Photos by Matt Colville, Stadium Journey
When then Pearl, Mississippi Mayor Jimmy Foster lured the Greenville Braves to town at the end of the 2004 minor league baseball season, he wanted baseball to last in the Jackson metro area for at least the next 20 years. His vision has been achieved, because on September 3, 2024, the Mississippi Braves will begin their final homestand at Trustmark Park, marking exactly 20 years that baseball has been played here – no more and no less.
At the beginning of the 2024 season, it was announced that the Atlanta Braves would move the double-A club from Greenville to Columbus, GA beginning in 2025. With teams now in Augusta, Rome, Columbus, and Gwinnett, the Braves will have three of their four minor league affiliates in Georgia next season.
Unfortunately, the Jackson, MS area is no stranger to losing minor league teams – in 1999 the Jackson Generals, Double-A affiliate of the Houston Astros, packed their bags and moved to Round Rock and then Corpus Christi, the latter where they remain to this day. The Generals played closer to downtown at Smith-Wills Stadium, which was also home to the Jackson Mets from 1975-1990, until becoming the Generals in 1991 and playing here until 1999.
Many residents were disgruntled at losing their team in 1999, so when baseball returned in 2005 it was initially a big success. This area of the country is part of "Braves Country", so when the opportunity to get a Braves-affiliated team presented itself, city officials raised enough money to build the $28 million, 8,840-seat, state-of-the-art stadium.
At the time there wasn't much in Pearl – the sleepy town of 20,000 was mostly residential, but as more and more people moved out of Jackson the suburbs continued to grow. In 20 years, this exit off Interstate 20 has grown to include multiple restaurants, hotels, an outlet mall, Bass Pro Shop, and of course Trustmark Park.
At first, the M-Braves were a big draw for the area, but attendance waned in recent years, and not even the chance to see some of baseball's top prospects in Ronald Acuna, Ozzie Albies, Dansby Swanson, Austin Riley, Michael Harris, and Spencer Strider could bring fans to games. In fact, in 2023 the Mississippi Braves ranked 29th out of 30 Double A teams in attendance.
The biggest question is what will happen to Trustmark Park once the Braves move? Besides the M-Braves, the facility gets plenty of usage throughout the year – the ballpark's biggest game every year is the Governor's Cup, when Mississippi State plays Ole Miss, and Southern Miss usually plays a game or two here every year as well. These games are big draws for the stadium and usually sell out.
The Mississippi high school baseball state championships are also played here every year, and D3 baseball's Belhaven University has also used the stadium for their home games since 2023. The venue even served as a concert space in the summer of 2024 when Miranda Lambert performed there. The ballpark has aged well in the past 20 years, and, other than maybe a new paint job on the rails, you'd have a hard time telling it's 20 years old.
There have been some rumblings recently that a new independent or summer collegiate league team will move into Trustmark Park, but that remains to be seen – if people couldn't support the Mississippi Braves, what's to say they will support the new team either? But regardless of what happens to Trustmark Park in 2025, it just won't be the same as coming to a Mississippi Braves game.
The Braves signage around the park will no longer be here next year, and any traces of the past will be long gone, such as the Braves Wall of Fame on the third base concourse, which features names like Freddie Freeman and Brian McCann.
Also gone will be the giant mural of Braves manager Brian Snitker, the first M-Braves manager. The Ronald Acuna mural at the main entrance, as well as the Braves logo on the huge video board in center field, will also no longer be there after this season.
The final home game in franchise history at Trustmark Park will be against the Tennessee Smokies on Sunday, September 8.
Commentaires