Alex Box Stadium: The Complete History of LSU Baseball's Home

Ask anyone in college baseball to name the sport's true home-field advantage and you'll hear the same answer: Baton Rouge. This is the story of Alex Box Stadium — both of them — and how LSU built the loudest address in the sport.

Who was Alex Box?

Simeon Alex Box was an LSU athlete who left school for the Army during World War II. He was killed in action in North Africa in 1943, and when LSU dedicated its new ballpark that same year, it took his name. For over eighty years since, every national title and every Friday-night sellout has happened under the name of a 23-year-old who never saw any of it. It remains one of the most quietly moving traditions in college sports.

The original Box (1938–2008)

The first Alex Box Stadium sat on the south edge of campus and held around 7,700 — officially. By the Skip Bertman era it routinely held more, with fans stacked on levees and rooftops beyond the outfield. Between 1991 and 2000, Bertman's Tigers won five national championships, and the old Box became the template for what big-time college baseball could look like: full houses, tailgates, and a genuine home-field edge measured in decibels.

The new Box (2009–present)

LSU opened the new Alex Box Stadium — Skip Bertman Field on February 20, 2009, a few hundred yards from the original site. The program christened it properly: the Tigers won the College World Series that first season. The new park seats 10,326, and LSU has led the nation in attendance in nearly every season since it opened. The 2023 national title — powered by Paul Skenes and Dylan Crews, arguably the best pitcher-hitter duo in the sport's history — added a seventh championship to the program's ledger, and in 2025 the Tigers won an eighth, cementing a modern dynasty.

What makes it different

Plenty of stadiums are big. The Box is loud in a way that shows up in box scores — opposing coaches openly plan midweek rotations around avoiding Friday nights in Baton Rouge. The intimidation starts with geography: the stadium sits in the shadow of Tiger Stadium, in a corner of campus that turns into a sea of purple tailgates by mid-afternoon. And it's sustained by a fan base that treats February baseball with the seriousness most schools reserve for October football.

The Box, by the numbers

• Opened: February 20, 2009
• Capacity: 10,326
• Coordinates: 30.4089° N, 91.1835° W
• National titles celebrated on its diamond: 2009, 2023, 2025
• Program titles overall: 8 (1991, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2009, 2023, 2025)

Bring The Box home

Our Alex Box Stadium poster renders the bowl from directly overhead in LSU purple and gold — the seating sections, the diamond, the foul poles — with the stadium's data set in type worthy of an architecture studio. Museum-quality print, three sizes, from $39. See the Alex Box Stadium poster →

This is the first in our stadium history series. Next up: The Dude and the lawn-chair kingdom of Starkville. Browse all sixteen SEC stadium posters →