Citizens Bank Park: The History, the Dimensions and How the Park Plays

By 4Baseball Staff · November 5, 2026 · 11 min read

A guide to Citizens Bank Park, home of the Philadelphia Phillies since 2004: the six parks that came before it, its dimensions, how the historical park factors rate it for hitters and what to know before a visit.

Citizens Bank Park has been the home of the Philadelphia Phillies since April 12, 2004, when the club played its first home game there. It replaced Veterans Stadium, a multipurpose bowl the Phillies had used for thirty-three seasons and shared with football for all but the last one, and it gave the franchise something it had not had in decades: a ballpark built for baseball alone. It holds 42,901 people, has a natural grass field with no roof, and sits in the sports complex in South Philadelphia, a short walk from where the Vet once stood.

The park has had one name for its entire life, which is unusual in an age of rotating sponsors. It has also seen the most successful stretch in the club's history. The Phillies won the 2008 World Series there, and they have won pennants in 2008, 2009 and 2022. They drew 3,680,718 fans in 2011, the highest single-season home attendance in the club's records. This guide covers the history of the building, the earlier parks it replaced, the shape of the field, what the historical park factors say about how it plays, and a few practical notes for a visit.

Results, attendance and park factors below come from the historical record through the 2025 season. Capacity and surface come from this site's own reference data for the park, and the fence distances are the ones the club has posted, so treat them as a snapshot and confirm anything important with the club before you go.

Citizens Bank Park at a glance

The numbers in the reference data tell you the outline of the place. The most interesting feature is not the size but the shape: the foul lines are short and the walls in the alleys are ordinary.

The Official Baseball Rules say it is desirable for the line from home plate through the pitcher's plate to second base to run east-northeast, which is about 67 degrees on a compass. Citizens Bank Park points almost due north, at 9 degrees. Nobody builds a stadium in a city center according to a compass preference, and the practical effect is simply that the setting sun comes over the left-field side of the park in the evening.

At 20 feet above sea level, the park gives the ball none of the help that altitude provides in Denver. Whatever the ball does in Philadelphia, it does with humidity, temperature and wind.

Six parks before this one

The Phillies are the oldest continuous one-name, one-city franchise in American professional sports, and the historical record shows how many homes that took. The list below gives each park, the seasons the Teams file assigns to it, and the club's best season attendance there.

The Phillies began in 1883 as the Philadelphia Quakers, took the Phillies name in 1890, were briefly the Philadelphia Blue Jays in 1943 and 1944, and went back to Phillies in 1945. The earliest parks are known today mostly through the record books. Baker Bowl, the club's home for more than four decades, was notorious for its short right field and high wall, and it was the setting for the franchise's first pennant in 1915, when the Phillies lost the World Series to the Boston Red Sox, four games to one.

In 1938 the club moved into Shibe Park, which the Athletics had opened for themselves, and shared it with them until the Athletics left after 1954. The park was renamed Connie Mack Stadium in 1953. It hosted the 1950 Phillies, the Whiz Kids, who won the National League pennant and were swept by the Yankees in the World Series. Veterans Stadium opened in 1971 and housed the club's best teams of the twentieth century: the 1980 world champions, the 1983 and 1993 pennant winners, and the division winners of the late 1970s. For the full story of those eras, the history of the Philadelphia Phillies goes season by season.

Why the Vet gave way to a baseball park

Veterans Stadium belonged to an era in which cities built one concrete bowl and asked a baseball team and a football team to share it. The compromise suited neither sport. The field was artificial turf, the seating was arranged for football, and the sight lines to a baseball diamond were often poor. By the 1990s a different model had taken over, set in motion by the park Baltimore opened in 1992, in which a club got a smaller, grass-field, baseball-only building with a sense of place.

The Phillies' answer was Citizens Bank Park, built in the same South Philadelphia sports complex as the old stadium. The park opened in April 2004, and the Vet had been imploded the month before. The name came from a regional bank, and the historical Teams file lists no other name for the park through 2025, which means the Phillies avoided the sign changes that have affected nearly every other club.

