Randy Smith
Before this summer ends I want to drive to Nashville and watch a baseball game at First Tennessee Park at Sulpher Dell. For those of you not familiar with the history of our capitol city, Sulpher Dell was the home of professional baseball from 1900 until 1961. Even a few years after the Old Nashville Vols left town the old ballpark was the home of many amateur teams and even high school and college games were played there. It was finally demolished in 1969 and when baseball returned to stay in the "Music City" in 1978, The new Greer Stadium became the home of the Sounds. Until a couple of years ago, only a plaque would serve to indicate anything but a picnic area in Nashville's North side.
I attended a lot of Nashville Vols' games as a young boy. When you were going to a game at Sulpher Dell, you would know where you were going a couple of miles away; especially when the wind was right. It was also close to the old stockyards and when you combine that smell with the smell of sulpher from the springs around the grounds of the ballpark it could be quite unpleasant. When you got inside the park and found your seat, you forgot all about the smell.
Sulpher Dell was perhaps the most unique ballpark in the country. Before the start of the 1927 season, the stadium was demolished and replaced with a new steel structure; one with the strangest right field in the game. The fence in right field was a mere 262 feet from home plate with a long, high slope.
The actual fence was 22 1/2 feet high. Right fielders and even center fielders were nicknamed "mountain goats" because of the way they played that hill. From 262 feet in right field, the distance from the plate grew to 421 feet in dead center field, and 382 feet down the left field line. The field always looked ominous to a youngster, but when my teams had a chance to play a couple of games there in the elate 1960s it was down right frightening. I remember one of my teammates Mike Head hitting a home run over that 262 feet fence with a 22 1/2-foot fence on top. Believe me when I say this, but even though it was only 262 feet from the plate, it took a real shot to get it up and over that high fence.
I know that when I go to a game at the new ballpark, it will be an amazing new structure and will look nothing like Sulpher Dell. That's okay because no one in his right mind would build anything that odd in today's world. We all loved it because it was all we had in the 1950s and 1960s. It was much the same as Engel Stadium was in Chattanooga. As far as ballparks go, Engel was always more beautiful and more functional than Sulpher Dell ever was. When I drive by Engel Stadium now I cringe when I think about the demolition of that grand old lady. The Lookouts have left Engel for a multi-functional stadium in downtown, and I'm okay with that. But I do hope that someone will step up and revitalize Engel Stadium. Make it a place for youth baseball and softball games to be played in a beautiful historic venue. There is plenty of room around the old ball park for another couple of diamonds to be built, plus it smells much better around Engel than it ever did around Sulpher Dell.
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Randy Smith has been covering sports on radio, television and print for the past 45 years. After leaving WRCB-TV in 2009, he has written two books, and has continued to free-lance as a play-by-play announcer. He is currently teaching Broadcasting at Coahulla Creek High School near Dalton, Ga.
His career has included a 17-year stretch as host of the Kickoff Call In Show on the University of Tennessee’s prestigious Vol Network. He has been a member of the Vol Network staff for thirty years.
He has done play-by-play on ESPN, ESPN II, CSS, and Fox SportSouth, totaling more than 500 games, and served as a well-known sports anchor on Chattanooga Television for more than a quarter-century.
In 2003, he became the first television broadcaster to be inducted into the Greater Chattanooga Area Sports Hall of Fame. Randy and his wife Shelia reside in Hixson. They have two married children, (Christi and Chris Perry; Davey and Alison Smith.) They have four grandchildren, Coleman, Boone, DellaMae and CoraLee.