Rent One Park facts for kids
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Location | Marion, Illinois |
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Owner | Jayne Simmons |
Capacity | 7,000 |
Field size | Left Field - 320 Left Center Field - 392 Center Field - 400 Right Center Field - 375 Right Field - 335 |
Surface | Sportexe Turf synthetic field |
Construction | |
Broke ground | 2006 |
Opened | 2007 |
Architect | 360 Architecture |
Tenants | |
Southern Illinois Miners (FL) (2007–present) Canadian Wild (NPF) (2019–present) |
Rent One Park is a cool stadium in Marion, Illinois. It was built in 2007. This park is mostly used for baseball games. It is the home field for the Southern Illinois Miners team. They play in a league called the Frontier League.
This stadium looks very modern and different. It does not have the usual red brick or green steel you see in many baseball parks.
One special thing about Rent One Park is its roof. The roof slopes down towards the field. This means that sometimes, a baseball hit high up can roll back down. Fans might even get to catch it!
The stadium has over 3,400 comfy seats. These are like armchairs, with wider seats right behind home plate. There is also a big grassy area for fans to sit. This lawn can hold more than 2,000 people.
Rent One Park also has two picnic areas. The Budweiser Bullpen Bar-n-Grille can host up to 250 people. The Rent One Picnic Garden is in the outfield and can seat over 500 people. Upstairs, there are 14 fancy suites. There is also a large room for parties or banquets. It can hold about 200 people.
The park has a big open area where you enter. It also has clubhouses for the home and visiting teams. There are offices and a team store too. The scoreboard and video board are huge. They have 12 panels for ads on the right-field wall.
In the left field corner, there is a "Fun Zone" for kids! It has four inflatable games. Kids can play inflatable baseball, basketball, wiffle ball, and skee-ball.
The company that gave the park its name is Rent One. It is a store that lets people rent things they might want to own later.
First Game at Rent One Park
The very first baseball game at Rent One Park was played on May 29, 2007. More than 6,200 fans came to watch! The Southern Illinois Miners played against the Evansville Otters. The Miners won the game with a score of 9-6.
Setting New Records
The Southern Illinois Miners set a new record on August 10, 2007. They had the most fans ever at a single Frontier League regular season game. A total of 6,718 people came to watch! In that game, the Miners beat the River City Rascals 8-0.
In their first season, the Miners also broke another record. They had the most fans for a whole season. Over 259,392 people came to their games! That means they had more than 5,000 fans at each game on average.
Other Cool Events
Rent One Park has a special playing surface called Sportexe Turf. It is not regular grass and dirt. This means the park can host more than just baseball games. They can have live concerts and other events all year long!
In 2018, it was announced that Rent One Park would host a big college baseball tournament. This was for the Ohio Valley Conference. The tournament happened in 2019 and 2020. It was the first time a college baseball tournament like this was held in Southern Illinois since 1986.