World War Memorial Stadium

From Freepedia

For other stadiums known as War Memorial Stadium, see War Memorial Stadium.

World War Memorial Stadium, more commonly known as War Memorial Stadium, is the name of a former minor league baseball park in Greensboro, North Carolina. It is situated on the northeast corner of Lindsay and Yanceyville, northeast of the downtown area and near the campus of North Carolina A&T University.

It was dedicated on the 8th anniversary of Armistice Day, on November 11, 1926. It was originally built mostly with football in mind, resembling a backwards "J" and with a running track. In 1930 the Greensboro "Patriots" of the old Piedmont League set up shop there, after a few decades at Cone Athletic Park, and made various improvements such as the installation of lights and a roof for the box seat area.

The field was initially laid out with the diamond centered on the curved part of the "J", with short foul lines and a deep center field, like a very-scaled-down version of the Polo Grounds. Later the diamond was rotated and repositioned, and the field assumed a fairly normal shape except for right center, which was abnormally close due to the presence of a creek and the absence of sufficient incentive to "move" that creek.

The ballpark was given a number of renovations during the minor league explosion of the 1990s, resulting in a pleasant and charmingly quirky place to watch a game. In addition to the minor league team, later renamed the "Hornets" and then the "Bats", the field has been home to area college teams and has hosted many other games over the years. Thus it has gotten a great deal of use in its 8 decades of existence, and the turf has tended to take a serious beating, needing complete replacement from time to time.

One of the stadium's notable features is an ornate, triple-arched entrance, which made a cameo appearance during the "road trip" segment of the 1988 movie Bull Durham.

Being a memorial to the first (and what was vainly hoped would be the only) World War, the stadium has a pair of bronze plaques framing the archway and listing the area's war dead. Close examination of the right-side plaque reveals that there were actually two alphabetical lists: the white men first, then the black. Originally the second list had a marker above it that presumably read "colored" or some such, in the conventional apartheid practice of that era. That marker was later roughly chiseled away, as a degree of social conscience arose, but the lists remained visibly separate, serving as a subliminal reminder of a part of American history that is thankfully gone.

After at least a decade and a half of pushing for a new ballpark, the club owners finally gotten their wish, and the new First Horizon Park opened just north of the downtown in the spring of 2005.

So, the minor league ball club is also now "gone" from the old stadium. But A&T and Greensboro College continue to call the stadium "home", and hopefully this Grand Old Southern Lady will continue to grace its neighborhood for years to come.

Dimensions

After the field was rotated...

• Left Field - 327 ft.
• Left Center Field - 387 ft.
• Center Field - 401 ft.
• Right Center Field - 337 ft. (later re-posted as 350, but 337 was probably closer)
• Right Field - 327 ft.

External links

• A fan site with several photos
• Further info
• USGS aerial photo showing World War Memorial Stadium and Aggie Stadium
• Stadium Views - Ball Parks of the Minor Leagues