A Little Ways Up the Hill

Entrance to Municipal Stadium, Jul-2011.

A good look at the main grandstand.

Visible here is a short rise in the ground level in left field.

• Location: Eastern Parkway South, Hagerstown, Md.
• Opened: 1930 (renovated: unknown)
• Home team: Hagerstown Owls, Interstate League (1941-49); Hagerstown Braves, Interstate League (1950-52), Piedmont League (1953); Hagerstown Packets, Piedmont League (1954-55); Hagerstown Suns, Carolina League (1981-88), Eastern League (1989-92), South Atlantic League (1993-present)
• Capacity: 4,600

Chronological Tour: Stop 17

Rating: 3 baseballs

SABR founder Bob Davids (left) and other members at a 1998 game.

Fortunately, it didn’t take long for the South Atlantic League to move in and re-adopt the Suns name. That kept this little park going for a few more years. In 1998, I landed here and caught the tail end of a regional meeting of the Society for American Baseball Research, which was attended by founding member Bob Davids, among many others.

The seating areas are nothing to write home about; a section of grandstand behind home plate received new seats in the early 1990s. However, the intriguing feature is a rise in ground level near the wall in left field. Whether this was just the original lay of the land or somebody’s idea of being cute, I had no idea. Helpfully, site visitor Jamie Slavy advised me in 2008 that there is a limestone deposit in left field that was too difficult to flatten when the park was built. Slavy writes, “It’s one of the few true (not manufactured) quirks that still exist on a modern baseball playing field.”

I am not certain when the current aluminum grandstand was installed. Obviously, it is not original to the park; however, the grounds clearly date to 1930. Some of the seating in the main grandstand was replaced shortly before the 2011 season.

There is talk of building a new park here, near the crossroads of I-70 and I-81. Until that happens, Municipal Stadium fills the bill quite ably.