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The stadium was relatively nondescript, one of the many saucer-shaped multi-purpose stadia built during the 1960s and 1970s, similar to RFK Stadium, Shea Stadium, the Astrodome, Three Rivers Stadium, Busch Memorial Stadium, Qualcomm Stadium, Riverfront Stadium, and Veterans Stadium.
As was the case for every stadium that used this design concept, the fundamentally different sizes and shapes of baseball and football fields made it inadequate for both sports. In the baseball configuration, 70 percent of the seats were in foul territory. In the football configuration, seats on the 50-yard-line—normally prime seats for football—were more than 50 yards away from the sidelines. One unusual feature of this stadium is the fact that, unlike most multi-purpose stadiums - where the football field was laid either parallel to one of the foul lines or running from home plate to center field - the football field here was laid along a line running between first and third base. Oakland Coliseum has a similar configuration. Thus, a seat behind home plate for baseball would also be on the 50-yard line for football. The stadium was refurbished for the 1996 season prior to hosting the Olympic baseball competition.
It was also known for the playing field's poor quality. Until 1989, it didn't have full-time groundskeepers. Instead, it was tended by a municipal street-maintenance crew.
Due to the relatively high elevation of the Atlanta area (situated at the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains), the stadium boasted the highest elevation in baseball when it opened, at 1,050 feet above sea level. It retained this distinction until the Colorado Rockies were born in 1993. The high elevation made it favorable to home run hitters, resulting in the nickname "The Launching Pad."
Fulton County Stadium was designed by a joint-venture team of FABRAP (Finch Alexander Barnes Rothschild & Paschal) and Heery, Inc.
Read more about this topic: Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium