Doubleday Field

Doubleday Field

Location	Cooperstown, New York
Capacity	9,791
Field size	Left field: 296ft Left-center field: 336ft Center field: 390ft Right-center field: 350ft Right field: 312ft
Surface	Grass
Construction
Opened	1920
Expanded	1924, 1939
Tenants
MLB Hall of Fame game Cooperstown Hawkeyes (2010–present)

Doubleday Field is a baseball stadium in Cooperstown, New York named for Abner Doubleday and located two village blocks from the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.

The grounds have been used for baseball since 1920, on what was Elihu Phinney's farm. A wooden grandstand was built in 1924, later replaced by a steel and concrete grandstand built in 1939 by the Works Project Administration.^[1] Subsequent expansion has increased seating capacity to 9,791 spectators.^[2]

Hall of Fame Game

Doubleday Field, view from behind home plate.

Each year from 1940 to 2008, Doubleday Field hosted the Hall of Fame Game. Originally a contest between "old-timers" teams, it later became an exhibition game between two major league squads. Traditionally, the game was held during the annual induction weekend of the nearby Baseball Hall of Fame, but in later years it was scheduled in May or June, to accommodate the participating teams' travel schedules.

As MLB's last remaining in-season exhibition game, its results did not count in the official standings, and substitute players were generally used to avoid injury to starters. The curiosity factor of two teams from different leagues playing each other in this game outside of a World Series or spring training situation was eventually removed in 1997 with the launch of interleague play, further reducing the game's cachet.

On January 29, 2008, Major League Baseball announced that the final Hall of Fame Game would be played on June 16, 2008 between the Chicago Cubs and San Diego Padres, citing "the inherent challenges" of scheduling teams in the modern day as the reason for ending the annual contest.^[3] However, the contest was canceled on account of rain.^[4]

Results

Hall of Fame Classic

In November 2008, the Hall of Fame and the MLB Players Alumni Association announced the creation of the Hall of Fame Classic, an exhibition game involving Hall of Famers and other retired MLB players to be played on Father's Day weekend, and in recent years on the Saturday before Memorial Day. The inaugural Hall of Fame Classic was played on Sunday, June 21, 2009.^[5]

Cooperstown Classic

The Cooperstown Classic was an International League regular season game played in honor of the 125th anniversary of the league in 2008. The game was held on a Sunday afternoon in may between the Rochester Red Wings and the Syracuse Chiefs. The game was the third of a four-game series in which the Chiefs were the home team. The crowd for the game was very respectable and Major League Hall of Fame member Carlton Fisk threw out the first pitch. The game was postponed after the second inning after a rain delay in which Syracuse lead 1-0 and went on to win the following day in its completion at Alliance Bank Stadium. In an attempt to give the fans another game, the Cooperstown Classic Two was played on a Sunday in June 2009. This game was played between the Pawtucket Red Sox and the home team Syracuse Chiefs. The game was played in full with the Red Sox winning 15-3. This game was not played after that but many have expressed interest in it after the demise of the MLB Hall Of Fame Game in 2008.

Other uses

Doubleday Field is used primarily for amateur and American Legion ball; The Legends of Baseball rents out Doubleday for three weeks over the summer. The Cooperstown Hawkeyes of the Perfect Game Collegiate Baseball League use the field during the summer, while Play at the Plate Baseball also has an annual event at Doubleday Field every September.

No professional team has ever called the stadium home, although in 1996 the Northeast League considered placing a franchise in Cooperstown; this idea was rejected because Doubleday Field has no lights, a necessity for a team in a pro league. Also, some felt that Cooperstown should be the home of all baseball, and not just one team. However, the New York–Penn League has played an annual regular-season game at Doubleday Field since 1991, with the team based in nearby Oneonta serving as the home team through 2009. (The team was known as the Oneonta Yankees until 1999, when they switched affiliations to become the Oneonta Tigers in 1999. The franchise moved to Connecticut in 2010, but has continued to host the Cooperstown game.)

References

External links

• http://www.playattheplate.org
• Legends of Baseball
• Doubleday Field, A Diamond in the Pasture, explains how Elihu Phinney's farm became the famous ball park.
• Ball Parks of the Minor Leagues: Doubleday Field
• Rochester Area Ballparks: Doubleday Field
• Project Ballpark: Doubleday Field
• Baseball Hall of Fame: Rain washes away final Hall of Fame Game

Coordinates: 42°41′57.4″N 74°55′36″W / 42.699278°N 74.92667°W / 42.699278; -74.92667