[3] After a conversation with friends about the need for a baseball stadium, Cramton donated his sanitary landfill to the city so a facility could be constructed there.

Shortly after its completion in 1922, the Philadelphia Athletics decided to move their spring training operations from Eagle Pass, Texas to Montgomery.

The team returned for the 1937 season as the Montgomery Bombers and garnered their first major league baseball affiliation with the Cleveland Indians.

On July 11 of that year, the Chattanooga Lookouts moved their home games to Cramton Bowl to play out the rest of the season.

[5][8] The eighth and deciding game of the 1943 Negro World Series was held at the Cramton Bowl, with the Homestead Grays defeating the Birmingham Black Barons, 8–4.

On September 23, 1927, Cramton Bowl became the site of the first game played "under the lights" in the South with Cloverdale taking on Pike Road High School.

"[4] Cramton Bowl was host to all home games for Alabama State Hornets football prior to ASU's construction of an on-campus stadium in 2012 and was the host to all home games for the Faulkner University Eagles football team until 2012 when Faulkner University constructed its own facility.

Cramton Bowl also provided a location for Alabama Crimson Tide football home games in the capital city.

By the start of the 21st century, Cramton Bowl was widely regarded as being functionally obsolete for major sporting events.

These issues were factors, although not the predominant ones, in the Blue-Gray Game not being held in 2002 and its subsequent relocation in 2003 to Troy University's Veterans Memorial Stadium, about 50 miles (80 km) from Montgomery.

Phase two began in early January 2011 as crews removed an existing brick wall from the south end zone and dismantled the scoreboard to make way for the new multi-purpose sports facility.