AutoZone Park

• Name: AutoZone Park
• GPS-able Address: 200 Union Ave., Memphis, TN 38103
• Ballpark Owner: City of Memphis
• Architects: Looney Ricks Kiss; HOK Sport (now Populous)
• Groundbreaking: 1/15/1998
• Minor League Baseball/Professional Development League Teams: Memphis Redbirds (AAA) 2000-present
• Pro Baseball Class/League History: AAA/International League 2022-present; AAA/Triple-A West 2021; AAA/Pacific Coast League 2000-2020
• First Pro Baseball Game: 4/1/2000; Redbirds-Cardinals exhibition
• Others Playing or Operating Here: Memphis 901 FC (soccer)
• Previous Ballpark Names: None
• LF: 319 CF: 400 RF: 322
• Seats: 6,500
• Stated Capacity: 10,000
• House Baseball/Softball Record Attendance (as currently configured): 11,076, 7/3/2017

AutoZone Park in Memphis, TN, is the home of the Memphis Redbirds, the St. Louis Cardinals' Triple-A International League farm team. Opened in 2000, it is widely credited with revitalizing downtown Memphis.

A renovation is likely in the cards, as Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland proposed more than $680 billion dollars for a round of building and upgrades for its sports properties: upgrades to "The AZ" to meet new standards MLB imposed in its 2021 Minor League Reorganization; a new soccer-specific pitch for Memphis 901, which would free the Redbirds from sharing their field; renovations to Simmons Bank Liberty Stadium, home of the Liberty Bowl; and renovations to its only property that hosts a major team, the FedEx Forum - home of the NBA's Memphis Grizzlies. Strickland's plan asked the state to provide more than half - $350 million. That made it into Gov. Bill Lee's budget and appears close to his signature, with the 2023 Tennessee General Assembly passing a version.

The AZ hosted Major League Baseball's Civil Rights Games in 2007 and 2008, in its original guise as a spring training exhibition game; when it later became a designated regular-season game, it was no longer played in Memphis but in a Major League city.

The city-owned stadium and its team - then also municipally owned and operated - drew well until a 2007 downturn. More and more hampered by maintenance and management costs of owning both, the city sold the club to its parent Cards in March 2014. Attendance promptly plunged 27% that season, after which renovations reduced the seating of the ballpark - whose baseball record crowd was then 18,620 - to 10,000. The Cards sold a majority interest in 2016 - and the gate rebounded 17 percent. Despite such hiccups - and with the first seven seasons' great gates - the 10-millionth fan attended in 2016, the fastest to that benchmark in Pacific Coast League history. Memphis, now in the IL, played in the PCL from 1998 through 2019.

Former President Jimmy Carter and fan #10 million attended the same 2016 contest.

Memphis has twice seen a Double-A team make like Johnny and June Carter Cash "goin' to Jackson" - but to two different Jacksons. The Memphis Chicks of the Southern League went to Tennessee's in 1998, and the aforementioned Blues of the Texas League went to Victoria, TX, in 1974 but on to Mississippi's the next year. The Chicks moniker harked back to the Memphis Chickasaws, who played in the Southern Association from 1912 through 1960.