History
The first outdoor National Basketball Association game was played between the Phoenix Suns and the Milwaukee Bucks on September 24, 1972 at during that year's preseason. The Suns defeated the Bucks, 116–103.
The stadium hosted Major League Baseball's Opening Day Game in 2001, in which the Toronto Blue Jays faced the Texas Rangers in an American League match-up. However, 4,000 who bought tickets were turned away when the police determined the safe capacity of the park had been vastly exceeded.
It was the object of a major overhaul under the mayoral administration of Jorge Santini, before becoming the part-time home of the Montreal Expos of the National League in 2003 and 2004 prior to their move to Washington, D.C. as the Washington Nationals. The Expos played 22 "home" games in each season as a result of poor attendance at their home Olympic Stadium in Montreal. Prior to Major League Baseball's announcement of the Montreal Expos move to Washington, Puerto Rico and San Juan made an effort to lure the Expos franchise to the island territory permanently.
Hiram Bithorn Stadium hosted parts of the first two rounds of the 2006 World Baseball Classic. Pool C, which included the teams of Puerto Rico, Cuba, Panama, and the Netherlands, was played there. It also hosted Pool 2 of the second round of the Classic which featured Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and Venezuela, the top two finishers from Pool C and Pool D. Pool D games of the 2009 were played there between March 7 and March 11, 2009.
In 2008, it served as the stadium for Atléticos de San Juan and Academia Quintana, two soccer teams in the Puerto Rico Soccer League, Puerto Rico's first ever professional soccer league.
In 2010, Major League Baseball returned to the stadium, as the Florida Marlins faced the New York Mets in a three game series during the regular season.
Read more about this topic: Hiram Bithorn Stadium
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The history of the world is the record of the weakness, frailty and death of public opinion.”
—Samuel Butler (1835–1902)
“The second day of July 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more”
—John Adams (1735–1826)
“History ... is, indeed, little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.
But what experience and history teach is this—that peoples and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)