FIRST
STRUCTURAL
STEEL COLUMN
INSTALLED
T
he Texas Rangers and the City of Arlington
celebrated the installation of the first structural
steel column for the future $1.1 billion, retractable
roof Globe Life Park.
Texas Rangers outfielders Nomar Mazara and Shin
Soo Choo took turns helping to bolt the 48-foot-tall,
9,200-pound column in place during a media event
Friday, June 15, 2018, at the ballpark construction site.
“This is not a baseball bat,” a construction worker said
jokingly as he handed Choo a hefty wrench for the job.
Over the next eight months, Manhattan Construction
Company will make more than 9,700 “picks,” which refers
12
Nomar Mazara and Shin Soo Choo took turns helping to bolt the 48-foot-
tall, 9,200-pound column in place. Photo Credit: Texas Rangers
to the number of times cranes will pick up structural
steel columns and beams to build the seating bowl. This
number does not include the amount of structural steel
that will be used to build the retractable roof for the
ballpark, which opens in 2020.
In all, Globe Life Field will include about 35,000 tons of
steel.
“It’s a labor-intensive process. It’s piece-by-piece
construction,” said Rob Matwick, Texas Rangers executive
vice president of business operations. “There are some
days when it seems like it’s going to take forever but I
know the next couple years will go very, very fast.”