The Big Chip

Entrance to Pringles Park, Aug-2001.

The seating bowl. Field level here is quite a bit below concourse level.

In right field, a stand of trees; in left field, I-40.

Chronological Tour: Stop 210

• Location: Ridgecrest Drive off F.E. Wright Drive, Jackson, Tenn. (map it using Google Maps)
• Opened: 1998 as Pringles Park
• Additional names: Generals Park (2013), The Ballpark at Jackson (2014)
• Home team: West Tenn Diamond Jaxx (1998-2010), Jackson Generals (2011-19), Southern League; Winnipeg Goldeyes, American Association (first half of 2021)
• Capacity: 6,000

Rating: 4 baseballs

They produce a lot of Pringles potato crisps in an area factory, thus the willingness of the manufacturer to sponsor the park for its first 15 years. During that time, the West Tenn Diamond Jaxx (what an awful name!) employed a mascot who was a big can of Pringles.

As for the park itself, you enter and all the seats are below you, in an amphitheater configuration. It fits into the lay of the land, which drops from the top of the hill down to Interstate 40. There is a lower walkway separating the field boxes from the reserved seats, but all services are on the upper level. There is a wheelchair ramp on the right field end (which is also where the entrance is) which provides easier access to and from those lower seats.

One difficulty I had during a return visit in 2015 was that the setting sun reflected off the old scoreboard in right center, making the score difficult to read. The LED video board showed up better, and so perhaps replacing the scoreboard with an LED model would solve this issue. As of 2019, the scoreboard is an LED model, but it still tends to wash out when bright sun hits it.

Upon my first visit to see the Diamond Jaxx, my suggestion was substitute a simpler and more descriptive name for the team, perhaps the Jackson Jacks. It certainly wouldn’t affect my opinion of the park. A number of people apparently concurred, as the team rebranded itself as the Jackson Generals for 2011, the same name the team in Jackson, Miss., used in its last years as a Minor League club.

Whatever the name, though, the days of pro baseball in Jackson may be numbered. Attendance has suffered here, and the team is rumored to be on the move after the 2019 season. The Pacific Coast League team in the suburbs of New Orleans may be moving to Wichita, Kan., for 2020, and if that happens, the Generals might head down to Louisiana to fill the void. At least that was the rumor as of late 2018, but it didn’t happen. Indeed, the team was eliminated in the Major League Baseball restructuring of the minor leagues that took effect after the aborted 2020 season.

For 2021, the Winnipeg Goldeyes, who were unable to host games due to the continuing COVID-19 pandemic, utilized the park as a temporary home through the end of July before returning to Shaw Park for the stretch run. By 2023, the park is expected to host a team in the Prospect League, a college summer league.