Hudson Valley Renegades (NYY) @ Rome Emperors (ATL)
June 20, 2026
S: Wilmy Sanchez
HR: Core Jackson (HV), Kyle West (HV), Eric Hartman (ROM)
Attendance: 1,788
Time of Game: 2 hours, 27 minutes
Stadium Facts
Location: Rome, GA
Opened: 2003
Capacity: 5,105
Level: High A
League: South Atlantic
Time of Game: 2 hours, 27 minutes
Stadium Facts
Location: Rome, GA
Opened: 2003
Capacity: 5,105
Level: High A
League: South Atlantic
The final weekend of my trip started with me making a relatively short drive from Madison, AL to Rome, GA. This was a pretty interesting drive, much of it being on two lane highways going through the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. Rome itself, located in the northwest part of Georgia, is quite hilly too. AdventHealth Stadium is located on the northern edge of town, a decent ways from downtown. With the Southern League in my rearview mirror, it was time to close out a second league in as many nights with my final visit to a High A South Atlantic League ballpark.
This is maybe a tad unfair to AdventHealth Stadium that I saw it near the conclusion of a trip that otherwise included higher level ballparks and truly unique A-ball facilities, but I think I can safely say this was my least favorite stadium on this trip. It reminded me a great deal of the home ballpark of the team the Emperors were hosting this night, the Hudson Valley Renegades, right down to the artificial playing surface. Artificial turf in Georgia makes no sense to me. This park opened in 2003, a little before the boom in modern minor league ballpark design. There is ample onsite parking. A retro brick exterior greets fans coming into the main entrance behind home plate. The main concourse is located under the grandstand, which is where you will find most of the concessions, and interestingly, an indoor space that is the team store on one side and a bar area on the other. The main grandstand has a walkway separating the 100 and 200 levels. There are two large entryways from the concourse to this walkway. Railings separate the sections. In the 200 level where I was sitting, these railings made it difficult to move around, and the ramps leading up to the sections were not particularly well marked as to which sections they served. A curious design choice, I thought. The main grandstand is topped off with a row of suites surrounding the press box. Seating only runs a little past third base on that side of the park. The first base side, on the other hand, has large open spaces beyond the grandstand that house additional concessions, a picnic area, a kids zone and berm seating that stretches around into right field. I mentioned in the Hub City write-up how unusual it was to see the PA announcer sitting at field level rather than in a booth somewhere. Well, that was nothing compared to Rome where the PA announcer was really a jack of all trades. In addition to normal PA announcing duties, he was also the primary emcee of in-game entertainment and a hype man. And he did all of this while wandering all around the park, sometimes even announcing next batters while on the move. Not sure what they pay this gentleman, but it is probably not as much as he deserves. He has a great set of pipes too.
I happened to be wearing a Notre Dame t-shirt this day, without realizing until the evening that the starting pitcher for Hudson Valley was former Fighting Irish right-hander Rory Fox. He was opposed by Zach Royse, who was selected 23 picks after Fox in last summer's draft. This was Royse's High A debut. Both pitched pretty well in this game outside of the home runs they allowed. Royse surrendered the first home run to the second batter of the game as Core Jackson slugged one out to right into the Renegades' bullpen, giving Hudson Valley an early lead. The Emperors didn't have as much as a hit against Fox in the first three innings, with the only base runner reaching on a dropped routine fly ball to right fielder Luis Durango. The Emperors finally got something going in the fourth. John Gil started the inning lining a single to right. That was immediately followed by Eric Hartman hitting a towering home run to the kids zone in right, well beyond the outfield wall. That put Rome ahead 2-1. That was the extent of the damage done against Fox on the night. He finished with just those two runs allowed on three hits, one walk and six strikeouts in 5 2/3 innings. In the half inning right after falling behind, Hudson Valley retook the lead. With one out in the top of the fifth, Eric Genther lined one to right and hustled to second for a double. Then Kyle West parked one to deep right, into the trees for a two run homer. That put the Renegades back ahead by a 3-2 score. As it turned out, neither team would score again after that. Hudson Valley missed several opportunities to score more throughout the night, but were unable to get key hits as they left 10 runners on base. Luckily for them, it didn't matter as their two home runs were enough. Other than the inning they scored their two runs, Rome wasn't able to muster multiple hits in an inning all night. Wilmy Sanchez got the save by striking out three of the four Emperors he faced. It was a 3-2 victory for Hudson Valley, with all five of the game's runs scoring on the three home runs. Fox deservedly picked up the win.
And with that, I had wrapped up my tour of the 12 South Atlantic League ballparks. A caveat to that though. I visited Aberdeen back in 2024. However, this year they lost their Orioles affiliate status and were replaced in the SALLY by Frederick. I wasn't able to make it to a game in Frederick this year, but will definitely go to a game there at some point. I will go ahead and post my ballpark rankings for the league now though and will update accordingly once I've visited Frederick. These rankings were much more difficult to do than the Southern League because I visited almost half of them over two years and 40+ ballparks ago. I did skim through my write-ups of those older visits to jog my memory for these rankings. And here they are.
South Atlantic League Ballpark Rankings
1. Hub City
2. Greenville
3. Winston-Salem
4. Asheville
5. Brooklyn
6. Greensboro
7. Wilmington
8. Bowling Green
9. Jersey Shore
10. Aberdeen
11. Hudson Valley
12. Rome
Perhaps it is recency bias, but I went with two ballparks from this trip for the top two spots. Hub City was a pretty easy choice for the number one spot though. Asheville was the most difficult to place, in the same way that I have a hard time deciding where to rank Fenway and Wrigley when rattling off MLB stadiums. It is such a timeless gem that it can't be ranked near the bottom. But it also isn't nearly as "nice" as the newest stadiums. I settled on fourth, right ahead of Brooklyn, which is another ranking not so much based on the quality of the park, but because of its extremely unique location and surroundings. Hudson Valley and Rome were pretty easy choices to put at the bottom of this list, though I could have gone either way with the order of those two. As I keep pointing out, none of these parks are bad at all. They are all much nicer than the Class A ballparks I remember visiting in my younger days.
Just one more day to go on this marathon trip down south. That last Sunday would wind up being a long day of driving, with an afternoon game in Gwinnett mixed in.
Next ballpark: Gwinnett Field in Lawrenceville, GA
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