What it is
Chase Field is the Arizona Diamondbacks’ ballpark in downtown Phoenix, a 48,000-seat building with a retractable roof and the air conditioning that makes major-league baseball in the desert possible. It opened on March 31, 1998, as Bank One Ballpark for the franchise’s first game, and took the Chase name in 2005 after a bank merger. It was the first ballpark in the country to put a retractable roof over a natural-grass field, an experiment that lasted until 2019, when the grass became turf, and it is still the only one with a swimming pool behind the outfield fence, a suite that rents by the game and that home runs occasionally land in.
The Diamondbacks won the 2001 World Series here, in a Game 7 against the Yankees decided in the bottom of the ninth, and brought the Series back in 2023 and lost it to Texas. The building is owned by the county’s stadium district, and after years of argument over who would pay to fix it, the state passed a law in 2025 letting sales tax from the district fund up to half a billion dollars of renovation over thirty years, with the team paying a quarter billion more. The roof and the cooling plant are first on the list, so expect construction in the off-seasons ahead.
Why leave Scottsdale for it
Because Scottsdale’s baseball ends in March. Spring training is the better way to watch the game, small parks and sunshine and the Giants at Scottsdale Stadium, and our Cactus League guide is one of the longest notes on this site. But when the Cactus League packs up the real season begins twenty-five minutes away, and from May on this building is the only place in Arizona to watch a ballgame without the heat being the story.
The practical version
Twenty-five minutes from Old Town via the 202 to 7th Street, longer on a game night; or drive to a light-rail station in Tempe or on Central and ride to the 3rd Street/Jefferson stop at the gate. The season runs late March through September. Buy the upper deck behind the plate. The roof is closed and the building cold from May to September, so bring a layer. Downtown garages run higher for a big series; the train solves that.
When to go
April is the one month the roof may be open for a night game and the weather outside matches the weather inside; it is also when a visitor doing spring training can add a regular-season game to the same trip. Summer, May through September, is when the park makes its case: a night game at 7 with the roof shut is seventy-two degrees while the parking lot is a hundred and five, and the upper deck is cheap because locals have other plans. September brings pennant-race crowds if the team is in it.
The Dodgers and Giants series fill the building with their own fans, who drive over from California in numbers; a weeknight against a team from the Central Division is the quiet, cheap version of the same game.
Where to sit
- Upper deck behind home plate. The best sightline in the park for the least money, and the roof keeps it the same temperature as the field level.
- Lower level, first-base side, if you want to be close and the game matters.
- The standing areas in left field and along the concourse, where you can watch an inning from the rail with a beer and move on.
- The pool, if you are a group of thirty-five with a reason; it is a suite, booked by the game.
Eating in the park
The concessions are the usual, with a few local stands that rotate; the better plan is to eat before. Pizzeria Bianco on Heritage Square is five blocks east and open until 9; the rest of downtown’s restaurants and bars sit between the ballpark and Roosevelt Row, a fifteen-minute walk north. Both have guides in this section.
With kids
The roof and the air conditioning make this the one summer outing in the Valley that works with children at 7 PM; the upper-deck seats are cheap enough that leaving in the seventh inning costs nothing, and the light rail is the part they remember. Our Scottsdale with kids note files it under hot-weather afternoons.
The story
Phoenix spent the 1980s and early 1990s trying to get a major-league team and failing, in the way of fast-growing Sun Belt cities that had the population and not the history. The Diamondbacks were awarded in 1995 and the ballpark question followed immediately: the Valley’s summers made an open stadium unthinkable, and a fixed dome meant baseball under a lid. The answer was a retractable roof, modeled loosely on Toronto’s, over real grass that would get its sun with the roof open on spring and fall days and be protected the rest of the time. The county’s stadium district paid for most of it through a sales tax that was deeply unpopular at the time; the building opened on March 31, 1998, with a swimming pool in right-center because someone decided a Phoenix ballpark should have one.
The team won the World Series in its fourth season, in a Game 7 that ended with a bloop single off the best closer in history, and the building became beloved in a way its architecture alone would never have earned. The grass gave up in 2019. The roof and the cooling plant aged. Through the 2020s the team and the county fought over who would pay to fix a building that was never designed to last as long as the lease, with the Diamondbacks threatening to look elsewhere and the Legislature divided on public money for stadiums. The 2023 World Series run helped; the 2025 law settled the funding, and the renovation that follows is the first serious reinvestment in the park since it opened.
The Scottsdale connection
Scottsdale is the Giants’ town in March and the Diamondbacks’ suburb the rest of the year. The franchise’s ownership and front office have always had deep Scottsdale ties, the team trains at Salt River Fields on the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community on Scottsdale’s eastern line, and the Diamondbacks entry in our lexicon explains why a Scottsdale bar on a summer night is a sea of Sedona red. The Arizona Fall League in October brings the game back to Scottsdale Stadium for a month, and the two parks between them give the Valley baseball ten months of the year.
Getting there
From Old Town, Loop 202 west to the 7th Street exit and south to Jefferson, 25 minutes with no traffic and closer to forty before a game. Garages ring the park and charge more for the big series. The better way, on any night you can manage it, is the Valley Metro light rail: drive fifteen minutes to a park-and-ride in Tempe, on Apache Boulevard or near Mill Avenue, or to a station on Central, and ride to 3rd Street/Jefferson, which is at the gate. Our light rail entry and getting around note cover why Scottsdale is not on the line and how to use it anyway.