TD Bank Ballpark is a 6,100-seat

baseball park A ballpark, or baseball park, is a type of sports venue where baseball is played. The playing field is divided into the infield, an area whose dimensions are rigidly defined, and the outfield, where dimensions can vary widely from place to pla ...

in Bridgewater,

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

, that is the home of the

Somerset Patriots The Somerset Patriots are an American Minor League Baseball team based in Bridgewater Township, New Jersey, that is the Double-A affiliate of the New York Yankees. They compete in the Eastern League, known as the Double-A Northeast in 2021, and ...

, a Double-A level Minor League Baseball team in the Eastern League. The ballpark hosts 70 Patriots games as well as Patriots playoff games and other high school and corporate events each year. TD Bank Ballpark is named for

TD Bank, N.A. TD Bank, N.A. is an American National Association (Banking)#United States, national bank and the United States subsidiary of the multinational TD Bank Group (Canada), TD Bank Group. It operates primarily across the East Coast of the United State ...

, which purchased

Commerce Bancorp Commerce Bancorp was a Cherry Hill, New Jersey–based bank created in 1973. In 2007, it was purchased by Toronto-Dominion Bank, which merged Commerce with TD Banknorth to form TD Bank, N.A.; all of its banks and branches were given the TD Ba ...

in 2009. Formerly called Commerce Bank Ballpark, the original naming rights were sold to the institution in July 2000. The ballpark was originally known as Somerset Ballpark. Its first regular season baseball game was held on June 7, 1999. Since its opening, more than six million fans have attended games at the stadium.

History

Construction on the ballpark commenced on April 28, 1998 with Epic Construction as the general contractor. TD Bank Ballpark was opened by then–

New Jersey governor The governor of New Jersey is the head of government of New Jersey. The office of governor is an elected position with a four-year term. There is a two consecutive term term limit, with no limitation on non-consecutive terms. The official res ...

Christine Todd Whitman Christine Temple Whitman (née Todd; born September 26, 1946) is an American politician and author who served as the 50th governor of New Jersey from 1994 to 2001 and as Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency in the administration o ...

and other New Jersey officials on June 7, 1999. TD Bank Ballpark is the home of the Somerset County Baseball Tournament and was the home of the

Big East Conference baseball tournament The Big East Conference baseball tournament is the conference championship tournament in baseball for the Big East Conference. It is a double-elimination tournament and seeding is based on regular-season records. The winner receives the conference ...

from 2000-2005. In the off-season, the ballpark has been the site of the

Big Apple Circus The Big Apple Circus is a circus based in New York City. Opened in 1977, later becoming a nonprofit organization, it became a tourist attraction. The circus has been known for its community outreach programs, including Clown Care, as well as its ...

, most recently in 2016, and other big events. In 2002 and 2003, TD Bank Ballpark was home to the

New Jersey Pride The New Jersey Pride were a men's professional field lacrosse team in the Major League Lacrosse formerly based in Piscataway, New Jersey, United States from 2001-2008. Franchise history In 2001, the first year of the league’s existence, the Pr ...

Major League Lacrosse Major League Lacrosse (MLL) was a men's field lacrosse league in the United States. The league's inaugural season was in 2001. Teams played anywhere from ten to 16 games in a summertime regular season. This was followed by a four-team playoff f ...

. In 2004, the New Jersey Fire of

Pro Cricket The history of United States cricket begins in the 18th century. Among early Americans, cricket was as popular a bat and ball game as baseball. Though Americans never played cricket in great numbers, the game grew for some time. Around the time ...

played their only season of existence at TD Bank Ballpark. In 2000, TD Bank Ballpark hosted the Atlantic League All-Star Game, with a crowd of 7,035. The venue also hosted the 2008 Atlantic League All-Star Game on July 16, breaking both the All-Star Game and ballpark attendance records with 8,290 fans. In 2007 and 2015, the Atlantic League of Professional Baseball granted TD Bank Ballpark the Atlantic League Ballpark of the Year award. For two consecutive years in 2015 and 2016, TD Bank Ballpark was named Ballpark Digest’s Best Independent Minor League Ballpark in the nation. The 2017 Atlantic League All-Star Game was held at TD Bank Ballpark on July 12. It was the 20th playing of the All-Star Game with the Freedom Division All-Stars topping the Liberty Division All-Stars by a score of 10–3 in front 8,175 fans. This was the third time that the ballpark hosted the Atlantic League All-Star Game. In September 2021, the ballpark was flooded after heavy rains from Tropical Storm Ida. TD Bank Ballpark also flooded in 1999 during

Hurricane Floyd Hurricane Floyd was a very powerful Cape Verde hurricane which struck the Bahamas and the East Coast of the United States. It was the sixth named storm, fourth hurricane, and third major hurricane in the 1999 Atlantic hurricane season. Floyd tr ...

