Toyota Field

• Name: Toyota Field
• GPS-able Address: 500 Trash Panda Way, Madison, AL 35758 (now GPS-able; original address 319 Contec Rd. also still works)
• Ballpark Owner: City of Madison
• Architects: Populous
• Groundbreaking: 6/9/2018
• Minor League Baseball Teams: Rocket City Trash Pandas (AA) 2020-present
• Class/League History: AA/Southern League 2022-present; AA/Double-A South 2021; AA/Southern League 2020
• First Professional Baseball Game: 5/11/2021; stadium debut of Class AA Trash Pandas
• Others Playing or Operating Here: None
• Previous Ballpark Names: None
• LF: 326 CF: 420 RF: 317
• Seats: 5,176
• Stated Capacity: 7,500
• House Baseball/Softball Record Attendance (as currently configured): 7,500, multiple (cap)

Toyota Field in Madison, AL, is the home of the Rocket City Trash Pandas, the Los Angeles Angels' Double-A Southern League farm team. Only three years before the ground-breaking, nearby Huntsville, AL, lost the Huntsville Stars because of the condition of Joe W. Davis Municipal Stadium.

It was originally expected to open in 2019, but its prospective team's owners eased a tight timetable by keeping their just-purchased Mobile BayBears in Mobile, AL, for one more season. The stadium received its certificate of occupancy on February 27, 2020 - in plenty of time for the projected debut season, but the Coronavirus pandemic killed that campaign.

Toyota finally opened with a bang in 2021, ending the Birmingham Barons' seven-season hold on the circuit's attendance crown while leading all of Double-A and landing 10th in all of the minors - which had just changed from Minor League Baseball to the Player Development League.

MLB's 2021 Minor League Reorganization imposed standards the new playpen didn't quite meet, so - as new as it is - it is already undergoing renovations. On the other hand, the city says it can fund meeting those standards on schedule - gradual improvements ending in 2025 - with the existing maintenance money that was put together in the stadium's original funding plan.

The playpen hosted an unlikely no-hitter on April 8, 2023. In the first game of a double-header - making both games seven rather than nine innings - Pandas pitcher Coleman Cole threw six hitless innings to a 3-0 lead but then was relieved. Despite never breaking the no-no, the Chattanooga Lookouts scored seven runs in the top of the seventh - on five walks, four hit-batters, an error, and two wild pitches. Rocket City scored twice in the bottom of the frame to lose 7-5.

The franchise that now inhabits Toyota Field is quite the Southern League nomad - in one case, even a sort of stepchild. Founded in 1938 in Greenville, SC, it has also called home: Montgomery, AL; Knoxville, TN; Asheville, NC; Charlotte, NC; Fort Mill, SC; Nashville, TN; Wilmington, NC; and Mobile. The Nashville stretch was a rare shared-ballpark situation, with the Nashville Sounds sharing Greer Stadium with the former Charlotte Knights playing as the Nashville Xpress.