The effect on the club was immediate. In 2004 the Phillies drew 3,250,092 fans, an increase of nearly a million on their final season at the Vet, and they went on to pass three million in every season from 2007 through 2013. That kind of response is what owners and city leaders have in mind when they sign a stadium deal, and it came with a team that was beginning to win.

The shape of the field

The dimensions are what set the park apart. The left-field line measures 329 feet and the right-field line 330, which makes for short corners. The power alleys are ordinary, at 374 feet in left-center and 369 in right-center, and center field is a conventional 401 feet.

Compare that with the White Sox's Rate Field, which has 330 feet down the left-field line, 335 down the right-field line, 375 in both alleys and 400 to center. Philadelphia's lines are one and five feet shorter, its alleys one and six feet shorter and its center field one foot deeper, so on the tape measure the two parks are close cousins. At Citizens Bank Park a pull hitter who gets under a ball to the lines is rewarded, because the wall is close, but a hitter who drives the ball to the alleys needs about the same power he would need elsewhere. The difference between the parks lies more in the air and the weather than in the distances.

The park's era produced power hitters who could use both foul lines. Ryan Howard, a left-handed first baseman, hit 382 home runs for the Phillies from 2004 to 2016, second in club history to Mike Schmidt's 548, and in 2006 he hit 58 of them and won the MVP award. Chase Utley, the left-handed second baseman, hit 233 for the club between 2003 and 2015.

A visitor will notice the features that sit around the field as well. Ashburn Alley, the concourse behind center field, takes its name from Richie Ashburn, the Hall of Fame center fielder who had 2,217 hits for the club between 1948 and 1959. A replica of the Liberty Bell hangs in the outfield and swings after a Phillies home run, and the Phillie Phanatic, who has been the club's mascot since 1978, is a fixture of home games.

How the park plays: what the park factors say

The historical Teams file carries a three-year batting park factor, BPF, for every team season, scaled so that 100 is neutral. A figure above 100 means the park produced more scoring than the same teams' road games, and a figure below 100 means less. The Phillies' figures for Citizens Bank Park show a park that has been through different phases.

The headline from those readings is that the park was hitter-friendly in its first years, then spent a decade closer to neutral, with a pitcher-friendly dip in 2015 to 2017. The low point was 2016, at 91, and the Phillies' own pitchers gave up 213 home runs that year while the club went 71-91. The 2025 figure of 105 matches the early years, in a season when the club won the NL East with a 96-66 record.

Two cautions apply. First, a park factor measures the park through the lens of the teams that played there, so a staff of fly-ball pitchers pushes a factor up and a staff of ground-ball pitchers pushes it down. Second, the single-season factors vary a good deal on small samples. The reliable conclusion is the broad one: the park is not an extreme hitters' park in the way of Denver, and it is not a pitchers' park either. It rewards pull power and punishes mistakes in the air, and the weather matters as much as the walls.

The weather matters because Philadelphia is humid and hot in July and cool in April and October. The same fly ball that dies in the alley on a cold night in April can carry into the seats on a hot August afternoon. If you are choosing a game for offense, the temperature forecast tells you more than the dimensions do.

What has happened in the park

Citizens Bank Park's best day came in 2008. The Phillies beat the Milwaukee Brewers three games to one in the Division Series, the Los Angeles Dodgers four games to one in the Championship Series, and the Tampa Bay Rays four games to one in the World Series. Game 5 was suspended by rain in the sixth inning and finished two days later, which made it the first World Series game suspended by weather and completed on a later date. The Phillies won it, clinching the club's second title, 28 years after their first. Brad Lidge, who saved 100 games for the club and won the Reliever of the Year award in 2008, closed it.

