Parkway Field

Parkway Field is the name of a minor league baseball and college baseball park that stood in Louisville, Kentucky. It was home to the Louisville Colonels of the American Association from 1923 into the mid-1950s, the Louisville Buckeyes of the Negro American League in 1949, and then of the University of Louisville team for several decades until they abandoned it in 1998 and moved to Cardinal Stadium. Prior to its demolition, Parkway Field had become a home run haven for U of L Head Coach Gene Baker's "Over the Wall Gang." The Cards led NCAA Division I in long balls in 1991 and 1992 while finishing runnerup in 1995. The 1991 squad featured six Cardinals who tallied at least 15 roundtrippers each, Richie Hawks, Rob Newman, Greg Gooding, Dan Kopriva, Charlie Allen, and Darren Oppel. The 1992 club also topped the nation in team batting average and team slugging percentage.

Dimensions

In the Louisville Courier-Journal of August 16, 1936, p.41, the dimensions were given as follows: home plate to left field 331 feet (101 m); center field 512 feet (156 m); right field 350 feet (110 m); backstop 60 feet (18 m). Later, signs were posted on the fences, stating left field 329, center 507, right 345. The Louisville Courier-Journal of June 10, 1944, p.13, reported that the ballpark had been re-surveyed, and that centerfield (whose wall had been moved inward a few years earlier) was "only" 485 feet (148 m) from home plate; the foul line distances of 329 and 345 were confirmed.

Remnants

The ballpark site is south of Eastern Parkway and west of Brook Street, near the university campus. The field itself remains, and is still used for intramural football and soccer at the university. The stadium seating has long since been demolished. In the early 2000s there were still some visible remnants of the ballfield, including the poorly kept diamond, backstop, dugouts and outfield walls. Those have since been removed, leaving just a chain-link fenced, rectangular football/soccer field.

See also

References
  • Ballparks of North America, by Michael Benson.

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