MLB Drops Grand Teton From Special-Game Site Review

Major League Baseball will not pursue a regular-season game inside Grand Teton National Park in western Wyoming. Commissioner Rob Manfred informed local officials that the park is no longer under review after community leaders made their objections plain.

League response to local pushback

Manfred wrote Thursday to Teton County Commissioner Chair Mark Newcomb, Jackson Mayor Arne Jorgensen, and Jackson Hole Chamber of Commerce President Rick Howe. Those officials had contacted him Monday opposing any park game. He sent a similar message to U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico. Manfred said the league never had a formal plan for Grand Teton. Staff had only begun early due diligence across many possible sites and had not decided whether a game there was feasible. The process had not yet reached environmental review or outreach to residents—steps that would have been required if talks advanced. Once it became clear the local community did not want the evaluation to continue, he said MLB would not bring a game to a place with those concerns and would stop considering Grand Teton.

Special venues and park setting

In recent years MLB and the players’ association have staged a handful of regular-season games outside the 30 major-league ballparks, including the Iowa cornfield site linked to the film Field of Dreams.

Conservation reaction

Allison Michalski, Grand Teton senior program manager for the National Parks Conservation Association, welcomed the decision.