“Baseball in Omaha? Why would you write an article specifically about baseball in Omaha?” Well, primarily because of college baseball. Believe it or not, every year, every team playing big-time college baseball dreams of ending their season in Omaha.
Since 1950 the College World Series – the final round of the annual NCAA Division I college baseball playoffs – has been held in Omaha. From 1950 to 2010 the games were played at Johnny Rosenblatt Stadium. After opening in 1948, Rosenblatt was also the home of the AA minor league Omaha Cardinals, AA Omaha Dodgers and, from 1969-2010, the AAA Omaha Royals.
Eventually the NCAA decided that Rosenblatt was no longer suitable for their “CWS” and Omaha responded by spending $131 million to build a new downtown stadium, eventually named TD Ameritrade Park Omaha. In return, the NCAA has agreed to keep the College World Series in Omaha through 2035. The new ballpark is also home to the Creighton University Bluejays baseball team, the Missouri Valley Conference baseball tournament and home games of the Omaha Nighthawks of something called the “United Football League”.
Notably absent from the list of tenants of the new ballpark are the Omaha Royals. For many years they’d been unhappy playing in a stadium much larger (Rosenblatt held over 23,000) than was needed for a AAA team. After exploring various options, they decided to move into their own new ballpark – Werner Park in suburban Sarpy County near the town of Papillion. At the same time they changed the name of the team to the Omaha Storm Chasers.
