Mercer County Waterfront Park



Mercer County Waterfront Park, Apr-2001.

A view of the seats, luxury boxes, and press box.

From behind home plate, you can see the Delaware River and on into Pennsylvania.

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Quick Facts: Rating: 4 baseballs
The London (Ont.) Tigers were relocated to Trenton, N.J., in 1994, ending a drought of over 40 years without pro baseball for the Garden State’s capital city.

Due to a rough winter, the park’s opening was delayed slightly, and the sod never exactly took that initial season, creating rainouts on evenings when the sky was clear.

That didn’t take away from an outstanding design job, however. The upper concourse is spacious, and the park looks out over the Delaware River. Numerous fly balls each season land in the drink, and several of them are even fair.

In 1999, about 400 seats were added to the park, a feat accomplished by building a few new rows in certain sections. This had the effect of reducing the amount of foul territory in the park, as well as cutting down on the number of dates on which the only tickets available were standing-room.

After spending the 1994 season as a Detroit Tigers affiliate, the club served the Boston Red Sox from 1995 to 2002. Uniform numbers retired by the Thunder include Tony Clark of the Tigers and Nomar Garciaparra of the Red Sox. For 2003, the Red Sox switched their affiliation to Portland and the New York Yankees moved their affiliation from Norwich to Trenton. To commemorate this, the batter’s eye was painted Yankee blue. For a short time, it also featured a painted Yankee Stadium façade along the top; this was in place in June 2004 but gone by August.

The Yankees abandoned Trenton for the seemingly greener pastures to the north in Bridgewater for 2021, but the Thunder will play on as members of the MLB Draft League, an amateur league featuring the top draft-eligible players from high school and college. The Draft League team will start playing in Trenton come 2022, as the continuing closure of the Canadian border due to the COVID-19 pandemic caused the Toronto Blue Jays to relocate to Buffalo, N.Y., for the 2021 season. That, in turn, brought the Bisons to Trenton, where, as part of the deal to use Waterfront Park, the team will play home games as the Trenton Thunder.

Getting to the Game

Most fans drive to the game. The park is conveniently located next to NJ 29, which is a freeway from the east (extending I-195) ending at a traffic light right at the park; another freeway section begins half a mile to the northwest. I-195 and NJ 29 funnel traffic in from both I-295 and the New Jersey Turnpike as well as from points east; the field is also reachable from US 1 (direct access to NJ 29 off the toll bridge to Pennsylvania; from the north, NJ 129 to Cass Street). As of 2016, parking is $5 in lots adjacent to the park as well as across NJ 29.

The park is about a mile and a half from the Trenton train station, served by Amtrak, NJ Transit, and SEPTA. NJ Transit’s River LINE light rail service, which runs to Camden, has a stop at Cass Street and NJ 129, half a mile from the field, but service is irregular.

Watching the Game

As of 2016, all seats are $13. Advance purchases are discounted by a dollar; there are also senior citizen and military discounts.

The Thunder provide a free roster insert at every game, and the lineups are posted on a whiteboard on the back of the press box. The club generally does a good job posting the name of the batter on the message and video boards, and the announcer is proficient.

There is no wrap-around concourse here; the outfield is taken up by a four-sign-high advertising wall except down the right-field line, where views of the Delaware River are preserved. A new, large-format video board replaced a more conventional display board in right field for 2013, but it takes up the same footprint. There are picnic areas down the lines, but no accessible grass berm.

Except for the area directly behind the press box, the game is visible from the concourse, although one might not expect to see the game while ordering food at the concession stands, as the concourse is wide enough to allow for significant foot traffic.

Enjoying the Game

As with many mid-1990s parks, a cross aisle separates the levels here. This is an occasional inconvenience to fans sitting in the front rows of the upper level, as roaming fans can walk by and impede the view.

Concession prices for staples such as hot dogs and fries are reasonable. There are also specialty stands located down either foul line, offering New Jersey-specific items such as sandwiches made with pork roll (a delicacy that originated in Trenton in the late 19th century and remains popular in the state, often called “Taylor ham” for its largest purveyor).