The 2009 team returned to the World Series and lost to the Yankees, four games to two. The 2010 team won 97 games, and in the opening game of the Division Series against Cincinnati, Roy Halladay threw a no-hitter, the second in postseason history after Don Larsen's perfect game in 1956. Halladay had won the Cy Young Award that year at 21-10 with a 2.44 ERA. The 2011 team won 102 games, the most in club history, and then lost the Division Series to St. Louis, three games to two.

A decade later the park became loud again. In 2022 the Phillies entered as a wild card, beat St. Louis in the Wild Card Series, beat Atlanta three games to one, and beat San Diego four games to one in the Championship Series, a series clinched at home by a Bryce Harper home run in the eighth inning of Game 5. They then lost the World Series to the Astros, four games to two. In 2023 they reached a seventh game of the NLCS before losing to Arizona, and they won the NL East in 2024 and 2025, losing the Division Series to the Mets in 2024 and to the Dodgers in 2025.

The players who made the park famous

Citizens Bank Park's era has a clear set of stars, and the club's career leader lists show them. Jimmy Rollins is the franchise's all-time hits leader with 2,306 between 2000 and 2014, and the 2007 MVP. Howard won the 2006 MVP. Bryce Harper won the 2021 MVP, the club's most recent. Utley, Rollins and Howard formed an infield core that carried the team to five straight division titles from 2007 to 2011.

On the mound, Cole Hamels won 114 games for the club between 2006 and 2015, and Aaron Nola has won 109 between 2015 and 2025, along with 1,876 strikeouts, second in club history to Steve Carlton's 3,031. Charlie Manuel, who managed from 2005 to 2013, won 780 and lost 634, the best record of any Phillies manager with at least a thousand games. The Hall of Fame names come from earlier eras: Mike Schmidt, with 18 seasons for the club, Carlton, Robin Roberts and Ashburn. For the position-by-position picture, the best players in Phillies history covers each decade, and the best seasons and every October run puts the park's postseasons in order.

Planning a visit

The best advice here is to check the club's own site for anything that changes: ticket options, entry rules, bag policies, food, transit and parking. The general points that do not change are these.

• Event days. The ballpark sits in a complex that also includes other major venues, so traffic and parking can be heavy when more than one event is scheduled. Check the calendar.
• Weather. Philadelphia is hot and humid in summer and cold in April and October. Bring a layer for evening games and sun protection for day games.
• Sightlines. The lower level gives the closest view of the infield, and the upper deck gives a wide view of the field and the skyline. With the field pointing almost due north, first-base-side seats look west across the diamond toward the late-day sun, while third-base-side seats tend to fall into shade sooner. Check the club's seating guide for the details.
• Arrival. Gates open well before first pitch. Arriving early lets you walk Ashburn Alley, see batting practice and find your seat before the crowd arrives.
• Accessibility. The club's site lists accessible seating and services, and the ticket office can arrange details in advance.

For today's record and next game, the Phillies team page is live, and the Citizens Bank Park page keeps the reference data.

Common questions

Is Citizens Bank Park a hitters' park? In its first years, yes. The historical batting park factor was 104 or 105 from 2004 to 2007. Since then it has fluctuated, with a low of 91 in 2016 and a high of 105 in 2011 and 2025. The shape of the field is the more reliable guide: short foul lines and ordinary alleys.

When did it open? The Phillies played their first home game there on April 12, 2004. The park replaced Veterans Stadium, which they had used from 1971 to 2003.

Has the park had other names? No. The historical Teams file lists Citizens Bank Park for every season from 2004 to 2025.

What is the biggest crowd the club has drawn? The season record is 3,680,718 in 2011, a year the club won 102 games. That is the highest total in the Teams file for the Phillies.

Does it have a roof? No. It is an open-air park with natural grass, so rain delays and postponements are part of the schedule.

Where to go next

If you want the club behind the ballpark, start with the history of the Philadelphia Phillies, then compare the other NL East clubs in the Atlanta Braves history, the Miami Marlins history and the New York Mets history. To see how the 2008 title fits among every champion, read the history of the World Series. For news, the Phillies topic page gathers the latest stories.