Globe Life Field



Left field entrance to Globe Life Field, off Randol Mill Road, Oct-2020.

The seating bowl, with a closed roof.

From behind the plate, this time with the roof open.

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Quick Facts: Rating: 4 baseballs
Globe Life Field is the new home of the Texas Rangers, who moved across Randol Mill Road from The Ballpark in Arlington for the 2020 season, a campaign delayed and ultimately shortened due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

While the year’s events meant that no spectators were allowed into the facility for the 30 home games the Rangers played that year, Major League Baseball was working on a plan to host the final three rounds of the playoffs at neutral sites. Globe Life Field hosted games in all three rounds, including the World Series, which was contested between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Tampa Bay Rays. More significantly, while the Division Series was played without spectators, a limited number of fans were allowed in for the last two rounds. About 11,000 tickets were made available for each game in “pods” of four seats apiece, each group at least six feet from the next (and enforced with over 30,000 cable ties across seats that were not to be used). This enabled a limited number of fans, both of the participating clubs and of baseball in general, to finally enjoy the park.

Getting to the Game

Globe Life Field is a mere two blocks from the club’s previous home, so access is essentially the same as it was for events there or at the nearby football stadium that hosts the Dallas Cowboys. While most fans will arrive by car (the sports complex is just off the I-30 freeway between Dallas and Fort Worth), there are local transit options. Most notably for visitors, the Arlington entertainment district (which includes the sports complex and the Six Flags Over Texas theme park) operates a game-day shuttle bus “trolley” service that is free to riders, largely paid for through a hotel tax. Many of the hotels served are on the other side of I-30 or SH 360, a north-south freeway on the east edge of Arlington.

For the locals who drive in, stadium lots are plentiful. There are also remote lots operated by private entities, some of which offer frequent visitor deals such as a voucher for free parking after three paid visits. Be careful not to park in private lots belonging to the office parks in the area, as these are reserved for employees and game attendees run the risk of having their vehicles towed.

Watching the Game

Most fans will enter the ballpark from the Randol Mill Road plaza, which is also the location of Texas Live, a key component of the sports complex. Texas Live features sports-themed restaurants as well as souvenir stands and is suitable for pre- and post-game gatherings as well as being open during games for fans who are not lucky enough to have tickets.

While the old ballpark had most of the amenities one would expect of a new major league sports facility, the one thing it lacked was a roof. That often made summertime games unbearable even at night. The new park has a slightly different look, of course, but it retains a fair amount of the charm of the old place while adding the retractable roof. As with many modern enclosed baseball stadiums, the infield dirt areas are actually dirt, while the “grass” areas and the warning track are a modern artificial turf.

Spectator seating is in four levels, with field-level seating using section numbers with one or two digits up to the upper deck in the 300s. Notably, the 300 level is broken up by the press box, which uniquely is partially outdoors. The back of the press box is the back of the building, and with the roof closing during hot or inclement weather, the folks covering the game should have no issues.

Some of the highest seats on the third-base side are blocked from a view of the main scoreboard/video board by the roof supports. TV monitors displaying the scoreboard have been put in place to aid fans in those high seats.

Enjoying the Game

As with most modern ballparks, there are many concession stands on the lower level and fewer on the upper level. With the pandemic-limited seating, fewer stands were open during the playoff game I attended in 2020. My friends and I did not patronize the stands except to buy bottled water, instead meeting before the game at Texas Live and then walking into the stadium.

The lower crowd also meant no serious issues with stadium egress. There are escalators and elevators, of course, but I suspect that when the park is crowded, most fans will exit using the many stairwells that have been built into the facility. This is also common to the newer ballparks.

A friend I attended with, who had taken a stadium tour a few months earlier, said that he didn’t notice that there were any “bad” seats in the house. We sat in section 309, on the third base side in the upper deck, and aside from simply being in the upper deck, we had no trouble following the game from our location.


More photos from 2020 in this Facebook album (public, no account required)
Game Date League Level Result
1932 Tue 13-Oct-2020 National MLB Atlanta 8, LA DODGERS 7
2067 Tue 14-Sep-2021 American MLB TEXAS 8, Houston 1
2231 Mon 5-Jun-2023 American * MLB TEXAS 4, St Louis 3
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This page updated 5-Jun-2023