View source for Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium

{{Infobox stadium
| stadium_name       = Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium
| nickname           = ''"The Launching Pad''"
| image              = [[File:Atlanta Stadium.jpg|250px]]
| location           = 521 Capitol Avenue SE<br>Atlanta, Georgia 30312
| coordinates        = {{Coord|33|44|22|N|84|23|22|W|type:landmark|display=inline,title}}
| broke_ground       = April 15, 1964
| opened             = April 9, 1965<ref name="newGaEncyc"/>
| closed             = October 24, 1996
| demolished         = August 2, 1997
| owner              = City of Atlanta and Fulton County
| operator           = City of Atlanta and Fulton County
| surface            = Grass
| construction_cost  = $18 million<br>($133 million in 2012 dollars)
| architect          = [[Heery International|Heery & Heery]]<br>[[FABRAP]]<ref name="newGaEncyc"/>
| structural engineer= Prybyloski & Gravino<ref name="modern steel">{{cite journal | url=http://www.modernsteel.com/archives/PDFs_61-90/1965A9_5-1.pdf | title=NEW  ATLANTA  STADIUM  TO  STOP  RUBBERNECKING | journal=Modern Steel Construction | year=1965 | volume=V | issue=1 | pages=10-11}}</ref>
| services engineer  = Lazenby & Borum<ref name="modern steel"/> 
| general_contractor = Thompson-Street Co.<ref name="modern steel"/><ref name="ballparks">{{cite web | url=http://www.ballparks.com/baseball/national/fulton.htm | title=Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium | publisher=Munsey & Suppes | work=www.ballparks.com | date=2007-04 | accessdate=June 22, 2012}}</ref>
| former_names       = '''Atlanta Stadium''' (1965-1976)
| tenants            = [[Atlanta Braves]] ([[Major League Baseball|MLB]]) (1966-1996)<br>Atlanta Falcons (NFL) (1966-1991)<br>Atlanta Chiefs (NASL) (1967-1969), (1971-1972), (1979-1981)<br />[[Atlanta Crackers]] ([[International League|AAA]]) (1965)<br>Peach Bowl (NCAA) (1971-1991)
| seating_capacity   = [[Baseball]]: 52,007<br>Football: 60,606
| dimensions         = ''1966-68 & 1974-96''<br>'''Left field''' - 330 ft. <br>'''Left-Center''' - 385 ft.<br>'''Center Field''' - 402 ft.<br>'''Right-Center''' - 385 ft.<br>'''Right Field''' - 330 ft.<br><br>''1969-1972''<br>'''Left field''' - 330 ft.<br>'''Left-Center''' - 375 ft.<br>'''Center Field''' - 402 ft.<br>'''Right-Center''' - 375 ft.<br>'''Right Field''' - 330 ft.<br><br>''1973''<br>'''Left field''' - 330 ft.<br>'''Left-Center''' - 375 ft.<br>'''Center Field''' - 402 ft.<br>'''Right-Center''' - 385 ft.<br>'''Right Field''' - 330 ft.
}}
[[File:AFCS2007.jpg|thumb|The site where Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium once stood is now a parking lot for Turner Field. The fence and wall display in the center of the picture commemorates the spot at which Hank Aaron's 715th home run landed on April 8, 1974.]]
[[File:atlantafultoncountystadium.jpg||thumb| Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium before opening in 1966.]]
[[File:COMMUTERS USE FRINGE PARKING AT THE ATLANTA, GEORGIA STADIUM, THEN RIDE METROPOLITAN ATLANTA RAPID TRANSIT AUTHORITY... - NARA - 556790.jpg|thumb|Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium in June, 1974.]]
[[File:afcscityview.gif|thumb|A city view of Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium c. 1996-97 with [[Turner Field]] behind it.]]
[[File:afcsimplosion.jpg|thumb|August 2, 1997, Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium being demolished.]]
'''Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium''', often referred to as '''Fulton County Stadium''' and originally named '''Atlanta Stadium''', was a [[multi-purpose stadium]] in Atlanta, Georgia. The stadium was built to attract a [[Major League Baseball]] team and in 1966 succeeded when the [[Atlanta Braves|Milwaukee Braves]] relocated from Wisconsin. The Braves and Atlanta Falcons of the National Football League shared the venue from 1966 until 1991, when the Falcons moved into the newly completed Georgia Dome. The Braves continued to play at Fulton County Stadium until the end of the 1996 season, when they moved into [[Turner Field]], a converted Centennial Olympic Stadium originally built for the 1996 Summer Olympics.

