Centennial Field

Walking into the University of Vermont’s Centennial Field, Jul-2002.

The grandstand dates to 1922, making it among the oldest in the nation still in use.

That’s not an optical illusion. There is plenty of foul territory here.

• Location: University of Vermont, East and Colchester avenues, Burlington, Vt.
• Opened: 1906 (grandstand built 1922)
• Home team: Burlington A’s, Provincial League (1955); Vermont Reds (1984-86), Mariners (1987-88), Eastern League; Vermont Expos (1994-2005), Lake Monsters (2006-present), New York-Penn League; University of Vermont Catamounts (1906-2009)
• Capacity: 4,000

Chronological Tour: Stop 92

Rating: 3 baseballs

Original UVM seat row end from 1922.

Centennial Field, which also saw Eastern League action in the 1980s, was overhauled for the New York-Penn League’s Vermont Expos in 1994, upgrading a park that was already over 70 years old into a place worth stopping in Vermont’s largest city.

Watch for “Champ”, the Lake Monsters’ mascot. He’s named for Lake Champlain, the body of water about a mile west of the field out of which the mascot is said to have emerged just in time for the 1994 season.

Also notice the copious amount of foul territory. The park has been used as a track, among other things, so the distance from the dugout to the base line is almost as far as that from home plate to first base.

In 2009, UVM announced that it was dropping intercollegiate baseball, drawing further attention to the deteriorating conditions at Centennial Field, including substandard dugouts and clubhouses as well as a rapidly worsening playing surface. Rumors had circulated that the club might move at the end of the 2009 season, even as its owner, who runs a local trucking company, had no desire to leave Burlington. Sure enough, the Lake Monsters remain as Centennial’s main tenant.