Year Opened: 1946; renovated 2006, 2009
Capacity: 3,200 (2,600 seats, 600 berm and SRO)
Architect (renovations): Tom Larimer, Fehlman Labarre Architecture
Dimensions: 320L, 400C, 320R
Website: rawhidebaseball.com
Phone: 559/732- HIDE (4433)
League: California League (High Class A)
Surface: Grass
Parking: Parking near the ballpark is free.
Address/Directions: 300 N. Giddings St., Visalia, CA. From Fresno or Bakersfield, take CA 99 to CA 198 and head east to Visalia. Exit CA 198 on Mooney Boulevard North, which merges east onto Main Street, then north on Giddings Street to Recreation Park.
Written By: John Moist

The Toyota Pavilion, a covered seating area featuring a bar and misters

It has taken the better part of two years – and months of negotiations before that – for the extreme makeover of Recreation Park to be complete.

It was worth the wait.

Renovating Recreation Park into the Wrigley Field of the Cal League was not an easy endeavor for team owner Tom Seidler and architect Tom Larimer. The smallest ballpark in the Cal League, Recreation Park wasn’t much to look at three years ago. Recreation Park opened in 1946, when Visalia joined the California League, and was always a very basic facility. A new ballpark wasn’t feasible, and a renovation presented many challenges. An engineering study determined construction of a new grandstand, the initial plan for making over the ballpark, couldn’t be done affordably.

So the grandstand stayed. That left the rest of the ballpark open for renovations.

You can see the new structure down the right-field line.

Work on the park started before the 2008 season, but the majority of the big changed happened for the 2009 season, when the team removed the right-field grandstands and completed construction of a brick structure, which includes team and ticket offices, concession stands, party suites, the Hall of Fame Club, and additional box seats. A new press box was installed on the top of the original grandstand behind Home. From the outside, the entire first-base side (along Giddings Street) is a classic brick grandstand, complete with ticket windows and retro green lampshade fixtures.

Between home plate and first base (the west side) is the Hall of Fame Club, an air-conditioned bar/dining room and a section of exterior seats overlooking first base. The windows are hurricane-proof glass, ensuring they can withstand foul balls traveling upwards of 90 miles per hour. Continuing down the brick pavilion are concessions, the team store and restrooms. At the end is a cluster of mileage signs, showing the distance to Mobile (AA), Reno (AAA), Phoenix and Cooperstown.

Page 2: Exploring the new ballpark --->