More photos from 2013 in this Facebook album (public, no account required)
Game Date League Level Result
143 Mon 8-Aug-1994 Eastern AA TRENTON 8, Reading 7
165 Mon 3-Jul-1995 Eastern AA Canton-Akron 6, TRENTON 5
203 Sat 20-Jul-1996 Eastern AA New Britain 8, TRENTON 1
224 Tue 27-Aug-1996 Eastern AA TRENTON 4, Harrisburg 3
278 Tue 19-Aug-1997 Eastern AA Portland 3, TRENTON 2
304 Wed 1-Jul-1998 Eastern AA Portland 7, TRENTON 6, 10 inn
355 Thu 29-Apr-1999 Eastern AA Norwich 8, TRENTON 4
395 Mon 13-Sep-1999 Eastern AA Norwich 7, TRENTON 4
402 Sat 8-Apr-2000 Eastern AA TRENTON 5, New Haven 2
456 Sun 29-Apr-2001 Eastern AA Norwich 6, TRENTON 3
516 Sun 21-Apr-2002 Eastern AA Portland 10, TRENTON 8
612 Mon 4-Aug-2003 Eastern AA TRENTON 3, Portland 2
662 Mon 21-Jun-2004 Eastern AA New Britain 3, TRENTON 2
683 Tue 3-Aug-2004 Eastern AA TRENTON 4, Binghamton 3, 1st
684 Tue 3-Aug-2004 Eastern AA Binghamton 5, TRENTON 2, 2d
738 Tue 14-Jun-2005 Eastern AA TRENTON 5, Bowie 1
790 Sat 10-Sep-2005 Eastern AA TRENTON 3, Portland 2
805 Thu 13-Apr-2006 Eastern AA Connecticut 5, TRENTON 4, 10 inn
851 Thu 7-Sep-2006 Eastern AA Portland 10, TRENTON 3
861 Fri 6-Apr-2007 Eastern AA TRENTON 4, Bowie 2
901 Thu 6-Sep-2007 Eastern AA Portland 3, TRENTON 2, 13 inn
906 Wed 12-Sep-2007 Eastern AA TRENTON 3, Akron 2
920 Thu 10-Apr-2008 Eastern AA Harrisburg 3, TRENTON 1
967 Wed 3-Sep-2008 Eastern AA TRENTON 2, Portland 1
975 Sun 14-Sep-2008 Eastern AA TRENTON 5, Akron 1
(Thunder win league championship)
985 Wed 8-Apr-2009 Eastern AA Binghamton 5, TRENTON 3
1061 Tue 27-Jul-2010 Eastern AA TRENTON 4, New Britain 3
1077 Sun 15-Aug-2010 Eastern AA TRENTON 3, Harrisburg 2
1099 Thu 9-Sep-2010 Eastern AA TRENTON 1, New Hampshire 0, 12 inn
1104 Sat 18-Sep-2010 Eastern AA Altoona 5, TRENTON 2
1136 Wed 3-Aug-2011 Eastern AA Akron 3, TRENTON 2
1180 Thu 5-Apr-2012 Eastern AA New Hampshire 5, TRENTON 3
1190 Wed 4-Jul-2012 Eastern AA New Britain 3, TRENTON 2
1241 Sat 15-Sep-2012 Eastern AA Akron 6, TRENTON 1
1261 Sun 4-Aug-2013 Eastern AA TRENTON 4, Reading 3
1291 Thu 5-Sep-2013 Eastern AA TRENTON 2, Binghamton 1
1303 Thu 3-Apr-2014 Eastern AA New Hampshire 6, TRENTON 0
1322 Sun 27-Jul-2014 Eastern AA TRENTON 7, Binghamton 3
1380 Wed 17-Jun-2015 Eastern AA TRENTON 6, Reading 5
1470 Tue 2-Aug-2016 Eastern AA TRENTON 11, Hartford 4
1490 Sat 20-Aug-2016 Eastern AA HARTFORD 3, Trenton 1
1515 Thu 8-Sep-2016 Eastern AA TRENTON 9, Reading 4
1543 Sat 15-Apr-2017 Eastern AA Portland 4, TRENTON 2
1560 Tue 4-Jul-2017 Eastern AA TRENTON 2, Reading 0
1612 Wed 13-Sep-2017 Eastern AA Altoona 4, TRENTON 2
1654 Wed 20-Jun-2018 Eastern AA TRENTON 16, Binghamton 5
1668 Wed 25-Jul-2018 Eastern AA TRENTON 9, Hartford 0
1718 Fri 7-Sep-2018 Eastern AA New Hampshire 5, TRENTON 1
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This page updated 6-May-2021