==History==
During his 1961 campaign for mayor of Atlanta, Ivan Allen, Jr. promised to build a sports facility to attract a Major League Baseball team.  After winning office, Allen chose a 47-acre plot in the Washington-Rawson neighborhood for the building site, citing its proximity to the [[Georgia State Capitol]], downtown businesses and major highways.  Allen, along with ''Atlanta Journal'' sports editor Furman Bisher, attempted to persuade [[Charlie Finley]], owner of the [[Oakland Athletics|Kansas City Athletics]], to move his team to Atlanta.  Finley was receptive and began discussing stadium design plans with Allen.  The deal, however, ended in July 1963 when the [[American League]] did not approve the move.<ref name="newGaEncyc"/>

In 1964, Mayor Allen announced that an unidentified team had given him a verbal commitment to move to Atlanta, provided a stadium was in place by {{by|1966}}.  Soon afterward, the prospective team was revealed to be the Milwaukee Braves, who announced in October that they intended to move to Atlanta for the [[1965 in baseball|1965 season]].  However, court battles kept the Braves in Milwaukee for one last season.<ref name="Storied">{{cite book|last=Smith|first=Curt|authorlink=Curt Smith (author)|title=Storied Stadiums|year=2001|publisher=Carroll & Graf|location=New York City|isbn=0-7867-1187-6}}</ref>

The new stadium was built on the site of the cleared Washington-Rawson neighborhood, which 50 years previously was a wealthy neighborhood home to Georgia's governor, among others, but which by the 1960s had fallen on hard times. 47 dignitaries took part in a groundbreaking ceremony on April 15, 1964.  Almost a year later, construction was completed on April 9, 1965 for $18 million, and on the same night the Milwaukee Braves and [[Detroit Tigers]] played an exhibition game in the stadium.<ref name="newGaEncyc"/> During that year the [[International League]]'s [[Atlanta Crackers]], whose previous home had been [[Ponce de Leon Park]], played their final season in Atlanta Stadium.  In {{by|1966}}, both the [[National League|NL]]'s transplanted Braves and the NFL's Atlanta Falcons, an expansion team, began to use the facility. In 1967, the Atlanta Chiefs of the National Professional Soccer League (re-formed as the North American Soccer League in 1968) began the first of five seasons played at the stadium.<ref>[http://home.att.net/~nasl/teams/chiefs1.htm Atlanta Chiefs]</ref> After [[Ted Turner]] purchased the Braves in 1976, the stadium's name was changed to the hyphenated Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium.<ref name="bravesBallparkHistory">{{cite web | url=http://atlanta.braves.mlb.com/atl/ballpark/history.jsp | title=Ballpark history | publisher=MLB Advanced Media, L.P. | work=atlantabraves.com | accessdate=June 19, 2012}}</ref> The Falcons moved to the Georgia Dome in 1992, while the Braves had to wait until the Olympic Stadium from the 1996 Summer Olympics was transformed into [[Turner Field]] to move out at the beginning of the {{by|1997}} season. The stadium sat 60,606 for football and 52,007 for baseball. The baseball competition for the 1996 Summer Olympics was held at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium.

