Play Ball!

NEW FUNDING BREATHES LIFE BACK INTO PITTSFIELD’S WAHCONAH PARK

By Chip Blake
Photos By Jimmy ienner, Jr.

From the pages of our Spring 2023 Issue.

Historical Photos Courtesy Baseball in the Berkshires Museum

There’s nothing like being at a baseball game—the green field with its crisp white foul lines, the crack of the bat, the slap of the ball on leather, the smell of hot dogs, and the voice of the public address announcer booming through the summer air: “The next batter is….!”

For over a hundred years, Pittsfield’s Wahconah Park has offered that very experience to hundreds of thousands of people who have attended games there—as well as the many players who have taken the field. This historic stadium, built in 1919, is among the Berkshires’ most unique and notable features.

Owned by the city of Pittsfield and managed as part of Pittsfield’s park system, Wahconah Park is not only historic, it is one of the oldest baseball stadiums in America. It is also one of the last remaining ballparks to have a wooden grandstand, which was added to the National

Register of Historic Places in 2005. Seating up to 4,500 people, the park sits directly next to the Housatonic River. Enormous, stately cottonwood trees lie just beyond the outfield fence, giving the ballpark a country ambiance that belies the fact that it is in downtown Pittsfield.

Pittsfield Electrics team circa 1914 at Wahconah Park. They were a minor league team that played in the Class “B” Eastern League.

Wahconah Park is key not just to the Berkshires. “Wahconah Park is one of the anchors of downtown Pittsfield,” says Pittsfield Mayor Linda Tyer. “The corridor that runs from there to the Colonial Theater is the heart of our city.”

Baseball historians are apt to point out that Wahconah is one of only two baseball parks in the United States that faces west. The field was sited in 1892, long before anyone imagined that baseball would be played at any time other than the middle of the day. As a result, late-afternoon and evening games are sometimes interrupted by an umpire’s decision to impose a 20-minute “sun delay” so that the setting sun will not interfere with the batter’s view of the pitch.

Along with baseball games, plenty of other events have taken place at Wahconah over the years, including parades, concerts (among them Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson), circuses, football games, and wrestling and boxing matches. (Sugar Ray Robinson boxed there in 1964.)

A Wahconah Park scene in 1965 when the Pittsfield Red Sox were the current tenants in the historic ballpark. The team was Class “AA” League champions that year.

Regrettably, the stadium has fallen into disrepair. For decades, Pittsfield lacked the funds to keep up with repairs, and in recent years the situation has become dire. The historic wooden grandstands were closed before the 2022 baseball season due to deteriorating support structures; temporary metal stands that seat about 500 people were used last season. Furthermore, the lack of funds has stood in the way of improvements that would make the park more accessible to persons with disabilities.

Hope is on the horizon, though. U.S. Rep. Richard Neal (D-Springfield) pursued and secured $3 million for improvements to the ballpark as part of the federal Community Project Funding spending bill approved by Congress and signed into law by President Joe Biden in December 2022. “Wahconah Park is a cherished landmark in Berkshire County,” says Neal. “Countless memories have been made at this ballpark, and this funding will help facilitate the necessary improvements to ensure its sustainability for many years to come.”

Wahconah Park’s origin goes back to 1892. Its ownership was taken over by the city of Pittsfield in 1919. (Photo from the Berkshire Eagle Collection courtesy Baseball in the Berkshires Museum.)

In January 2023, the Wahconah Park Restoration Committee, overseen by the Pittsfield City Council, began deliberating on whether the grandstand should be repaired or replaced. In addition to the work on the grandstands, the new funds will also allow for improvements to the stadium’s concession areas, restrooms, the players’ clubhouses (described by someone I met at the stadium as “barely larger than a walk-in closet”), and up-to-date accessibility for the disabled.

The committee also will consider ways in which the stadium can be improved to make it usable for events other than baseball games. More events will mean more revenue, and more revenue will help the city keep up with the stadium’s ongoing maintenance costs. “Wahconah Park is not just limited to baseball,” says James McGrath, manager of Pittsfield’s Park and Open Space program. “Its breadth of uses demonstrates its ability to remain a part of the fabric of the city.”

Still, the heart of Wahconah Park lies in baseball. It has been home to many different teams over the years, including ones with colorful names such as the Pittsfield Electrics, the Berkshire Black Bears, the Massachusetts Mad Dogs, the Pittsfield Dukes, the Pittsfield American Defenders, the Berkshire Brewers, and the Pittsfield Colonials. Some of these teams were Minor League affiliates of Major League teams (including the Boston Red Sox, Houston Astros, and New York Mets). Others were members of independent baseball leagues not affiliated with Major League teams but that still served as training grounds for players who were striving to make the big leagues.

