Reckling Park is the

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding t ...

stadium at

Rice University William Marsh Rice University (Rice University) is a Private university, private research university in Houston, Houston, Texas. It is on a 300-acre campus near the Houston Museum District and adjacent to the Texas Medical Center. Rice is ranke ...

Houston, Texas Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 i ...

, USA. It serves as the home field of the Rice Owls baseball team. The stadium was built on the site of Cameron Field, Rice's home from 1978–99, in time for the 2000 season. The Owls have hosted 10

NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges ...

regional and five super regional tournaments at Reckling Park, including one of each in their national championship season of 2003 and in the years of other College World Series appearances, 2002, 2006, 2007, and 2008. The stadium was named for its principal donor, former Rice player Tommy Reckling. The nearby

Texas Medical Center The Texas Medical Center (TMC) is a medical district and neighborhood in south-central Houston, Texas, United States, immediately south of the Museum District and west of Texas State Highway 288. Over 60 medical institutions, largely concentrat ...

can be seen from the outfield.

Program history

In the first game, the

University of Houston The University of Houston (UH) is a Public university, public research university in Houston, Texas. Founded in 1927, UH is a member of the University of Houston System and the List of universities in Texas by enrollment, university in Texas ...

beat Rice 6–2 on February 8, 2000. Since then, Rice has been very successful at Reckling Park. Under head coach Wayne Graham, the Owls are 219–46 at Reckling Park, an .826 winning percentage. Rice won three consecutive NCAA regionals at Reckling Park from 2001–03 and advanced to the

College World Series The College World Series (CWS), officially the NCAA Men's College World Series (MCWS), is an annual baseball tournament held in June in Omaha, Nebraska. The MCWS is the culmination of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Divisi ...

by winning back-to-back NCAA super regionals at home in 2002 and 2003. The Owls have made late-inning rallies traditional at Reckling Park, starting with the 2001 season. On February 10, 2001, Rice beat top-ranked

Georgia Tech The Georgia Institute of Technology, commonly referred to as Georgia Tech or, in the state of Georgia, as Tech or The Institute, is a public research university and institute of technology in Atlanta, Georgia. Established in 1885, it is part of ...

5-4 after trailing 4–3 with two outs and no runners on base in the ninth inning. The Owls used similar drama to win the 2001 NCAA regional in its decisive seventh game. Rice trailed 4-2 entering the ninth inning against Baylor but rallied to win 5–4. Rice won several games in its last at-bat in 2002, and the home season culminated with 6–0 and 3–0 shutouts of LSU at Reckling Park in the NCAA super regionals, the only time in the seven-year history of the super regionals a team has been shut out in both games. The 2003 season was the culmination of an 11-year building process for head coach Wayne Graham, and Rice won a school-record 30 consecutive games in February, March, and April, including 22 wins at Reckling Park, en route to a 58–12 record. The streak was highlighted by a 2–1, 10-inning win against defending national champion

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...

March 11. In the postseason, Rice rallied from a first-game defeat against crosstown rival Houston to again win the super regional at Reckling Park. In the 2003 College World Series, Rice beat Southwest Missouri State, rival Texas twice, and

Stanford Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. S ...

two-games-to-one to capture its first national championship in any team sport. The stadium was also the site of the biggest upset in NCAA baseball postseason history, when

Texas Southern Texas Southern University (Texas Southern or TSU) is a public historically black university in Houston, Texas. The university is one of the largest and most comprehensive historically black college or universities in the USA with nearly 10,000 ...

upset Rice 4–3 in the opening game of the 2004 NCAA tournament. The Tigers entered the tournament with an 18-33 record. Rice avenged the loss the following night but was eliminated by

Texas A&M Texas A&M University (Texas A&M, A&M, or TAMU) is a public, land-grant, research university in College Station, Texas. It was founded in 1876 and became the flagship institution of the Texas A&M University System in 1948. As of late 2021, T ...

in the final game of the regional. Rice joined

Conference USA Conference USA (C-USA or CUSA) is an intercollegiate athletic conference whose current member institutions are located within the Southern United States. The conference participates in the NCAA's Division I in all sports. C-USA's offices are ...

