Baxter Stadium

The ticket window at Baxter Stadium, Aug-1997.

Crowds weren’t usually much of a problem here.

That's mainly because the park is in the middle of nowhere.

• Location: 6½ miles north of NY 17, Mountaindale, N.Y.
• Opened: 1995
• Home team: Sullivan County Mountain Lions, Northeast League (1995); Catskill Cougars, North Atlantic League (1996), Northeast League (1997-98, 2000)
• Capacity: Unknown

Chronological Tour: Stop 111

Rating: 1 baseball

Team ownership believed it could make money by bringing in groups from the many summer camps in the area. This led to one of the oddest phenomena I’ve ever observed at a ball game: an attempt to rally the home team by singing “Hava Nagila”.

Despite an entertaining mascot and the usual allure of the minors, most people found the park too difficult to get to, driving four miles up a dimly-lit road from old NY 17. The Cougars gave up the ghost after the 1998 season, and were replaced in the league by les Capitales de Québec. However, for 2000, with the demise of the Massachusetts Mad Dogs, the Cougars were resurrected for a season.