OT: Minor League Parks

[Butch7999]

Here enjoying the little anecdotes and vignettes about some of the stadiums even more than we're being impressed
by some of the lengthy lists of stadiums visited. Embarrassing, then, to have such a short list of our own to offer, but
we'll bet we have one or two to which no one else on board can lay claim...

Buffalo NY
Civic Stadium / War Memorial Stadium
All-High Stadium
Pilot Field / Dunn Tire Park / NorthAmericare Park / Coca-Cola Field / Sahlen Field

Niagara Falls NY
Hyde Park Stadium

Allentown PA
Coca-Cola Park

The ballfield at War Memorial -- "The Rockpile" -- was laid out inside a football stadium, so it was about 500 feet
down the leftfield line, 600 to center, and maybe 95 feet to the rightfield foul pole.
The Bisons played night games in Niagara Falls after the East Side riot of 1967 because middle-class white folks
became too scared to go to that part of town. Ironically, a couple of us wound up living for many years within
walking distance of War Memorial about twenty years later.
We remember Hyde Park as being basically a high-school ballpark with poor lighting and lots of chain-link fence.
We might be mistaken about All-High, but we all have a fuzzy recollection of attending when the Bisons played
exactly one game there in the late '60s.
Pilot Field ... > Sahlen Field has been a top-notch facility since the day it was built, the inspiration for Camden Field
and all the other retro-style MLB stadia ever since, and a key element in Buffalo's downtown revival.

We've been at (but not inside) Exhibition Stadium in Toronto, so the only "out-of-town" park at which we've actually
attended a game is the Allentown facility. Small but very nice, great atmosphere, great fans.

[jerseygary]

Louisville Slugger Field in Louisville, KY is a great ballpark to visit. To sweeten the pot, on September 2 the Louisville Bats are doing their Negro League tribute and are giving away a special baseball card I did of Louisville native and Negro Leaguer star third baseman/manager Felton Snow. Here's a pre-production look at the card (I still have to add the logos of the sponsors):

snow_actual_size.jpg

[tedzan]

1949....Ruppert Stadium....Newark Bears
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1995....Trenton Thunder


2002....Reading Phillies


TED Z

T206 Reference
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