ball field vs athletic field

ball field and athletic field both are nouns.

Word	Noun	Adjective	Verb	Adverb
ball field	Yes	No	No	No
athletic field	Yes	No	No	No

As nouns, athletic field is a hypernym of ball field; that is, athletic field is a word with a broader meaning than ball field:

Other hypernyms of ball field include field, playing area, playing field.

ball field (noun)	athletic field (noun)
the baseball playing field	a piece of land prepared for playing a game