The big news in Baton Rouge: the opening of the new Alex Box Stadium on Friday night.

The new ballpark will seat 9,000, and it's a significant upgrade to the old Alex Box:

The price tag of the new stadium was $35-37 million. The new facility includes 7,274 more square feet of restrooms, 3,000 more square feet of concession areas, an arcade and playgrounds, two luxury suites and a club lounge and an LSU Baseball Hall of Fame.

Most of the 8,796 seats have either individual seat backs or bleacher seatbacks — the exception being the three sets of old metal bleachers brought over from the old stadium as a nostalgic tip of the hat.

A major new feature is a video board in left-center field that includes a large video screen, as well as a more detailed matrix scoreboard.