Colburn Park
Newark, NY
Review by Gary
Colburn Park in Newark, New York has seen baseball played here since the 1930s. Once inside the ballpark, you may wonder if anyone famous ever played on this diamond as there are no markers to indicate such. While school-aged players have enjoyed running the bases here over the decades, Colburn Park hit the big time with the arrival of the Newark Co-Pilots in 1969 as one of the first minor league teams of the expansion Seattle Pilots.
Lasting just one MLB season, the Pilots moved to Milwaukee to become the Brewers, keeping this NY-Penn League team as its affiliate. Robin Yount, Tom Kelly, Jim Gantner, Doug Jones all were Co-Pilots in the 1970s, brewing their skills for the big leagues at Colburn, which was upgraded in time for the Pilots inaugural 1969 season. Several minor league teams from different leagues called this ballpark home through the years.
In 2011, the Newark Pilots arrived as a charter member of the Perfect Game Collegiate Baseball League (PGCBL), which is based in New York State. Major improvements to Colburn Park were made in 2016 including a new scoreboard, better sound system, larger protective netting, new seats, better lighting, and a new entryway.
Seating about 2,000 people, Colburn Park offers plenty of free parking and a nice variety of seating around it. The best seats are the 8 molded chairs on a ceremonial dais right behind home plate and in front of the double-decked press box. Honored guests can also choose to adjudicate the proceedings from a pair of small, two row platforms that look for all the world like jury boxes, the likes of which have not been seen before in the nearly 400 ballparks visited by the Ballpark Brothers.
Flanking both sides of the ballpark behind each dugout are good-sized metal bleachers that include reserved individual seating in front of them that provide excellent sight lines of the entire stadium. While fans can not walk completely around Colburn Park, they do have the opportunity to spread out and enjoy the view of the setting sun beyond the outfield fence. Advertising banners hang from pole to pole on the outfield walls, seemingly from every local business in Newark.
Fans and players are afforded a good selection of ballpark food at the concession stand while a separate building offers alcoholic beverages for adults wishing to indulge or, on this night, satiate themselves while the visiting first-place Batavia Muckdogs were shooting down the cellar-dwelling Pilots, 12-3. While canoeing or sailing through the nearby Erie Canal locks, dock your vessel and check out a Newark Pilot game. It would be worth the journey.
2024
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267
So, what did this guy do to get himself assigned to stand in the parking lot and protect cars from foul balls?