Where the Bulls Are — Charlotte Knights

As we love to point out at the beginning of each year, the Charlotte Knights don't play baseball in Charlotte, in fact they don't play baseball in North Carolina. If you back out from the map above you'll see that the stadium is in Fort Mill, South Carolina.

There's an interesting bit of political shenanigans surrounding a downtown stadium for the Knights. The short version is that there's a gentleman in town who's monomaniacal about bringing a major league team to Charlotte. To that end he's sued the city/county a bunch of times to keep them from building something new for the Knights. An example of recent goings-on is this blog entry (with 76 comments!). Other recent stories related to Charlotte's stadium saga are here and here. There's a modest chance that the Knights will get a new stadium in the next decade, or so.

The Knights are a White Sox team and seem to be treated reasonably well by their parent club. They've got a new manager, Joe McEwing. They have also started the season by winning 5 in a row.

You will see from the map that the interstate runs nearby. In an amusing incident last year, the umpiring crew got caught in a traffic jam out there. The game was delayed for almost an hour while everyone waited for the men in blue.

The park is very hitter friendly, but Neil Solondz has reported that they've raised the outfield walls a bit.

Ballpark reviews rates the park pretty low, but he hasn't been there in a couple of years.