MOOSE, WYOMING—The news shot around Grand Teton National Park’s Jenny Lake on Sunday like the crack of a well-hit baseball echoing off the walls of Cascade Canyon.
The Trump administration and Major League Baseball are scouting the park for a site to play a game?
That was the report in The Washington Post that shook campers and other visitors from their serene surroundings where they had come to escape the mayhem of daily news. The Post story and others that followed chased down a request by Major League Baseball and statements from the White House that the league’s request was not a priority.
“Keep America’s pastime in our baseball parks, not in our national parks,” said David Kelly, an Angels fan from L.A. who was visiting Grand Teton on Sunday. “What are they going to do, cut down a bunch of trees?”
“They would have to build a field?” asked Kristen Kelly. “Not in Yellowstone, not in Yosemite. No!”
“This is our sanctuary,” said Scott Bauer, a visitor from Seattle and a Mariners and Red Sox fan who was at Jenny Lake on Sunday. His bicycling companion Carol Bauer added a few words about President Donald Trump and his building projects: “I don’t need him doing any construction in parks.”
Christiana Rinderle, the former mayor of Durango, Colorado, was visiting Grand Teton on Sunday and called foul. “National Parks are meant for people to enjoy the wildlife and natural beauty,” she said.
“The stadium should be facing the Tetons.”
Steven Williams
The Post reported that National Park Service Deputy Director Frank Lands visited three Grand Teton sites including one that was “already disturbed land.” White House statements to news outlets said Lands was not on a baseball scouting mission.
“This is not a Presidential directive, nor is it being directed by the White House,” Reuters reported the statement reading. “It’s also not being driven by the Department of Interior. Therefore, this is not a White House or Administration priority.”
“I first thought this has to be a joke or an AI spoof,” Joan Anzelmo, former superintendent of Colorado National Monument, said in a statement. “MLB you should know that Grand Teton National Park, home to free ranging wildlife, including grizzly bears, bison, wolves, moose, cougars and elk, is not an appropriate or safe venue for your baseball fantasy,” the valley resident and park advocate said.
Seriously, folks…
Fans describe a towering home run as a ball that would have been hit out of any park but Yellowstone. Well, now maybe …
WyoFile’s examination of Grand Teton on Sunday revealed thousands of acres of sagebrush plain across the 310,000 acre reserve. A baseball field can cover up to about four acres. A stadium can cover 25. A complex, including parking, can cover hundreds of acres.
In Grand Teton, about 10 acres of the sagebrush fields are “already disturbed” — recently bulldozed to expand the Taggart Lake Trailhead parking area.
Steven Williams, a former Jackson Hole resident who now lives outside Steamboat, Colorado, offered advice on how to design a stadium. Williams, (6’2”, 160 pounds, bats right, throws right) tried to walk on as a Chicago White Sox pitcher in 1973.
“The stadium should be facing the Tetons,” he said as he pointed Sunday toward the mountains from Moose. “The fan experience should be the vision of the Tetons.”
Jorge Colon, who played catcher in the Jackson Town League decades ago, disagreed. Fans want home runs, he said, and Williams’ layout would disadvantage the batter.
“You’re against the wind,” Colon said.
Playing baseball at 6,783 feet above sea level near Jenny Lake would, nevertheless, give a batter a boost. At the high-elevation site, a baseball would travel, according to experts’ calculations, 40 feet farther than one hit at sea level.
The Park Service already has an appropriate site for a baseball game at a historic site it oversees in California. A game was recently played at the Manzanar National Historic Site where thousands of Japanese Americans were interned during WWII.
In 2024, the Little Tokyo Giants played the Lodi JACL Templars, the first time the field had been used since the Manzanar camp was closed in 1945.
Grand Teton itself had a ball diamond at Moose years ago in the middle of a park housing complex. But the Park Service converted the open space to additional quarters for park staff in response to Jackson Hole’s worker housing crunch.
Neither the Department of Interior nor Major League Baseball returned emails seeking comment Sunday.
Trump Stadium should be adjacent to the only airport in a national park so bigwigs can taxi their private jets up to the box office with Tetons in the background. I can’t wait to see the Brooklyn Dodgers play again.
I’d say the Lefties are being trolled again into a pearl clutching frenzy.
What a horrific desecration of a sacred part of our planet! The thought makes me nauseated! (Lived in Wyoming since 1972.)
Don’t let Rob Manfred off the hook on this one. Baseball’s commissioner sees only $$ for the monopoly he runs. He’d play in the Grand Canyon if he thought they could come close to filling it.
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot
With a pink hotel, a boutique, and a swinging’ hot spot.
They took all the trees, put ‘em in a tree museum,
And they charged the people a dollar and a half just to see ‘em.
Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone?
Amen, Joni. Thank you, many times over.
I’m sure Sec. of Interior Doug Burgum is all over it. He’ll do anything stupid thing Trump wants.
You hit this out of the park, brother.
The Whote House is not doing the push, it is MLB. I find your title misleading. That is not fair journalism in this day and age where everything is so divisive.
Just when you think things can’t possibly get any more bizarre in this country…they do.
Only Trump could imagine such stupidity.
I hate to defend the indefensible one, but the Orange Turd didn’t come up with this nonsense, MLB did. His administration absolutely though should have shot this down the moment it was proposed. Instead, as we have come to expect from Pillager in Chief and his lackeys, they apparently are embracing it wholeheartedly.
What a great idea. A ballpark in the Tetons. I think we should have mule deer graze on the White House lawn, with mountain sheep stationed on the steps of the portico. And yes, Baseball between November 1st and March 1st at Teton Stadium.
does everything now have to be totally absurd or can we find a way to have some common sense and respect for the natural world?
Dt and cronies are coming for our public and our Native American lands. It’s just the beginning. It’s about $$$$$ for themselves. Resist— before it’s too late.
More idiocy from the idiot.
If it actually happens (which would be really stupid) I hope it snows on the day of the game.
Certainly seems par for this bunch of boobs – sure, a stadium and parking lot in a National Park – why not? Maybe a few golf courses too. Oh, and maybe another arch with drones, no less! Possibly another “reflecting” pool?
I’m sure Hageman would be for this along with selling the land around it to the billionaire s . Trump will probably say if you don’t support the republicans I’ll destroy this land scape . Or he will build it in his Honor . and call it Trump field.
I’m a baseball fan, and this is a stupid idea. This is an overreach on the part of MLB and I will complain to the Commissioner’s office about it. We cannot allow this to happen.