MLB Speedway Classic concludes Sunday after rainout for 91,000 at Bristol

A record crowd of 91,032 for a regular-season Major League Baseball game got to see all the pomp and pageantry with the MLB Speedway Classic on Saturday night before the rain washed out the game itself in the bottom of the first inning.

Fans returning Sunday only wanted to watch the Atlanta Braves and Cincinnati Reds play ball. They enjoyed enough of star Tim McGraw and Pitbull in the rain that suspended the first MLB regular-season game in the state of Tennessee.

“We got to see all of that (Saturday), so as long as we see game today I think we’ll be good,” Cindy Lowe of Mount Airy, North Carolina, said.

Craig Marcum agreed. He and his family, with three children, were ready to see baseball even if Marcum is the Reds’ fan surrounded by relatives rooting for the Braves. They had a good time seeing McGraw and country singer Jake Owen.

Sunday was dry at Bristol Motor Speedway with overcast skies. The sun actually broke through in the ninth inning on what wound up a perfect day for baseball. The Braves trailed 1-0 when the game resumed Sunday, and Eli White hit two home runs leading Atlanta over the Reds 4-2.

When White became the first MLB player to hit a home run at the historic racetrack, that allowed Bristol’s “Home Run” car to take a lap in celebration. When one foul ball bounced off the track past the outfield wall in right, the man who failed to throw the ball over the fence to fans was booed.

This MLB Speedway Classic was first announced nearly a year ago as part of Commissioner Rob Manfred’s push to take MLB to places where baseball isn’t played every day live. MLB played a game at. the “Field of Dreams” movie site in Iowa in both 2021 and 2022. Alabama and North Carolina, too.

MLB didn’t try to sell every ticket inside the speedway that drew 156,990 for the Battle of Bristol college football game in 2016 with a racing capacity of 146,000. The attendance was well above the previous paid attendance of 84,587 on Sept. 12, 1954, when Cleveland Stadium hosted the New York Yankees.


(AP Photo George Walker IV)