The Atlanta Braves and SunTrust Park are expected to host the 2021 Major League Baseball All-Star Game, according to a report from the Atlanta-Journal Constitution.
Located in suburban Cobb County, SunTrust Park opened to acclaim in 2017–winning our Ballpark of the Year Award that season– and has been highly regarded ever since. Some of that praise owes to the ballpark’s design features, but the adjacent mixed-use area The Battery Atlanta has become a model for teams looking to incorporate development into their facility plans.
It has been expected that SunTrust Park would land an All-Star Game in the relatively near future, and it appears that the ballpark is poised to be named the host site for the 2021 Midsummer Classic. An official has not been made yet, though it could come as early as next week. More from the Atlanta-Journal Constitution:
“We continue to feel really good about it, and we expect there will be an announcement at some point in time soon,” Braves president and CEO Derek Schiller said in an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Thursday.
Schiller declined to comment further Friday, but this could be the timing: The Braves are planning an All-Star celebration featuring many of their former All-Star players, including Hank Aaron, Chipper Jones, Tom Glavine, John Smoltz, Phil Niekro and others, at SunTrust Park and The Battery Atlanta before Wednesday’s game against the Washington Nationals.
The Braves long have been working on a bid to host the All-Star game in their new stadium. MLB commissioner Rob Manfred told the AJC late last year that SunTrust Park is “certainly a candidate for 2021.”
The Braves did submit a bid for the 2020 All-Star Game, which was ultimately awarded to Dodger Stadium. Even in the aftermath of that decision, however, it seemed that SunTrust Park was still a strong contender for a future game, with 2021 the earliest possibility.
Should the expectation that SunTrust Park will host the 2021 All-Star Game be realized, it will mark the third time the Braves have hosted the event. The two previous Midsummer Classics staged at Braves’ ballparks were the 1972 game at Atlanta Stadium (later Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium) and the 2000 edition at Turner Field.
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