Albuquerque Sports Stadium was built in a bowl excavated out of a large hill, so the playing field was significantly below grade level.

Tingley Field had been the home of Albuquerque's professional baseball teams since the Depression, and it was starting to show its age by the 1960s.

It opened on March 31, 1969, with an exhibition game between the San Francisco Giants and the Cleveland Indians played in front of an overflow crowd of 13,767.

Dukes owner Bob Lozinak sold the team franchise to Portland in 2000, and Albuquerque Sports Stadium was torn down shortly thereafter.

Although initially billed as a renovation of Albuquerque Sports Stadium, Isotopes Park was built almost entirely from scratch; little of the old ballpark remains apart from the playing field.