Look to your right for the big steel-and-brick entrance arch that reads “ONEOK FIELD,” topped with a tall black frame and a glowing blue “T.”
You’re standing outside ONEOK Field-Tulsa’s modern front porch for baseball, tucked right up against downtown in the historic Greenwood district. If you can hear the faint clink of a bat in your imagination, you’re already getting the idea.
Back in the late ’90s, the Tulsa Drillers started hunting for a new home, because their old park out at the fairgrounds wasn’t exactly “connected to the city”-unless you count being connected by a long drive and a parking lot the size of a small nation. At one point, there was even a serious flirtation with moving the team out to Jenks. But Tulsa leaders-Mayor Kathy Taylor among them-pushed hard for a downtown ballpark, and on June 26, 2008, the Drillers made it official.
Then came the drama: a major donor, SemGroup, collapsed financially, and the whole plan wobbled for a moment. Still, the shovels hit the dirt on December 19, 2008. A few weeks later, ONEOK stepped in with $5 million for 20 years of naming rights-about $7 million in today’s money-helping keep the project on track.
Designed by Populous and built by Manhattan Construction, the park cost $39.2 million (roughly $56 million today), with a total project budget around $60 million. The field sits about 13 feet below street level, there are 23 suites, and on April 8, 2010, the first game drew 8,665 fans-yes, over capacity. Tim McGraw threw the first pitch. The Drillers lost 7-0, which is baseball’s way of teaching humility early.
And it’s not just baseball: since 2015, FC Tulsa has played here too-proof this place can swap cleats for spikes without breaking a sweat.
