Scorin’ on the Guitar in the Music City

An approach to Herschel Greer Stadium, Aug-1998.

The seating bowl is typical of 1970s construction.

Here, you see the distinctive scoreboard that makes this place stand out.

• Location: Chestnut & 8th Streets, Nashville, Tenn.
• Opened: 1978
• Home team: Nashville Sounds, Southern League (1978-84), American Association (1985-97), Pacific Coast League (1998-present); Nashville Xpress, Southern League (1993-94)
• Capacity: 10,700

Chronological Tour: Stop 148

Rating: 2 baseballs

Nashville, which just happens to be the capital of the Volunteer State, is better known as the Music City. The Grand Ole Opry has originated from here since the 1930s, and that helped build the town’s reputation as a hotbed of country music. In commemoration of all this, the team that’s played in Nashville since the 1970s is known as the Sounds. They’ve even worked musical notes into their logo.

Now Herschel Greer Stadium is an otherwise dull, uninspiring place, although it’s fairly comfortable for watching a ball game. It knows its role. It’s not aligned for a beautiful view of downtown, or anything like that. It’s just a baseball stadium. But the redeeming feature of the place is the scoreboard, visible above. The Fair-Play board is shaped like a guitar, with message and video boards in the barrel, the line score in the neck, and the batter’s number, count, and outs up near the tuning knobs.

For two seasons in the early 1990s, Greer Stadium hosted two teams. The former Charlotte Orioles of the Southern League moved in and became known as the Xpress; they left in 1995 to become the Port City Roosters.