121 Financial Ballpark

• Name: 121 Financial Ballpark
• GPS-able Address: 301 A. Randolph Blvd., Jacksonville, FL 32202
• Ballpark Owner: City of Jacksonville
• Architects: HOK Sport (now Populous)
• Groundbreaking: 12/11/2001
• Minor League Baseball Teams: Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp (AAA) 2021-present; Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp (AA) 2017-2020; Jacksonville Suns (AA) 2003-2016
• Class/League History: AAA/International League 2022-present; AAA/Triple-A East 2021; AA/Southern League 2003-2020
• First Professional Baseball Game: 4/11/2003; stadium debut of Class AA Suns
• Others Playing or Operating Here: None
• Previous Ballpark Names: Bragan Field at the Baseball Grounds of Jacksonville 2015-2019; The Baseball Grounds of Jacksonville 2003-2014
• LF: 321 CF: 420 RF: 317
• Seats: 7,713
• Stated Capacity: 11,000
• House Baseball/Softball Record Attendance (as currently configured): 12,943, 4/11/2003

121 Financial Ballpark in Jacksonville, FL, is the home of the Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp, the Miami Marlins' Triple-A International League farm team. Baseball has been played on this land since 1954, when Samuel W. Wolfson Baseball Park opened.

Originally the Baseball Grounds of Jacksonville, this ballpark's name changed after 121 Financial Credit Union bought naming rights in 2020. In 2012, the playing field was named to memorialize the Jacksonville Suns' recently deceased previous owner. Peter Bragan's successor, Ken Babby, changed the Suns' long-time nickname - 1962-1984 and 1991-2016 - before the 2017 season.

Jacksonville hosted a franchise of the Double-A Southern League from 1970 until MLB's 2021 Minor League Reorganization. A previous tenure in Triple-A ended when those Jacksonville Suns moved to Virginia's Tidewater region after the 1969 campaign.

Iconic stadium architect HOK Sport (now Populous) designed the downtown brick playpen. The city's Better Jacksonville Plan created the Sports Complex of Jacksonville near then-Alltell Stadium in 2003 by rebuilding Wolfson and building Jacksonville Veterans Memorial Arena west of the NFL's Jacksonville Jaguars' field.

Wolfson's same-site replacement nearly doubled capacity, and the debut gate of 12,943 remains its largest crowd for a professional baseball game. However, the ballpark later claimed another record crowd: largest ever to see a college baseball game in the state of Florida, 12,280 on April 3, 2007, as Jacksonville began hosting an annual neutral-site baseball game between the University of Florida Gators and the Florida State University Seminoles. The Sunshine State Showdown has continued, except for pandemic interruptions, but that inaugural crowd remains its best attended. The Gators' 2023 victory was their sixth straight, giving them a 9-6 lead in the Showdown series.

Jacksonville is more famously the neutral site for another annual collegiate sports event, the University of Georgia-University of Florida football game at the Jaguars' stadium, TIAA Bank Field. In 2019 the Bulldog and Gator baseball teams started playing each other in a fall-ball exhibition tied into the football weekend. The series contract runs through 2023 and could well be renewed.

A first-round session in the 2005 Atlantic Coast Conference tournament reported 17,860. However, not only would that have rendered the later UF-FSU game a non-record, the fact that the ACC session included four games casts doubt that all ticketed fans were ever there simultaneously.

The ballpark has some unusual features. The outfield has a unique tiered seating terrace off left, a view of TIAA Bank Field beyond right and a two-time league-longest 420-foot distance to center. The CF distance was the longest in the Southern League and is the longest in the IL. "The 121" has - in an unusual and, on one specific point, unique - feat, outdrawn its tenant's parent club's stadium on the same night - here, on April 11, 2018, by 6,960-6,150. The Marlins were the parent then as now, but the Shrimp were still Double-A - marking the only time a Double-A team has outdrawn its parent on the same date.

On May 27, 2021, it hosted four unusual events in a single game: The Shrimp turned a triple play in the first inning, a couple married on the stadium grass between the second and third innings, two different players smacked grand slams as part of perfect nights at the plate, and finally the Shrimp scored 20 runs in a lop-sided victory.

The 2021 reorganization greatly expanded existing standards for stadiums hosting affiliated teams. Babby estimates necessary upgrades will cost around $25 million.

Although obviously in another ballpark, Jacksonville hosted Florida's first professional baseball spring training, by the original Washington Nationals, in 1888.