Hoover Met

Except for one game a year, the Birmingham Barons don't actually play in Birmingham. The team bolted the big city for the 'burbs in '88, when they relocated to Hoover, which is where they remain to this day.

Built near the very end of the bigger is better era that defined stadium construction for a prolonged period of time, Hoover's Regions Park is the second biggest venue to host Double-A baseball, bested officially by only 200 seats and the Baseball Grounds of Jacksonville. But the Barons' 10,800-seat stadium can actually hold more fans, as large grass hillsides begin where the symmetrical grandstand ends and the team's single game attendance record is 16,247.

Chief among the things that stand out about the stadium is its location, as the road that leads to Regions Park services an industrial park that is part of the Trace Crossings development within which the Barons' home also resides.

Plenty of paid and all paved parking fronts the stadium, which has a can't-miss sloping red clay colored roof that reminds me of Dumb Donald from the Fat Albert cartoon. Since most of the stadium sits in a valley below the parking lot, the roof covers up most of the facade in the same manner that Dumb Donald's stocking cap covered most of his face.

The grandstand is more deep than wide, with a cross aisle splitting the seating sections into two levels. Prior to 2007, the stadium's box seats were red and the bleachers blue, but a major renovation finished that year gave all seats a uniform light blue color.

There are no shortage of party areas. A large banquet hall hovers on the underside of the roof behind the third base dugout while picnic areas can be found down each outfield line. Additionally, a dozen suites flank the two-story press box and beyond the suites each side of the stadium sports an open-air patio.

The concourse is behind the grandstand, and thus walled off from the playing field. But upon its walls is a reminder that Michael Jordan called Hoover home for the summer of 1994, as an oversized poster shows His Airness in his Barons uniform and reminds fans that all three of Jordan's home runs were hit at the Hoover Met, as the stadium was generally referred to before Regions Bank bought naming rights in 2007.

Hoover Met was short for Hoover Metropolitan Stadium and when it opened the Barons' long tenure at Rickwood Field ended. At the time the Barons' moved 20 miles south, Rickwood was the nation's second oldest actively used pro ballpark, younger than only Chicago's Comiskey Park. Each opened in 1910, but seven weeks apart. While Comiskey was wrecked by a metal ball to make way for its replacement, Rickwood still stands and once a year (since 1996) the Barons have returned there to play a regular season game called the Rickwood Classic.

While there were some bad stadiums built in the 1980s, Rickwood's replacement was not one of them. You need only drive 117 miles to the north and visit Huntsville's Joe Davis Stadium to gain an appreciation of what Regions Park's designers were able to accomplish in an era largely devoid of charm and devoted to function, often in a multi-purpose manner.

Yes, the playing field in Hoover is converted into a football field in the fall for high schools to use, but Regions Park looks and feels like a baseball stadium. A big one, no doubt, but one that's not a blight and is, in fact, quite all right.

- Written by Graham Knight on June 12, 2010