Toyota Field

First-base line entry to Toyota Field, Jul-2021.

A rather handsome seating bowl.

Looking out from behind the plate after sunset.

Chronological Tour: Stop 418

• Location: Town Madison, between Dunlop Boulevard and Contec Road off Zierdt Road, Madison, Ala. (map it using Google Maps)
• Opened: 2020
• Home team: Rocket City Trash Pandas, Southern League (2021-present)
• Capacity: 7,000

Rating: 4 baseballs

Madison County, especially the Huntsville area, is known as the Rocket City for its large aerospace presence. Many of the movers and shakers in the industry, including Northrup Grumman, have a presence in the area, which is also home to NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center and the U.S. Space & Rocket Center museum, where the Space Camp is held. As a result, there are several tie-ins, including an astronaut race during the game, featuring Sally, Buzz, and Neil. Toyota also has a major presence here, leading to their sponsorship of the facility.

Thanks to the Town Madison development being fairly new, access is limited. For instance, the ramps to the region from the I-565 freeway, from which the ballpark is easily seen, are incomplete. There is also only parking on site, which means the club can and does charge for parking (in 2021, $10, no cash accepted). Tickets and concessions also are not cheap, largely owing to the newness of the park, and concession lines are often quite long. But the park itself ranks up there with the nicer ones built in recent years, and it is a quite comfortable place to watch a game.

One minor gripe, and I have had this with many parks, is that there is no dedicated scoreboard and the team sometimes replaces the entire display with messages like MAKE SOME NOISE, thus removing the score display from the board.