Jackson Hole Said No, and Rob Manfred Listened: No MLB Game at Grand Teton

Major League Baseball has played in an Iowa cornfield. It won't be playing in Grand Teton National Park.

Commissioner Rob Manfred sent letters Thursday to local leaders in Jackson, Wyoming, saying the league will stop evaluating the park as a site for a game. Teton County Commission chair Mark Newcomb, Jackson Mayor Arne Jorgensen and Jackson Hole Chamber of Commerce president Rick Howe had written to him on Monday to object, after The Washington Post reported the park was under consideration. Manfred sent a similar letter to U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico.

We obviously would not bring a game to a community that has concerns about the venue and will not continue to evaluate Grand Teton National Park as a potential site.

'Initial due diligence'

Manfred's version is that the idea never got very far. MLB had "no formal plan," he wrote, and was looking at many possible sites. It hadn't studied the environmental impact or talked to the community yet, steps he said would have been part of any process.

It's not hard to see the appeal. The park's Jackson Hole bottomlands sit under the Teton Range, one of the most dramatic backdrops in the country, and it has Wyoming's busiest commercial airport. It's also a national park that millions of people visit for the wildlife and the quiet.

Conservation groups were pleased. "We are grateful that Major League Baseball heard the roar of the crowd and rightfully recognized that Grand Teton is already a field of dreams," said Allison Michalski of the National Parks Conservation Association.

MLB and the players' union have staged a few regular-season games away from big-league parks in recent years, including at the Field of Dreams site. The search for the next one continues, somewhere other than Wyoming.