Eldredge Park named top park by Baseball America!
Eldredge Park, home of the defending Cape Cod Baseball League champion
Orleans Cardinals, has been recognized as the top summer collegiate
baseball league park by Baseball America, one of the top baseball publications
in the country.
Awhile back, San Diego civic leader George Mitrovich came to the Cape to
attend
a testimonial dinner. He also spent some time watching Cape League
baseball, and
he later wrote about the league in a Boston Globe article published August
17,
1998: "Some teams play in ballparks with lights, some without. Some play in
forgettable surroundings, and some, like the Cardinals in Orleans, play in
a sylvan
setting so transcendently beautiful one's breath is swept away." We
couldn't agree
more. But it wasn't always like that.
Around the turn of the century, the town team played on a field called Bay
View
Park, which was located on Town Cove (across Route 28 from the Fog Cutter).
About that same time, a local gentleman named Lewis Winslow "Win" Eldredge
(1861-1944) was working and investing toward his goal of providing a bigger
and
better field. Over the years, he acquired about 250 acres of the central
Orleans
area. In 1913, he donated the 10-acre parcel which now bears his name to
the town
"in consideration of my affection for and my interest in the young people of
Orleans and my desire to provide a playground for them."
For many years, home plate was located where the left field foul pole is
today, and
the field needed a great deal of work. And then another extraordinary
gentleman,
the late Charles F. Moore, Jr., took matters in hand and, together with
other
volunteers, raised the funds for capital improvements which included
reconfiguring the field's layout and installing lights in the late 1970's.
The dugouts
were enlarged, a scoreboard was installed, and the music shell, tennis
courts and a
playground were added. Phil Bergson built the Bird's Nest, Fred Perreault
terraced
the hillside to accommodate fans more comfortably, and the result is what
Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Joe Parillo called "a Norman Rockwell
painting
come to life."
Thanks to the efforts of Paul Fulcher and his crew, the park is maintained
in a way
that would make Win Eldredge proud. A new playground has been installed, and
new lights will provide greater safety for the players and more enjoyment
for the
spectators. And for you purists, here are the field's dimensions: left
field line,
300'; left center, 350'; center, 434'; right center, 359'; and right field
line, 312'.
©2000 Orleans Cardinals, page created 6/18/2000
