The team’s home is Oldsmobile Park, which is located in downtown Lansing. The city’s official Olds Park [link gone] website has a picture (a neat one), maps, parking suggestions, and other information. If you are coming to the park but don’t know downtown Lansing, you should check out this webpage.
The Michigan State Spartans also play some home games at Olds; their stadium page [another missing link] discusses both Kobs Field and Olds Park.
There’s a review of the park in Dustin Schubert’s Minor League Ballparks page. [also gone, sadly]
Olds Park is an intimate, cozy ballfield in downtown Lansing. It’s a brand-new, modern baseball stadium with seats for about 6,200 fans and room for 3,000 or so more on the lawn. All of the seats have excellent sight lines and are near the playing field. Wheelchair seats have unobstructed views from the playing-field level. The seats and interior paint are green, just like they should be.
The playing field is well below street level and is oriented on a north-south axis. The foul lines are extremely short–both are 305 feet–but necessarily end at high walls, because they’ve reached major city streets. The walls fall to normal heights when the distance to the fence reaches 330 feet in left field and 337 feet in right. The outfield fence is irregular, and right field is huge; it’s 398 feet to dead center field, but the main scoreboard [still another broken link] is 412 feet away from home in right center. Hitters who loft high fly balls down the line may find it easy to hit home runs, as will those who can aim 335-foot flies near the edge of the high wall. For many batters this should be a doubles-and-triples park.
The stadium is topped by a concourse which runs nearly around the outside of the park; the only gap is in center field. Most of the concessions are grouped behind the grandstand, as you’d expect; this part of the concourse is covered, with the luxury suites and press box overhead.
Where’s my seat?
- Section A is beyond first base, and Section Q is beyond third; Section H is directly behind home.
- Sections C and D are behind the first base (home) dugout and M and N are behind the third base (visitors) dugout.
- The first numbered row varies, but is usually 4, and the highest numbered row is 29.
- Wheelchair seating is at field level; there are elevators.
- Luxury suite 1 is toward third base and 22 is near first; the press box (of course) is behind home so there’s no luxury suite there.
It’s a neat ballpark. Buy your tickets and come on down. I’ll see you at the game!
Now that I’m looking, I keep finding bits & pieces of the old website….
On February 1 my Luggie website acquired a name and a front page. The page mostly consisted of links, both to the rest of the site and to other sites. There was a “What’s Changed” section, and some basic information about the team. And this piece about the ballpark.
As you can see, all the links on this page have broken; apparently seventeen years is a long time. For what it’s worth, I miss Dustin Schubert’s ballparks site more than most.
The information about the MSU baseball team is basically all obsolete; except for April’s annual Crosstown Showdown against the Luggies, the Spartans play home games exclusively at their new McLane Stadium.
The photograph wasn’t part of the old website. I took it in September of 1995 because I was 1) already next door, and 2) curious about the new ballyard’s progress.