What is left of the baseball stand.
What is left of the baseball stand.
Today, the field is used solely for football.
Visitors who show up for Independence High School Bulldogs football games at Emmot Field may not realize that they are on the site of one of the first night baseball games. The grounds have not been used for baseball in many years; a new grandstand is in place for football, and the old Shulthis Stadium baseball stand is in severe disrepair.
However, a plaque on the outside of the old baseball stand proclaims that the Independence Producers played a night game in the Western Association on April 28, 1930, reputedly the first ever in organized baseball. The Producers lost to Muskogee, 13-3. (Des Moines, Iowa, claims the first night game under permanent lights four days later; the Demons played most of their 1930 season under the lights. There had been numerous amateur and semi-pro games played under temporary lights going back half a century; the first recorded attempt was in Hull, Mass., in 1880.)
Sadly, given the park’s place in history, the old baseball stand is no longer maintained. Unified School District 446 has no plans to restore baseball to the site.