a dump. It hasn’t been a top 10 stadium in 5-6 years
LSU, USCe, Ole Miss, And Arkansas all have way nicer stadiums
Sheesh this article sucks
No one in their right mind would ever put Ole Miss at #8. You also need to get your facts right. You need to double that 4,000 per game you said. Ole Miss is usually second or third in attendance every year behind only LSU. Plus, you need to actually attend an Ole Miss game.
Did Starkville move 60+ miles further away from Oxford? Did the baseball stadium move about half a mile down the street from the football stadium to its current location in 1988? Was the last major renovation ($18 million) in 2007? Wait…were there any renovations in 2007? Wouldn’t the field be at the stadium and not “stadium at field?”
Stick to writing coloring books. [Long pause…Coloring books have no words…]
This is just crazy to have Ole Miss at #8. Ole Miss is easily in the top 3. Plus, on a big weekend the crowds are around 8,000. Ole Miss is always in the top 3 in attendance and has one of the most beautiful baseball stadiums and field in the country. Whoever wrote this has never been to an Ole Miss baseball game.
Comments are closed.