A Baseball Field in a Racetrack? MLB's Speedway Classic Makes History

A 110-foot Ferris wheel. Race cars painted in MLB team colors. Food trucks. Live music. Pitching tunnels and batting cages. A chance for photos with the Commissioner's Trophy. And Clydesdales.

Of course, there's merchandise available for any fans who forgot to grab their gear supporting the Atlanta Braves or Cincinnati Reds or simply commemorating a spectacle unlike any other.

After about four years in the planning, it's finally time for the MLB Speedway Classic (7:15 p.m. ET on FOX and the FOX Sports app) to play ball Saturday night on the diamond constructed on the infield at Bristol Motor Speedway at the place called the "Last Great Colisseum!"

"When you walk up to Bristol Motor Speedway, much like many of our venues, you know you’re at a big iconic sports location," said Jeremiah Yolkut, MLB’s senior vice president of global events. "You feel it. You walk into Wrigley Field, Fenway Park, you feel it. And that’s what Bristol Motor Speedway is for NASCAR."

The MLB Speedway Classic was first announced nearly a year ago as part of Commissioner Rob Manfred’s push to take MLB to places where baseball isn’t played every day live. MLB played a game at the movie site in Iowa in both 2021 and 2022. Alabama, North Carolina and Pennsylvania, too.

Now it's time for Tennessee, which has teams in the NFL, NBA, NHL and MLS, but no MLB team. This game mixes the rich racing history of both Bristol, which hosts a pair of NASCAR races each year, and Tennessee.

"So we quickly worked to make it so that we could viably create this magic moment and give fans that don’t get regular season baseball all the time, an opportunity to see it right there in their backyard in Tennessee," Yolkut said.

The Reds, chasing an NL wild-card berth, split