Major League Baseball has abandoned a proposal to build a ballpark in Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park.
League officials had approached the Trump administration about the viability of playing a game at the national park, and a National Park Service official had scouted potential locations. After The Washington Post reported on the proposal, local leaders sent letters on Monday to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred expressing “strong opposition” to the idea.
Manfred said in a Thursday letter that “it has become clear the local community does not want us to continue evaluating Grand Teton National Park as a potential site.”
“We obviously would not bring a game to a community that has concerns about the venue, and we will not continue to evaluate Grand Teton National Park as a potential site.”
He also sent a similar letter to Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-New Mexico), the ranking member of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
For the past decade, the league has staged stand-alone games in locations outside standard MLB markets — once at Fort Bragg, in North Carolina; once in Omaha, tied to the College World Series; once at Rickwood Field, the historic Negro League ballpark in Birmingham; once at Bristol Motor Speedway, a NASCAR racetrack in Bristol, Tennessee; three times in Dyersville, Iowa, in the cornfield made famous by the movie “Field of Dreams”; and annually at Williamsport, Pennsylvania, tied to the Little League World Series.
The idea of a stadium amid the stunning vistas of the eighth-most-visited national park drew immediate outrage from environmental groups, and it came as President Donald Trump has taken steps to reshape the country’s relationships with its federally protected wilderness.
Under his administration, the National Park Service has lost nearly a quarter of its staff, closed some park facilities and decreased the number of tours available at some sites. The Park Service has edited signs referencing historic racism, gender discrimination and Indigenous persecution.
In a statement, Allison Michalski, the Grand Teton senior program manager for advocacy group National Parks Conservation Association, hailed the league’s decision.
“We are grateful that Major League Baseball heard the roar of the crowd and rightfully recognized that Grand Teton is already a field of dreams, filled with mountains, forests, wild nature and wildlife that attracts millions of dedicated fans each year,” Michalski said. “The bases were loaded with opposition, and this news is a grand slam for Teton county communities and the enduring legacy of Grand Teton National Park.”
Manfred said in his letter that the league had “been careful to leave the selected sites better than when we arrived,” after previous such events, repurposing materials after the game ends. He said the idea had not reached the planning stage, and that if it had proceeded at all, he would have sought input from local stakeholders.
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