And there are plenty of players who played or managed at Wahconah who have in fact gone on to the majors—over 200 of them. Players and managers who have taken the field at Wahconah include Connie Mack, Jim Thorpe, Satchel Paige, Casey Stengel, Robin Roberts, Carlton Fisk, Mike Schmidt, Ken Griffey Sr., and Greg Maddux. Perhaps the most famous player to play at Wahconah was Lou Gehrig, who hit a towering home run into the Housatonic River in 1924, just a few weeks before he was promoted to the New York Yankees.

Since 2012, the resident team at Wahconah Park has been the Pittsfield Suns. The Suns are part of the Future Collegiate Baseball League, which provides opportunities for collegiate athletes who join the league to gain experience and exposure to Major League baseball scouts. Future Collegiate Baseball League rules require that some of the players on each team have a local connection, which means there are always at least a few players on the Suns who hail from Pittsfield or elsewhere in the Berkshires.

Frequent visitors to Wahconah Park in 1921 were the Hartford Senators Baseball Team—one of the Pittsfield Hillies opponents in the Class “A” Eastern League. Pictured in the bottom row, fourth from the left, is Lou Gehrig.

The 1913 Pittsfield Electrics, named after General Electric, which bought out the Stanley Electric Company.

“Playing here is important to the players’ future,” says the Suns general manager Sander Stotland. “But because of Wahconah’s history, it also teaches them baseball history and makes them feel like they are part of baseball history.”

The same can be said for the fans who come to games here. Whatever the team, whoever the players, an evening at Wahconah Park is a chance for you to be part of baseball history, too—or at least to sit outside on a warm summer evening and have a hot dog and a cold drink.

The Suns will play a 63-game schedule this year that begins May 24 and runs through August 6. The $5 tickets are available at pittsfieldsuns.com or at the Wahconah Park box office, located at 105 Wahconah St., Pittsfield.

A Short History of Baseball in the Berkshires

Wahconah Park may be the most famous piece of baseball’s history in the Berkshires, but it is far from being the only piece.

Author and baseball historian Kevin Larkin, above, spearheaded an effort to get a permanent plaque at the former Keresey Field in West Stockbridge, home of the Troy’s Garage Baseball Team. The plaque is in an open meadow that is part of the Flat Brook Wildlife Management Area. In addition to playing other regional teams, Troy’s Garagemen hosted games against four Major League Baseball teams from 1934 to 1941

According to Kevin Larkin, an authority on Berkshire baseball, the first baseball game in the Berkshires was played in Pittsfield in 1791, near what is now Park Square. Due to a number of broken windows suffered by the city’s brand-new meeting house, that game quickly led to an ordinance that banned “games with balls within the distance of eighty yards from said meeting house,” with violators subject to a five-shilling fine.

By the 1880s, the Berkshires were awash in amateur and semi-professional baseball teams, playing on fields throughout the county. A particularly noteworthy rivalry existed between the Renfrews of Adams, sponsored by the Renfrew textile mill in Adams, and The Stanleys, a Pittsfield team backed by the Stanley Electric Manufacturing Company, later to become General Electric.

In 1892, Pittsfield contractor George W. Burbank donated eight acres of land he owned on Wahconah Street to create a larger field that would serve as a center for all of the Berkshire’s baseball activity. In 1919, that field was developed into Wahconah Park.

Through the early 20th century, baseball fields continued to spring up throughout the Berkshires, among them Recreation Park in Stockbridge, Olympian Meadows in Great Barrington, and Weston Field in Williamstown. West Stockbridge’s Keresey Field hosted the Troy’s Garage Baseball Team and was the site of several Major League games between 1934 and 1941. In July 2022, a plaque was placed at the site of the former field. And at the West Stockbridge Historical Society from April 20 to 23, the Baseball in the Berkshires Museum will hold an exhibition entitled Hitting to All Fields in West Stockbridge. (Check baseballinberkshires.org for details on that and other exhibitions planned through the summer.)

1934

There is also a history of Black and Cuban baseball teams that played in the Berkshires between the 1890s and the 1930s. These leagues gave Black and Cuban players an opportunity to play organized baseball before they were accepted in the major leagues.

At least 38 players born in Berkshire County have played in the major leagues, including two who were inducted to the Baseball Hall of Fame: Pittsfield’s Frank Grant, who played in the early Negro leagues in the late 19th century, and North Adams’ Jack Chesbro, whose 41 wins in 1904 still stands as the record for wins in one year by a pitcher. Other Berkshire natives who have had significant Major League careers include Mark Belanger (from Lanesborough), Jeff Reardon (from Dalton), and Turk Wendell (also from Dalton).