Ballpark features

TD Bank Ballpark was designed by architectural firms Clarke Caton Hintz and SSP Architectural Group. The ballpark's wine-colored brick and green exposed steel facade and metal roof is designed to evoke the historic character and elements reminiscent of some of the country's older stadiums. The ballpark was honored for its outstanding design with a New Jersey Golden

Trowel A trowel is a small hand tool used for digging, applying, smoothing, or moving small amounts of viscous or particulate material. Common varieties include the masonry trowel, garden trowel, and float trowel. A power trowel is a much larger gas ...

Grand Design Award. TD Bank Ballpark includes 6,100 fixed seats and additional lawn seating, by the Patriots' bullpen. Additional options include a series of hospitality suites, the Diamond Club, for company meetings and special catering services, the Party Deck for company outings or other special occasions, and the Ballpark BBQ picnic area that can accommodate a group of 30 to 350 fans. There is also a children's Fun Zone near the lawn seating. Parking is $5. Concessions at TD Bank Ballpark include traditional ballpark fare,

health food A healthy diet is a diet that maintains or improves overall health. A healthy diet provides the body with essential nutrition: fluid, macronutrients such as protein, micronutrients such as vitamins, and adequate fibre and food energy. A healt ...

and

gluten-free A gluten-free diet (GFD) is a nutritional plan that strictly excludes gluten, which is a mixture of proteins found in wheat (and all of its species and hybrids, such as spelt, kamut, and triticale), as well as barley, rye, and oats. The inclus ...

options. The official hospitality provider is HomePlate Catering & Hospitality. The Patriots Team Store, located at the main gate, is the Somerset Patriots' official merchandise and souvenir store. TD Bank Ballpark features 3,465

solar panels A solar cell panel, solar electric panel, photo-voltaic (PV) module, PV panel or solar panel is an assembly of photovoltaic solar cells mounted in a (usually rectangular) frame, and a neatly organised collection of PV panels is called a phot ...

. The solar panels are expected to produce 1,140,000 kWh annually and supplement 88% of the consumption used at the ballpark. They are located in the ballpark's Red and White parking lots.

Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital The Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital (RWJUH) is an American 965-bed hospital with campuses in New Brunswick (Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital New Brunswick), and Somerville, New Jersey ( Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital Somer ...

has a

physical therapy Physical therapy (PT), also known as physiotherapy, is one of the allied health professions. It is provided by physical therapists who promote, maintain, or restore health through physical examination, diagnosis, management, prognosis, patient ...

and

sports medicine Sports medicine is a branch of medicine that deals with physical fitness and the treatment and prevention of injuries related to sports and exercise. Although most sports teams have employed team physicians for many years, it is only since the ...

center at TD Bank Ballpark that also serves as the official health care provider of the Somerset Patriots. In October 2020, a sculpture of Manager Emeritus

Sparky Lyle Albert Walter "Sparky" Lyle (born July 22, 1944) is an American former left-handed relief pitcher who spent sixteen seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) from 1967 through 1982. He was a relief pitcher for the Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees, ...

and Chairman Emeritus Steve Kalafer was unveiled in a newly renovated area in front of TD Bank Ballpark and recreates an early picture of a conversation between Kalafer and Lyle. The sculpture was created by world-renowned sculptor Brian Hanlon of

Toms River, New Jersey Toms River is a township in Ocean County, New Jersey, United States. Its mainland portion is also a census-designated place of the same name, which serves as the county seat of Ocean County.traditional pop Traditional pop (also known as classic pop and pre-rock and roll pop) is Western culture, Western pop music that generally pre-dates the advent of rock and roll in the mid-1950s. The most popular and enduring songs from this era of music are known ...

