Knoxville Smokies (CHC) @ Montgomery Biscuits (TB)
June 13, 2026
HR: Jefferson Rojas (KNX), Will Simpson (MTG)
Attendance: 2,061
Time of Game: 3 hours, 13 minutes
Stadium Facts
Location: Montgomery, AL
Opened: 2004
Capacity: 7,000
Level: Double A
League: Southern
Time of Game: 3 hours, 13 minutes
Stadium Facts
Location: Montgomery, AL
Opened: 2004
Capacity: 7,000
Level: Double A
League: Southern
On Saturday morning, I hit the road to make the short drive south from Birmingham to Montgomery. Traffic was surprisingly heavy for this drive, which I have chalked up as being caused by people driving down to the Gulf Shore beaches for the weekend. Early that afternoon, I experienced my first of several instances on this trip where a thunderstorm seemingly came out of nowhere to dump a lot of rain in a short period of time. Fortunately, it cleared well before it was time to head to the ballpark.
DABOS Park, as it was just renamed this past winter, sits in the heart of historic downtown Montgomery, next to Riverwalk Park on the Alabama River. Prior to this year, the ballpark was actually named Riverwalk Stadium. With this being my third straight evening at a Southern League ballpark, and the fourth of the year, I started to realize that the Southern League is really the epicenter of uniquely designed ballparks. It is not particularly obvious you are walking towards a baseball stadium as you approach DABOS Park. It is built into an old train shed on the first base side and a large brick sided building on the third base side. The concourse on the first base side runs within the perimeter of that train shed, with arched entrances out to the seating areas. Also within this building is an indoor bar area and several concession stands. The suites on that side feature large decks sticking out of the building, hovering over the walkway below. The third base side is much more of a traditional ballpark design with suites and a party deck on the second level above a concourse which is situated at the top of the main seating area. There is a walkway around the entire outfield. However, there are no fixed seats anywhere out there. On this particular evening, there didn't seem to be a lot of activity anywhere in the outfield, other than a mini train giving kids rides around the park. Speaking of trains, there are active tracks just beyond the left field perimeter of the park. I saw several freight trains pass by over the course of the evening. This is another minor league team that seems to make a killing off of merchandise, with their very unique and cartoonish biscuit logo. The team store was a hub of activity pre-game. Yes, of course I had a biscuit sandwich at the game. There were plenty of options. I went the chicken biscuit route. There was not a particularly large crowd at this game for it being a relatively nice Saturday evening. However, it did become a rather rowdy crowd toward the later innings, even as the game got a little out of hand for the home team.
This mid-June Southern League contest featured a pair of teams in the thick of the first half division championship races, Knoxville in the North Division and Montgomery in the South. It was a pretty compelling starting pitching matchup with Tyler Schlaffer on the mound for Knoxville and Santiago Suarez for Montgomery. I saw Schlaffer throw five innings of scoreless one-hit ball in Knoxville a month earlier. He was not nearly as effective on this night, but was also a victim of some bad luck. He walked the leadoff batter in the bottom of the second, and then induced a groundball that could have been a double play, but instead hit the umpire for a dead ball single. The next four hitters all reached safely as well, including RBI singles by Kenny Piper, Kamren James and Mac Horvath. The Biscuits eventually left the bases loaded, but scored three times to take a 3-0 lead. It all fell apart for Suarez and Montgomery in the top of the third though. The first two batters of the inning hit hard grounders near shortstop Jadher Areinamo that he was unable to corral, and both were scored as singles. Knoxville third baseman Jefferson Rojas then crushed a three run homer to left-center to tie the game. I also saw Rojas homer a level lower in South Bend last summer. That was immediately followed with a double by Owen Ayers and then a walk. Later in the inning, Alex Ramirez lined a double to right to score a run which gave the Smokies the lead. Eventually, two more runs would score and Knoxville wound up putting up a six spot to take a 6-3 lead. Then the scoring completely stopped until the eighth inning when Knoxville tacked on another in the top half. In the bottom of the eighth, the Biscuits attempted to make one last charge. Will Simpson hit a home run to dead center to tally the first Montgomery run since the second inning. They would add an unearned run later in the frame to cut the Knoxville lead to two heading into the ninth. That's when the wheels completely fell off for the Biscuits. Montgomery reliever Jackson Lancaster faced seven batters and all of them reached base safely. The only out recorded on his ledger was a caught stealing. The first run of the inning was scored on a no out double by Andy Garriola that effectively put this one out of reach. Four more hits and a walk eventually led to a six run inning for the Smokies. That put them ahead by a 12-5 score, which was the final.
It was a leisurely paced 3 hour, 13 minute game. I had nowhere better to be that evening though, so no complaints from me. This was the first of a two night stay in Montgomery for me. On Sunday, I made a day trip to Western Georgia for another Southern League game in Columbus.
Next ballpark: Synovus Park in Columbus, GA
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