Review by Mike
Rodriguez Park
Las Vegas, NM
Rodriguez Park in Las Vegas, New Mexico served as the home of the Las Vegas Train Robbers of the Pecos League for two seasons in 2013 and 2014. It is truly hard to imagine that this facility hosted professional baseball. It is little more than a ballfield in a public park with lights and a couple of small grandstands.
There is no cover from the sun... in New Mexico. Even night games would be toasty before the sun fully set. The dugouts are... not. Not dugout, that is, standing at field level without a lot of protection from foul balls for the players. There are no obvious concessions, although food trucks may have served this purpose. Since I never saw a game there, I cannot say.
There is a small structure behind home plate that must be the "press box" and likely where the scoreboard controls were operated. This is true ballpark minimalism, but the team did manage to survive two seasons. The Pecos League is generally played in older facilities that no longer meet the standards of even the lowest affiliated ball, but this is extreme.
Sadly, the "stadium" was in sorry shape when I visited in 2018. The grass was encroaching on the diamond, the batter's eye was torn and tattered and I would be surprised if the scoreboard was capable of producing any intelligible information. The backstop and grandstands, however, seem solid and capable of safely holding a crowd.
I quite liked the town of Las Vegas, New Mexico, which has a lovely town square, a nice train station and some good looking restaurants. I'd be surprised if it ever hosts professional baseball again, though. As for Rodriguez Park, it is on par with Fleming Field in Yonkers as the worst professional venue I've ever seen, but I do wish I'd seen a game there in order to know what that was like. I loved my visit to Fleming Field, so maybe Las Vegas also knew how to put on a show worthy of the name of their town.
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2018
138