and

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...

musician

Tony Bennett Anthony Dominick Benedetto (born August 3, 1926), known professionally as Tony Bennett, is an American retired singer of traditional pop standards, big band, show tunes, and jazz. Bennett is also a painter, having created works under his birth ...

country music Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, ...

artist

Willie Nelson Willie Hugh Nelson (born April 29, 1933) is an American country musician. The critical success of the album ''Shotgun Willie'' (1973), combined with the critical and commercial success of ''Red Headed Stranger'' (1975) and '' Stardust'' (197 ...

pop music Pop music is a genre of popular music that originated in its modern form during the mid-1950s in the United States and the United Kingdom. The terms ''popular music'' and ''pop music'' are often used interchangeably, although the former describe ...

star

Jessica Simpson Jessica Ann Simpson (born July 10, 1980) is an American singer, actress, entrepreneur and philanthropist. After performing in church choirs as a child, Simpson signed with Columbia Records in 1997, aged seventeen. Her debut studio album, '' Swe ...

, and a 50's festival including The Teenagers, The Duprees, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Chuck Berry.

Accessibility and transportation

TD Bank Ballpark is accessible by mass transit via the Bridgewater station on the

NJ Transit New Jersey Transit Corporation, branded as NJ Transit, and often shortened to NJT, is a state-owned public transportation system that serves the U.S. state of New Jersey, along with portions of New York State and Pennsylvania. It operates bu ...

Raritan Valley Line The Raritan Valley Line is a commuter rail service operated by New Jersey Transit (NJT) which serves passengers in municipalities in Union, Somerset, and Hunterdon counties in the Raritan Valley region in central New Jersey, United States. Th ...

. The station is located just beyond the center field wall and was reconstructed in 1999 in conjunction with the construction of TD Bank Ballpark, and the ballpark's White Lot is used for commuter parking. The ballpark is accessible by car via

I-287 Interstate 287 (I-287) is an auxiliary Interstate Highway in the US states of New Jersey and New York. It is a partial beltway around New York City, serving the northern half of New Jersey and the counties of Rockland and Westchester in N ...

and

U.S. Route 22 U.S. Route 22 (US 22) is a west–east route and is one of the original United States highways of 1926, running from Cincinnati, Ohio, at US 27, US 42, US 127, and US 52 to Newark, New Jersey, at U.S. Route 1/9 in the Newark Airport Interchange ...

with connections to

I-78 Interstate 78 (I-78) is an east–west Interstate Highway in the Northeastern United States, running from I-81 northeast of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, through Allentown to western and northern New Jersey and terminating at the Holland T ...

New Jersey Turnpike The New Jersey Turnpike (NJTP) is a system of controlled-access highways in the U.S. state of New Jersey. The turnpike is maintained by the New Jersey Turnpike Authority (NJTA).The Garden State Parkway, although maintained by NJTA, is not consi ...

(

I-95 Interstate 95 (I-95) is the main north–south Interstate Highway on the East Coast of the United States, running from US Route 1 (US 1) in Miami, Florida, to the Houlton–Woodstock Border Crossing between Maine and the Canadia ...

Garden State Parkway The Garden State Parkway (GSP) is a controlled-access toll road that stretches the north–south length of eastern New Jersey from the state's southernmost tip near Cape May to the New York state line at Montvale. Its name refers to New Jersey ...

and other highways and roads. Parking is available in three on site lots, labeled red, white and blue, where covered parking spaces are provided by the elevated solar panel arrays.

References

External links

About TD Bank Ball Park

* {{NewYorksportsvenues Somerset Patriots Minor league baseball venues Sports venues in New Jersey Baseball venues in New Jersey Soccer venues in New Jersey Women's Professional Soccer stadiums Sky Blue FC Cricket grounds in the United States Former Major League Lacrosse venues Buildings and structures in Somerset County, New Jersey Tourist attractions in Somerset County, New Jersey Sports venues in the New York metropolitan area Sports in Somerset County, New Jersey Cricket in New Jersey 1999 establishments in New Jersey Sports venues completed in 1999 Lacrosse venues in the United States Eastern League (1938–present) ballparks

History

Ballpark features

Accessibility and transportation

See also

References

External links