in 2005-06, and the next C-USA baseball tournament was held at Reckling Park in May 2006. With eight teams on hand, Rice (the regular-season champion) won its 11th consecutive conference title with an 11–5 championship game win over crosstown rival Houston. Continuing the postseason at home, the Owls beat Baylor for the regional title and

Oklahoma Oklahoma (; Choctaw: ; chr, ᎣᎧᎳᎰᎹ, ''Okalahoma'' ) is a state in the South Central region of the United States, bordered by Texas on the south and west, Kansas on the north, Missouri on the northeast, Arkansas on the east, New ...

in the super regional to advance to the

2006 College World Series The 2006 NCAA Division I baseball tournament was held from June 2 through June 26, . Sixty-four NCAA Division I college baseball teams met after having played their way through a regular season, and for some, a conference tournament, to play in ...

. In 2007, Rice went 33–3 at Reckling Park and extended its streak of consecutive home series wins (at least 2-games-to-1) to 39 series, dating back to 2001. In June, Rice hosted its sixth regional in its seven years at Reckling Park, beating TCU twice to advance to the super regional. Rice improved to 4–0 in super regionals held at Reckling Park by sweeping

in two hard-fought games, advancing to the

2007 College World Series The 2007 NCAA Division I baseball tournament was held from June 1 to 24, . Sixty-four NCAA Division I college baseball teams advanced to the post season tournament after having played through a regular season, and for some, a conference tournam ...

. In 2008, Rice's streak of consecutive home series wins ended after 40 series and almost seven years when Rice lost two of three against Southern Miss in March. The Owls hosted their seventh regional in eight years and beat Sam Houston State, St. John's, and rival Texas to advance to the super regional, where Rice swept Texas A&M for the second straight year. Rice finished the year with a 28–5 home record.

Attendance

As the Rice baseball program and its following grew, so did the stadium. The seating area was expanded during the 2004 season, making the grandstand symmetrical and enlarging capacity in time for the 2004 postseason. The stadium record for single-game attendance rose from 4,117 for the stadium's first game (2000) to 4,615 for the NCAA super regional against LSU (2002) to 5,227, set against

in 2005, to 5,368, set against

on back-to-back days during the 2008 super regional. In the 2014 NCAA regional, two games between Texas A&M and the

University of Texas The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

drew standing-room crowds of more than 6,600 to set new records. Rice drew a season total of more than 100,000 fans for the first time in 2003, with a school-record total of 119,479. After winning the 2003 national championship, average attendance rose to 3,230 per game in 2004. It was the second consecutive year Rice ranked in the nation's top 10 in average attendance. Rice hosted its first conference tournament in 2006 and drew 18,137 fans to the tournament's seven sessions, averaging 2,591 fans per session. The championship game, featuring intracity rivals Rice and Houston, drew 3,732 fans. The Owls also hosted NCAA regional and super regional tournaments, pushing total attendance to a school-record total of 131,467 and a school-record average of 3,287 fans per game, narrowly outdrawing the 2004 season. In 2013, the Owls ranked 15th among Division I baseball programs in attendance, averaging 3,252 per home game.

Tournaments Hosted

Regular season

* Cameron Invitational: 1983, 1984 * Rice Classic: 1995-2002 * Rice Invitational: 1995-2007

Postseason

* Conference USA Tournament (1):

2006 File:2006 Events Collage V1.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2006 Winter Olympics open in Turin; Twitter is founded and launched by Jack Dorsey; The Nintendo Wii is released; Montenegro votes to declare independence from Serbia; The 2006 ...

, ''2023'' * NCAA Regional (11): 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2014 * NCAA Super Regional (5): 2002, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2008

References

External links

Reckling Park
{{coord, 29, 42, 48, N, 95, 24, 15, W, type:landmark, display=title College baseball venues in the United States Rice Owls baseball Baseball venues in Houston Baseball venues in Texas 2000 establishments in Texas