===Notable events in Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium===
*The Pittsburgh Steelers and Minnesota Vikings played the first NFL preseason game on August  14, 1965.
*On August 18, 1965 The Beatles performed at the stadium in their only live performance in Atlanta during their 1965 US Tour.
*In February 1966 Vietnam War supporters held a prayer rally that featured Dean Rusk as its keynote speaker.<ref name="newGaEncyc"/>
*On April 12, {{By|1966}}, [[Joe Torre]] hit the first major league home run in the history of the Atlanta stadium.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://research.sabr.org/journals/home-run-baptism-of-new-parks|title=Home Run Baptism of New Parks|publisher=sabr.org|accessdate=February 24, 2012}}</ref>
*On September 11, 1966 the Atlanta Falcons played their first game in the stadium and lost to the Los Angeles Rams 19-14.<ref name="newGaEncyc"/>
*On July 25 {{by|1972}} the stadium hosted the [[1972 Major League Baseball All-Star Game|Major League Baseball All-Star Game]]. [[Hank Aaron]] hit a home run during the game, and the National League won it 4&ndash;3 in 10 innings. 
*On April 8, {{By|1974}}, [[Hank Aaron]] became baseball's all-time career [[home run]] leader by hitting his 715th home run off the [[Los Angeles Dodgers]]' [[Al Downing (baseball)|Al Downing]].
*During a series between the Braves and the [[San Diego Padres]], one game spawned several brawls between the two teams.  On August 12, {{By|1984}}, Braves pitcher [[Pascual Pérez (baseball)|Pascual Perez]] hit the Padres' [[Alan Wiggins]] with a pitch; Wiggins did not charge the mound, but the Padres vowed revenge on Perez for his actions (several Padres were ejected in their subsequent attempts to hit Perez). When Perez was finally hit, by a pitch thrown by the Padres' [[Craig Lefferts]], the first of many bench-clearing brawls began. By the time the game was over, both teams' lineups had been nearly emptied (due to all the ejections on both sides).<ref>http://www.nctimes.com/sports/baseball/professional/mlb/padres/article_e308dd18-6149-5a9f-beb7-1d02fe053267.html</ref>
*The Jacksons performed two concerts at Fulton County Stadium on October 29 and 30, 1984 during their Victory Tour.
*On June 4, {{By|1986}}, future home run king [[Barry Bonds]] hit his first career home run off of [[Craig McMurtry]] as a member of the [[Pittsburgh Pirates]].
*The stadium hosted the [[World Series]] for the first time in [[1991 World Series|1991]] when the Braves played the [[Minnesota Twins]] in what [[ESPN]] judged to be the best World Series ever played.<ref>[http://espn.go.com/swf/mlb/anniversary/worldseries100.html ESPN: The World Series 100th Anniversary]</ref> The Braves won all three games played in Atlanta, two in their final at-bat, but lost the series in seven games.
*The [[1992 World Series]] saw the Braves play the [[Toronto Blue Jays]] with the Blue Jays defeating the Braves four games to two, including two of three in Atlanta.
*On July 20, {{By|1993}}, a fire occurred in the stadium press box during batting practice for that evening's game against the [[St. Louis Cardinals]]. This fire occurred on the same day that [[Fred McGriff]] joined the Braves.
*On October 10, {{By|1995}}, the Braves clinched the [[1995 NLDS]] the 1st team to win a Division Series since the NLDS format in the playoff system began that same year.  They defeated the Colorado Rockies 3 games to 1, with the decisive win at home.
*On October 28, 1995, the Braves clinched the [[1995 World Series]] by defeating the [[Cleveland Indians]] 1-0 on a one-hit, 8-inning performance by pitcher [[Tom Glavine]]. The title was the Braves' first World Series championship in Atlanta, making one title in each of the three cities in which they have resided (also Boston and Milwaukee).
*The stadium's final event was Game 5 of the [[1996 World Series]], when the Braves played host to the [[New York Yankees]]. The final score was 1-0 in favor of the Yankees, with the ballpark's final run scored by [[Charlie Hayes]]. The final [[ceremonial first pitch]] was thrown to [[Eddie Perez (baseball)|Eddie Perez]] by former President Jimmy Carter, who had done the honors at Braves home openers while still Governor of Georgia.  The winning pitcher was New York's [[Andy Pettitte]], defeating the Braves' [[John Smoltz]]. The final hit was recorded by Atlanta's [[Chipper Jones]], who doubled off of Pettitte in the bottom of the ninth inning. Pinch-hitter [[Luis Polonia]] was the final out in Fulton County Stadium's history, hitting a deep fly ball to right-center field that was caught by Yankee right fielder [[Paul O'Neill (baseball)|Paul O'Neill]], which gave the stadium's final save to [[John Wetteland]]. (Since no home runs were hit in that game the final home run in the stadium's history belongs to [[Jim Leyritz]], who hit a 3-run home run in Game 4.  Leyritz was also Pettitte's batterymate for Game 5.)

===Demolition===
Following the Olympics, Fulton County commissioner, Marvin S. Arrington, Sr., had a plan to save the stadium and use it as a professional soccer arena and share the parking facilities between it and Turner Field but he was unable to push it through.<ref>{{cite book |last=Arrington|first=Marvin|title=Making My Mark|publisher=Mercer University Press|year=2008|page=167}}</ref>
The stadium was imploded on August 2, 1997. A parking lot for Turner Field now stands on the site, with an outline of the old stadium built in.  The monument that marked the landing point of Hank Aaron's historic 715th home run stands in the same place it did when the stadium was on the site.

The stadium was demolished in the same week as another Atlanta sports venue, the [[Omni Coliseum]]. That arena was the former home of the [[National Basketball Association|NBA's]] [[Atlanta Hawks]] and the [[National Hockey League|NHL's]] [[Atlanta Flames]], and was replaced by [[Philips Arena]] on the same site.

==Layout==
The stadium was relatively nondescript, one of the many saucer-shaped [[multi-purpose stadium|multi-purpose stadia]] built during the 1960s and 1970s, similar to [[RFK Stadium]], [[Shea Stadium]], the [[Astrodome]], [[Three Rivers Stadium]], [[Busch Memorial Stadium]], [[Qualcomm Stadium]], [[Riverfront Stadium]], and [[Veterans Stadium]].

