Meritus Park
Hagerstown, MD
Review by Gary
Professional baseball returned to Hagerstown, Maryland, with the arrival of the Hagerstown Flying Boxcars of the Atlantic League. The team’s moniker honors Hagerstown's aviation history. Flying Boxcar is the nickname of Fairchild Aircraft's production of C-119 cargo planes in the 1950s.
The “hangar” where the Boxcars play is the newly constructed Meritus Park, shoe-horned right into the downtown area. The stadium is a welcome improvement over Municipal Stadium, which hosted the town’s pro teams off and on from 1931 to 2021, when the Hagerstown Suns were assimilated by MLB. The Suns’ home was demolished in 2022 and its footprint is a mere five-minute drive from this new venue.
The location of Meritus Park is "part of a revitalization project" for the downtown area whose only other sign of new construction is that of a nearby, not-yet-finished parking garage. Judging by the number of buildings in different stages of dereliction, it may be some time before this rebirth is fully imagined. Thankfully, parking was found several blocks away after orbiting the city streets. Directional Boxcars stickers on the sidewalks marked a path leading to the ballpark. Fans can enter the stadium at three spots, home plate, left field, or via the main box office in centerfield, which is cleverly shaped like home plate when seen from above.
Seating options abound, with assigned seats available no more than 11 rows from field. Metal chairs can be found beyond the double-decked bullpens while party decks with picnic benches, high-top stools with tables, and plush chairs and couches are available down both base lines and behind the centerfield fence. Rabid fans wanting to be right on top of the action can invest in the priciest of seats which feature about 40 high-backed cushioned chairs at field-level right behind home plate.
A modest suite level provided a nice refuge from the rain on this Education Day that included disinterested school kids making up the majority of the 1,800 people in attendance. Once the future voters departed, Meritus Park was occupied by only the most dedicated of fans as the visiting Staten Island Ferry Hawks would ground the Flying Boxcars, 13-3.
Missing from the décor of Meritus Park was any marker heralding the history of baseball in the area, which dates to the Civil War, and in the city specifically, starting with the 1915 Hagerstown Blues. A memorial to the actual aircraft the team is named after would also be a fitting addition. Perhaps these niceties may arrive in the future as Meritus Park matures and can reflect on this history.
2024
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