Doubleday Field

This article is about the stadium in Cooperstown. For the home stadium of Army Black Knights baseball, see Johnson Stadium at Doubleday Field. For the home field of the Auburn Doubledays, see Falcon Park.
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

DateWinning TeamScoreLosing TeamScoreNotes
June 13, 1940Chicago Cubs10Boston Red Sox97 innings-rain
June 13, 1941Cleveland Indians 2Cincinnati Reds16 innings-rain
August 3, 1942St. Louis Cardinals5Philadelphia Athletics2
July 19, 1943Brooklyn Dodgers7Chicago White Sox5
July 10, 1944Detroit Tigers vs. New York Giants, canceled-rain
1945canceled-war restrictions
June 13, 1946New York Giants9Detroit Tigers5
July 21, 1947Boston Braves4New York Yankees310 innings
July 12, 1948St. Louis Browns7Philadelphia Phillies5
June 13, 1949Washington Senators8Pittsburgh Pirates7
July 24, 1950Boston Red Sox8New York Giants5
July 23, 1951Brooklyn Dodgers9Philadelphia Athletics4
July 21, 1952Cleveland Indians4Chicago Cubs2
July 27, 1953Cincinnati Reds16Chicago White Sox6
August 9, 1954New York Yankees10Cincinnati Reds9
July 25, 1955Boston Red Sox4Milwaukee Braves2
July 23, 1956New York Giants11Detroit Tigers1012 innings
July 22, 1957Chicago White Sox13St. Louis Cardinals4
August 4, 1958Washington Senators5Philadelphia Phillies4
July 20, 1959Kansas City Athletics5Pittsburgh Pirates56 innings-rain (tie game)
June 27, 1960Chicago Cubs5Cleveland Indians0
July 24, 1961Los Angeles Dodgers6Baltimore Orioles2
July 23, 1962Milwaukee Braves vs. New York Yankees, cancelled-rain
August 5, 1963Boston Red Sox7Milwaukee Braves3
July 27, 1964Washington Senators6New York Mets4
July 26, 1965New York Yankees7Philadelphia Phillies4
July 25, 1966St. Louis Cardinals7Minnesota Twins5
July 24, 1967Baltimore Orioles3Cincinnati Reds0
July 22, 1968Detroit Tigers10Pittsburgh Pirates1
July 28, 1969Minnesota Twins7Houston Astros25 innings-rain
July 27, 1970Montreal Expos10Chicago White Sox6
August 9, 1971Cleveland Indians13Chicago Cubs5
August 7, 1972New York Yankees8Los Angeles Dodgers3
August 6, 1973Texas Rangers6Pittsburgh Pirates4
August 12, 1974Atlanta Braves12Chicago White Sox9
August 18, 1975Boston Red Sox11San Francisco Giants5
August 9, 1976Milwaukee Brewers9New York Mets3
August 8, 1977Minnesota Twins8Philadelphia Phillies5
August 7, 1978Detroit Tigers4New York Mets46½ innings-rain (tie game)
August 6, 1979Texas Rangers12San Diego Padres5
August 4, 1980Pittsburgh Pirates11Chicago White Sox8
August 3, 1981Cincinnati Reds vs. Oakland Athletics, canceled-players' strike (New York–Penn League game between Elmira Pioneers and Oneonta Yankees played instead)
August 2, 1982Chicago White Sox4New York Mets48 innings-rain (tie game)
August 1, 1983St. Louis Cardinals4Baltimore Orioles1
August 13, 1984Detroit Tigers7Atlanta Braves5
July 29, 1985Houston Astros5Boston Red Sox310 innings
August 4, 1986Texas Rangers11Kansas City Royals4
July 27, 1987New York Yankees3Atlanta Braves0
August 1, 1988Chicago Cubs1Cleveland Indians19 innings (tie game)
July 24, 1989Boston Red Sox vs. Cincinnati Reds, canceled-plane malfunction; Red Sox played intra-squad game
August 6, 1990Baltimore Orioles vs. Montreal Expos, canceled-rain
July 22, 1991Minnesota Twins6San Francisco Giants4
August 3, 1992New York Mets3Chicago White Sox0
August 2, 1993Cleveland Indians vs. Los Angeles Dodgers, canceled-rain
August 1, 1994Seattle Mariners4Philadelphia Phillies3
July 31, 1995Chicago Cubs8Detroit Tigers6
August 5, 1996California Angels6Montreal Expos69 innings (tie game)
August 4, 1997Los Angeles Dodgers16San Diego Padres8
July 27, 1998Baltimore Orioles7Toronto Blue Jays1
July 26, 1999Texas Rangers11Kansas City Royals98 innings-rain
July 24, 2000Arizona Diamondbacks12Cleveland Indians7
August 6, 2001Milwaukee Brewers6Florida Marlins2
July 29, 2002Colorado Rockies18Chicago White Sox10
June 16, 2003Philadelphia Phillies7Tampa Bay Devil Rays5With this game, every MLB club has participated
June 14, 2004Atlanta Braves10Minnesota Twins7
May 23, 2005Detroit Tigers6Boston Red Sox4
May 15, 2006Cincinnati Reds vs. Pittsburgh Pirates, canceled after 2½ innings-rain
May 21, 2007Baltimore Orioles13Toronto Blue Jays7
June 16, 2008Chicago Cubs vs. San Diego Padres, canceled-rain

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

  1. ↑ "12 WPA Projects that Still Exist". How Stuff Works. Publications International, Ltd. Retrieved 2009-03-11.
  2. ↑ "Cooperstown Connection: Doubleday Field, A Diamond in the Pasture". Archived from the original on 2005-09-06. Retrieved 2012-05-07.
  3. ↑ https://web.archive.org/20080202075649/http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com:80/2008/baseball/mlb/wires/01/29/2010.ap.bbo.hall.of.fame.game.0131/. Archived from the original on February 2, 2008. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  4. ↑ Kekis, John (2008-06-18). "Final Hall of Fame Game canceled by rain". Yahoo! Sports. Associated Press. Retrieved 2008-06-16.
  5. ↑ O'Connell, Jack (2008-11-17). "New Hall tradition to feature legends". MLB.com. Retrieved 2009-04-01.

External links

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

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