Charlotte Knights – May 11, 2023
My first full day in Charlotte began with a change in plans.
When I’d drafted up the itinerary for this baseball trip over the off-season, I’d planned to start this day by driving from Charlotte to Gastonia in time for a matinee game. The Gastonia Honey Hunters, a member of the independent Atlantic League of Professional Baseball, play just 45 minutes from Charlotte. My initial plan was to catch at least two-thirds of the Honey Hunters game and then return to Charlotte to get ready to see the Knights in evening action.
Upon waking up on May 11, though, I decided that a second straight day with two games in one city felt like a little too much. One-day, two-city doubleheaders are fun, but as I outlined here, a major drawback to them is that they’re exhausting. It’s easy to plan this type of rigorous schedule when you’re sitting at home over the winter and are feeling giddy about baseball travel, but it’s another thing entirely to execute — especially when you’ve been running a little short on sleep.
I was a bit torn about the idea of skipping Gastonia, but the reality is that my travels primarily focus on affiliated baseball. I wanted to be full of energy for another visit to Truist Field, and I decided to structure my day so that’d be the case. I worked out in in my hotel’s gym in the morning, took a short walk to a Whole Foods location to fill a salad bar box with various vegetables, and returned to my hotel to eat it. In recent years, Whole Foods’ salad bar has become a lifesaver as a way to break up day after day (after day, after day, etc.) of eating ballpark food.
The post-lunch hours brought some laid-back sightseeing around Charlotte’s Uptown district, including stops at each of these three sports attractions that are within walking distance of Truist Field. By a little after 4:30 p.m., I was standing in front of the outfield gate at the ballpark, feeling refreshed and ready for more Triple-A baseball at one of the most beautiful ballparks I’ve ever visited:
One thing I wanted to do at the start of this visit was to spend a little more time outside of the ballpark. I’m normally in such a rush to get inside and check out the view that I bypass the exterior a little, and didn’t want to let that happen on this visit. I began by walking along S. Graham Street, which runs behind the third base side. This side of the park features a number of murals that pay tribute to various historical ballparks in Charlotte — beginning with Latta Park, which dates back to the 1890s. It was the one-time home of the Charlotte Hornets, a member of the Virginia-North Carolina League that existed between 1901 and 1905. The Brooklyn Dodgers, Philadelphia Phillies, and Philadelphia Athletics even held their Spring Training at this park around the turn of the last century. Here’s the mural that honors Latta Park:
Also on this side of Truist Field, murals paid tribute to Wearn Field, Jim Crockett Memorial Park and Knights Stadium, three parks that combined to host minor league baseball in the area for about a century.
At the corner of S. Graham Street and W. Martin Luther King Boulevard, I paused to snap this shot of Truist Field:
This shot depicts an area directly behind home plate that is holds a number of picnic tables, and can be a nice place to hang out if you need some quiet during the ballgame. It was nearly empty at this hour, except for a couple of stadium employees who were grabbing a pregame bite to eat.
I continued along the sidewalk and eventually made it to the main gate, which I documented with this photo:
Then, it was time to get inside and check out the view:
I know I’m commenting on the view a lot. If you’ve been to this ballpark, you know what I’m talking about. If you haven’t, you might be growing tired of this discussion. All I can tell you is that it’s monumentally impressive. If you get a chance to travel to Charlotte for baseball, please take it. And try to get to Truist Field for two games. Seeing the view for just one game doesn’t seem to cut it.
As I’d done a day earlier, I took a seat behind home plate and just enjoyed the view for a period of time. Eventually, I moved down the third base line and grabbed a spot to shoot this panorama:
After a while, I went directly behind the dugout, snapped this shot of the dugout roof with the Truist Field wording (this was new to me, as the park was called BB&T BallPark when I visited in 2018) …
… and then walked toward the left field corner, where I watched members of the visiting Durham Bulls playing catch in the outfield:
My next stop was the bleacher area in left field, where I stood in the front row and promptly noticed a baseball. Its presence was a bit of a surprise to me, as batting practice wasn’t taking place. Closer inspection revealed that it was deeply scuffed, so I’m assuming a player might’ve found it in a ball bag and tossed it into the seats for a fan to find:
That fan turned out to be me, but since I have a rule about not taking baseballs I find before the gates open, I decided to hang onto it for now but hand it to a young fan once there was an opportunity.
