Sam Lynn Ballpark the Last Stadium that faces West

Sep 22 2026 12:00AM - For more than eight decades, Sam Lynn Ballpark has been one of the most unusual baseball stadiums in America. The historic Bakersfield ballpark opened in 1941 and has hosted generations of professional baseball players, but one feature has defined the stadium almost as much as the games themselves: Sam Lynn Ballpark faces west, directly toward the setting sun. For a baseball stadium, that is the wrong direction.

The problem becomes obvious on a summer evening in Bakersfield. A batter standing at home plate looks toward center field and directly into the western sky. As the sun begins to set, the hitter can be staring into intense sunlight while simultaneously trying to pick up a baseball traveling toward home plate at professional speeds. Instead of simply being an architectural curiosity, the direction of the field became a legitimate playing and safety issue.

SFGATE highlighted this unusual characteristic in its feature on the historic stadium, noting that Sam Lynn's home plate points toward the setting sun. The west-facing orientation has affected when games can safely begin and has become one of the defining characteristics of the old Bakersfield ballpark.

Why was a baseball stadium built facing west in the first place? The answer appears to be connected to the property where Sam Lynn Ballpark was constructed. Before there was a professional baseball stadium at the site, the property was part of the old Kern County Fairgrounds. Historical information from Sam Lynn Ballpark indicates that the baseball field was constructed inside an existing one-mile horse-racing track. Instead of beginning with an empty piece of property and positioning the baseball diamond entirely around ideal baseball conditions, planners were fitting the new ballpark into an existing fairgrounds configuration.

Historical information on SamLynnBallpark.com cites a December 1940 account describing work being performed inside the fairgrounds track in preparation for professional baseball in 1941. Plans included using much of the existing grandstand and moving lights from a softball diamond. The available historical evidence therefore points toward practical limitations created by the existing fairgrounds as an important part of the ballpark's unusual layout. Whatever the exact reasoning behind every decision made during construction, the result was unmistakable: when Sam Lynn Ballpark opened, a hitter standing at home plate faced west.

Bakersfield baseball has been dealing with that decision ever since. For decades, night games had to be scheduled around the setting sun because the sunlight could make it extremely difficult for hitters to see a pitched baseball. At various times, games could even be temporarily stopped while everyone waited for the sun to drop far enough below the horizon for play to safely continue.

According to the historical account published by Sam Lynn Ballpark, the final in-game sun delay occurred on July 3, 1996. Beginning with the 1997 season, summer starting times were instead scheduled according to sunset conditions. This produced something rarely encountered in professional baseball: game times dictated not simply by the preferred schedule of the team or fans, but by the position of the sun in the Bakersfield sky. A Minor League Baseball story published in 2008 reported that games could start as late as 8:15 p.m. because baseball could not safely begin until the sun had sufficiently disappeared.

At one point, officials even attempted to solve the problem through engineering. A massive steel-and- sheet-metal screen was constructed beyond the outfield in an attempt to block the setting sun from the batter's view. According to the history of Sam Lynn Ballpark, the structure measured approximately 125 feet by 50 feet. It was an enormous solution to an unusual problem, but it still did not completely solve it.

A 2008 Minor League Baseball account reported that measurements for the sun screen had been taken in November. The position of the sun during November, however, was substantially different from its position during the summer baseball season. The account indicated that the screen would have needed to be taller and positioned farther toward left field to accomplish what it was intended to do. Bakersfield therefore ended up with something perhaps even more unusual than a west-facing baseball stadium: a west-facing baseball stadium with a giant sun screen that still could not completely eliminate the problem.

By modern baseball stadium standards, pointing home plate toward the western sunset makes little sense. It interferes with normal evening starting times and can create extremely difficult conditions for hitters trying to see the baseball. Yet the unusual orientation has also become inseparable from the identity of Sam Lynn Ballpark. What would almost certainly be avoided in the design of a modern stadium has become part of what makes the Bakersfield ballpark unique.

Sam Lynn Ballpark survived decades of affiliated professional baseball and has been home to numerous Bakersfield teams over its long history, including the Badgers, Indians, Bears, Dodgers, Mariners and Blaze. Today the stadium remains active as the home of the Bakersfield Train Robbers of the Pecos League. Over the decades, players who eventually became some of the biggest names in baseball passed through Bakersfield. SFGATE notes that Mike Piazza, Pedro Martinez and Buster Posey are among the notable players who appeared at Sam Lynn during their careers.

The ballpark's history is therefore about much more than a field that happens to point in an unusual direction. Generations of players, coaches, umpires and fans have experienced Bakersfield baseball under conditions created by a decision made when the stadium was constructed more than 80 years ago. They scheduled games later, stopped games to wait for the sun, changed starting times and even constructed a massive screen in an attempt to overcome the problem.

There are newer baseball stadiums with luxury suites, modern clubhouses, expansive concourses and carefully engineered sightlines, but Sam Lynn Ballpark has something those stadiums cannot manufacture: more than eight decades of history and one of the strangest design characteristics in professional baseball. A baseball stadium was constructed inside the old Kern County Fairgrounds, the diamond ended up pointing toward the western sky, and Bakersfield baseball has adapted to the consequences ever since.

More than 80 years after Sam Lynn Ballpark opened, the sun still sets beyond center field. The stadium still faces the wrong direction, and that unusual flaw has become one of the defining characteristics of historic baseball in Bakersfield.

Learn more about the history of Sam Lynn Ballpark at [www.SamLynnBallpark.com] (http://www.SamLynnBallpark.com).