ROUND ROCK, Texas — As the crowd entered Dell Diamond, long lines of people were grabbing food and many others rushed to get a seat.
But there wasn't any baseball being played. They only watched the big ball burning in the sky.
“Dell Diamond is known for baseball, but an event like this once in a lifetime," Round Rock Express President Chris Almendarez said. “We felt, let's just open up the stadium and give people an opportunity to come out and view the eclipse."
The ballpark had 6,000 seats available, which made it a safe place for folks to watch the historic moment.
Brynn and her mom, Julie Bell, got ready for the big moment by getting a star painted on their face.
“We took the kids out of school a little bit early so they could experience it ... We live nearby, so we just figured that it'd be a great opportunity that we might not see again,” Bell said.
Shahid Malik thought the same thing. He and his wife came all the way from Houston to see the eclipse.
“We were checking the weather ... We thought that this would be a much better location to see the eclipse, which we're very excited about,” Malik said.
Malik said they traveled to Savannah, Georgia, in 2017 to watch the last solar eclipse. He said they're lucky to watch another.
“It’s kind of surreal to see it. You know, the darkness overcomes the sun and everything goes dark ... The animals stop chirping away. It's very interesting,” Malik said.
For a few minutes, while the sky went dark, it brightened up Jay Chandrasekar's day.
"It seems like we were able to see it in slow motion and it's a really great experience,” Chandrasekar said.
In all, a great day for a total eclipse of the park.
Almendarez said around 1,000 people came out. He said the ticket also counts as an entry to either Tuesday or Wednesday's baseball game, so eclipse goers got a two-for-one deal.