I next walked along the outfield concourse and went to the front row of seats behind the right field fence, where I snapped a selfie with the Truist Field video board in the background:
My next stop was the visitors dugout on the third base side. Or, more specifically, the seats that are adjacent to the dugout:
I love standing next to dugouts and just taking in the scene, and I stood in this spot for a few minutes as many of the Durham players walked past me in both directions.
Eventually, the gates opened and I moved toward the main gate to see a large crowd of fans gathering to await the arrival of the night’s celebrity guest. The Knights do a really good job of having all sorts of celebrities on hand from the worlds of sports and entertainment. The celeb on this night was actor Phil Morris, who is best known for his iconic recurring role as lawyer Jackie Chiles in Seinfeld. I made my way down to where the crowd was gathered, and managed to snap a shot of Morris signing for a fan:
He’d later throw out the first pitch, but I missed seeing it because I was focused on my meal. That meal was not exactly memorable, but it didn’t do much to dampen my enjoyment of the evening. It was an average brat on an oddly misshapen bun that was also fully separated into two pieces, making the meal unnecessarily challenging to eat:
As you likely saw, I moved to the grass berm to eat my meal, and stayed in this spot for a while after my last bite. The berm is a fun place to hang out and offers a nice change of scenery if you typically sit in the grandstand seats. This is where I sat for first pitch and the entire first inning, before moving back to the third base side for the top of the second frame:
Since I’d had plenty of time on the third base side, I decided to change things up a bit by moving down the first base line:
This is a vantage point I often enjoy at ballparks, and this was also the case at Truist Field. Even though you don’t get the city backdrop from this spot, you still have a good view of the action — and there’s always a chance of a long foul ball coming your way, too.
The next spot I checked out was the Upper Club Seats section, an upscale area on the suite level above the first base line. The indoor part of the Upper Club area is one of the nicest I’ve encountered, and definitely offers a major league vibe. While this area provided a pleasant, air conditioned reprieve for a moment, I enjoyed the view from the seats in front of it:
It was nice to enjoy a higher-up view of Truist Field for an inning or two. Like lots of minor league facilities, the majority of the seats around this ballpark are at field level. While field level seats are typically my preference, changing my vantage point for a short period of time was fun. I stayed in this spot until the sky got a little darker, which prompted me to take a seat behind home plate — just as I’d done the previous night.
This was the glorious scene when I first sat down:
A few minutes after I snapped that photo, two young parents and their young child sat down two rows in front of me. I realized that I still had the baseball I’d found earlier in my visit, and I figured it might be fun to give to the kid. I soon got the father’s attention and handed him the ball, which he gave to the kid … who promptly dropped it, causing it to roll almost to the front row of seats. Oops. The ball quickly got retrieved, and after a lesson in hanging on tightly, the child didn’t drop it again for the rest of the game. The child’s antics in front of me were pretty entertaining, keeping not only my attention, but also the attention of a handful of other fans around me.
Of course, the scene in front of me was pretty entertaining, too, and I enjoyed sitting back and taking it all in. As I said in my previous post, the skyline gets more stunning as the sky darkens. Before long, this was my view:
And a short time later, here’s what I was looking at:
In the ninth inning, this was my view:
I can’t say enough good things about Truist Field. The view is its crown jewel, but the park offers all sorts of areas, attractions and features that make it a must-visit spot for any baseball traveler. I was sad to walk out of the park’s gates after the game wrapped up, but glad that I had just a short walk back to the Holiday Inn Charlotte-City Center:
In my previous post, I noted how this hotel’s proximity to Truist Field made it a perfect choice for my visit to Charlotte. Beyond its proximity, the hotel offered lots of things that I appreciated. Its athletic center, located on the top floor, was well-appointed, and its parking was more affordable than I expected for a hotel in the heart of a major city. My room was also more spacious than perhaps any other Holiday Inn property I’ve visited, which I especially appreciated given that I was staying for two nights. Here’s a shot from the hotel’s website that shows my exact room type:
My visit to Charlotte was wonderful; I can’t recommend this city enough. Whenever I visit, I fill my days with a long list of attractions and activities, but always feel as though there are more things to see and do. I don’t know when I’ll be back in the Queen City, but I certainly hope it’ll be on the sooner side.
If you’re planning a visit to Charlotte, be sure to check out the Charlotte Regional Visitors Authority to learn everything you need to know about this city. Thanks to the CRVA for their help with my visit.
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