Gesa Stadium (formerly Dust Devils Stadium) is a Minor League Baseball park in the northwest United States, located in

Pasco, Washington Pasco ( ) is a city in, and the county seat of, Franklin County, Washington, United States. It had a population of 59,781 at the 2010 census, and 75,432 as of the July 1, 2019 Census Bureau estimate. Pasco is one of three cities (the others b ...

. Opened in 1995, it is the home field of the

Tri-City Dust Devils The Tri-City Dust Devils are a Minor League Baseball team in the northwest United States, based in Pasco, Washington. The Dust Devils are members of the Northwest League and are affiliated with the Los Angeles Angels. Tri-City plays their home ga ...

of the

High-A West The Northwest League is a Minor League Baseball league that operates in the Northwestern United States and Western Canada. A Class A Short Season league for most of its history, the league was promoted to High-A as part of Major League Basebal ...

History

The venue opened as " Tri-City Stadium" for the

Tri-City Posse The Tri-City Posse was an American minor league baseball team located in the Tri-Cities of Washington. The team was a founding member of the independent Western Baseball League, and was not affiliated with any Major League Baseball Major Le ...

, a charter member of the

independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independ ...

Western Baseball League The Western Baseball League was an independent baseball league based in the Western United States and Western Canada. Its member teams were not associated with any Major League Baseball teams. It operated from 1995 to 2002. The league was founde ...

(WBL). After six years, the Posse left after the 2000 season when the NWL

Rockies The Rocky Mountains, also known as the Rockies, are a major mountain range and the largest mountain system in North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch in straight-line distance from the northernmost part of western Canada, to New Mexico in ...

moved up the Columbia River from

Portland Portland most commonly refers to: * Portland, Oregon, the largest city in the state of Oregon, in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States * Portland, Maine, the largest city in the state of Maine, in the New England region of the northeas ...

to become the Tri-City Dust Devils for 2001. (The Rockies moved to make way for a new incarnation of the

Beavers Beavers are large, semiaquatic rodents in the genus ''Castor'' native to the temperate Northern Hemisphere. There are two extant species: the North American beaver (''Castor canadensis'') and the Eurasian beaver (''C. fiber''). Beavers a ...

in the Triple-A Pacific Coast League.) It was renamed "Dust Devils Stadium" in 2004 and became Gesa Stadium in 2008, when Gesa Credit Union, a local financial institution, announced that they had purchased the naming rights to the facility for a duration of ten years. In early 2007, the stadium underwent a renovation, which a sunshade was constructed on the northwest-side of the stadium behind the right-field stands, to help shade spectators on the left-field stands from the glare of the setting sun. Gesa Stadium has an unorthodox southern alignment, so that fans could have sight of the Kennewick area and the surrounding

Horse Heaven Hills The Horse Heaven Hills are a long range of high, rolling hills in Klickitat, Yakima, and Benton counties in Washington. The hills are an anticline ridge in the Yakima Fold Belt formed by north–south compression of lava flows in the Columbi ...

, particularly Jump Off Joe. The recommended alignment of a baseball diamond (home plate to center field) is east-northeast. The

elevation The elevation of a geographic location is its height above or below a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational surface (see Geodetic datum § Ver ...

of the playing field is approximately above

sea level Mean sea level (MSL, often shortened to sea level) is an average surface level of one or more among Earth's coastal bodies of water from which heights such as elevation may be measured. The global MSL is a type of vertical datuma standardise ...

and is just north of Interstate 182, several miles west of the Tri-Cities Airport.

Previous venues

The previous ballparks for minor league baseball in the area were in the other two cities, and both were aligned northeast. Sanders-Jacobs Field (1950–1974) in

Kennewick Kennewick () is a city in Benton County in the U.S. state of Washington. It is located along the southwest bank of the Columbia River, just southeast of the confluence of the Columbia and Yakima rivers and across from the confluence of the C ...

was located at the northeast corner of Clearwater Avenue and Neel Street in the West Highlands (). Used for a quarter century, its third base line followed present-day Morain Street. It was named for Harry Sanders, a Connell farmer, and Tom Jacobs, a former manager and the general manager of the Atoms at the time of his death at age 64 in 1968. The independent Tri-City Ports folded after the 1974 season, and the venue was demolished soon after. In Richland, the baseball field at Richland High School, adjacent to the Bomber Bowl, was used for the

Tri-Cities Triplets The Triple-Cities Triplets were a minor league baseball team in the northwest United States, located in Richland, Washington, one of the Tri-Cities. The Triplets were members of the Class A short-season Northwest League for four seasons, from 198 ...

' four seasons in the mid-1980s. The team was sold after the 1986 season, moved to

southwestern The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each sepa ...

Idaho Idaho ( ) is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. To the north, it shares a small portion of the Canada–United States border with the province of British Columbia. It borders the states of Montana and Wyomi ...

, and became the

Boise Hawks The Boise Hawks are an independent baseball team of the Pioneer League, which is not affiliated with Major League Baseball (MLB) but is an MLB Partner League. Home games are played at Memorial Stadium in Garden City, Idaho, a small city surroun ...

References

External links

Tri-City Dust Devils websiteBallpark Reviews
– Gesa Stadium

{{coord, 46.267, N, 119.172, W, region:US, display=title Sports venues in Washington (state) Minor league baseball venues Pasco, Washington Buildings and structures in Franklin County, Washington Tourist attractions in Franklin County, Washington Sports in the Tri-Cities, Washington Northwest League ballparks