As was the case for every stadium that used this design concept, the fundamentally different sizes and shapes of baseball and football fields made it inadequate for both sports. In the baseball configuration, 70 percent of the seats were in foul territory.<ref name="Storied"/> In the football configuration, seats on the 50-yard-line—normally prime seats for football—were more than 50 yards away from the sidelines.<ref>Reilly, Rick. [http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1067824/index.htm Peach State Lemons]. [[Sports Illustrated]], 1988-10-03.</ref> One unusual feature of this stadium is the fact that, unlike most multi-purpose stadiums - where the football field was laid either parallel to one of the foul lines or running from home plate to center field - the football field here was laid along a line running between first and third base.   [[O.co Coliseum|Oakland Coliseum]] has a similar configuration.<ref>http://www.stadiumsofprofootball.com/past/atlfbaer.jpg</ref> Thus, a seat behind home plate for baseball would also be on the 50-yard line for football.  The stadium was refurbished for the [[1996 in baseball|1996 season]] prior to hosting the [[1996 Summer Olympics|Olympic]] [[Baseball at the 1996 Summer Olympics|baseball]] competition.<ref>[http://www.la84foundation.org/6oic/OfficialReports/1996/1996v1.pdf 1996 Summer Olympics official report.] Volume 1. p. 539.</ref><ref>[http://www.la84foundation.org/6oic/OfficialReports/1996/1996v3.pdf 1996 Summer Olympics official report.] Volume 3. p. 450.</ref>

It was also known{{by whom|date=June 2012}} for the playing field's poor quality. Until {{by|1989}}, it didn't have full-time groundskeepers.  Instead, it was tended by a municipal street-maintenance crew.<ref>[http://www.ballparks.com/baseball/national/fulton.htm Stadium profile] at Ballparks.com</ref>

Due to the relatively high elevation of the Atlanta area (situated at the foothills of the [[Appalachian Mountains]]), the stadium boasted the highest elevation in baseball when it opened, at 1,050 feet above sea level. It retained this distinction until the [[Colorado Rockies]] were born in {{by|1993}}. The high elevation made it favorable to home run hitters, resulting in the nickname "The Launching Pad."<ref>{{cite book |last=Lowry|first=Phillip|title=Green Cathedrals|year=2005|publisher=Walker & Company|location=New York City|isbn=0-8027-1562-1}}</ref>

Fulton County Stadium was designed by a joint-venture team of [[FABRAP]] (Finch Alexander Barnes Rothschild & Paschal) and [[Heery International|Heery, Inc]].<ref name="newGaEncyc">{{cite web | url=http://www.newgeorgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-2991 | title=Atlanta–Fulton County Stadium | publisher=Georgia Humanities Council and the University of Georgia Press | work=http://www.newgeorgiaencyclopedia.org | date=2006-08-04 | accessdate=June 18, 2012 | author=Fenster, Kenneth R}}</ref>

==Seating Capacity==
===Baseball===
* 51,500 (1965)
* 50,893 (1966–1967)
* 51,383 (1968–1972)
* 52,744 (1973)
* 52,870 (1974–1975)
* 51,556 (1976–1978)
* 52,532 (1979)
* 52,194 (1980–1981)
* 52,934 (1983)
* 52,785 (1984)
* 53,046 (1985)
* 52,006 (1986)
* 52,003 (1987–1989)
* 52,007 (1989–1993)
* 52,013 (1994)
* 52,710 (1995)
* 52,769 (1996)

===Football===
* 56,990 (1965)
* 58,850 (1966–1977)
* 60,373 (1978)
* 60,755 (1979)
* 60,763 (1980–1984)
* 59,709 (1985–1986)
* 59,643 (1987–1996)

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
{{Portal|Atlanta}}
*[http://atlantatimemachine.com/misc/afc_stadium922.htm Two vintage postcards showing the stadium from the air. Both cards were published around 1965 or 1966]
*[http://terraservice.net/image.aspx?T=4&S=11&Z=16&X=1854&Y=9340&W=1USGS TerraServer photo of old stadium outline in parking lot, and Turner Field]

{{S-start-collapsible|header={{S-sta|et}}}}
{{Succession box
 | title = Home of the<br>[[Atlanta Falcons]]
 | years = 1966 &ndash; 1991
 | before = First stadium
 | after = [[Georgia Dome]]
}}
{{Succession box
 | title = Home of the<br>[[Atlanta Braves]]
 | years = 1966 &ndash; 1996
 | before = [[Milwaukee County Stadium]]
 | after = [[Turner Field]]
}}
{{Succession box
 | title = Home of the<br>[[Chick-fil-a Bowl|Peach Bowl]]
 | years = 1971 &ndash; 1991
 | before = [[Bobby Dodd Stadium|Grant Field]]
 | after = [[Georgia Dome]]
}}
{{Succession box
 | title = Host of the [[Major League Baseball All-Star Game|All-Star Game]]
 | years = 1972
 | before = [[Tiger Stadium (Detroit)|Tiger Stadium]]
 | after = [[Kauffman Stadium|Royals Stadium]]
}}
{{End}}

{{Wikipedia}}
[[Category:Ballparks]]
[[Category:Defunct Major League Baseball ballparks]]
[[Category:Baseball venues in Georgia]]
[[Category:Atlanta Braves]]
[[Category:Stadiums]]