Another endangered ballpark bites the dust, as McCoy Stadium, the former home of the Pawtucket Red Sox (Triple-A; International League), is undergoing a demolition that should be complete next month.
After demolition, the site will house a new high school combining two older high schools.
The PawSox moved to Worcester to take up residence at Polar Park beginning in 2021. McCoy Stadium was considered as a potential independent-baseball home, as billionaire real-estate developer Stefan Soloviev looked at buying the ballpark, but local officials stuck with a plan to raze the ballpark and replace it with a learning facility. Jeff Goldberg wrote an in-depth history of the ballpark, which opened in 1942 as home of the Class B Pawtucket Slaters. The team was not a hit, leaving Pawtucket after the 1949 season, and was unused by pro baseball until 1966, when the Double-A affiliate of the Cleveland Indians called McCoy home for two years before moving to Waterbury, CT.
The Boston link returned in 1970, when the Pawtucket Red Sox entered the Eastern League as a Double-A franchise, moving to Triple-A status in 1973. From our McCoy Stadium at 75 story:
But for all the on-field success and budding talent the PawSox were able to cobble together in the mid-1970s, the team struggled financially and two separate owners threatened to move the franchise (one to New Jersey, the other to Massachusetts) before Ben Mondor purchased the club in 1977 and forever changed the fortunes of the franchise.
Under Mondor’s leadership, McCoy underwent a major renovation in 1999, increasing seating capacity from its original 6,000 to over 10,000. Among the improvements was the addition of a berm in left field that allowed fans a close-up view, as well as luxury boxes.
The first season after the renovations, in 1999, the PawSox averaged 8,286 – the team barely averaged more than 1,000 in Mondor’s first year owning the team in. Their attendance figures peaked in 2005, the year after the Boston Red Sox won their first World Series title in 86 years, with 688,421.
There were plenty of great moments at McCoy Stadium, including the longest game in professional baseball history, when Pawtucket and the Rochester Red Wings played to a draw before the PawSox finally prevailed 3-2 in 33 innings.
We visited in 2009; here’s our story.
But after Mondor’s passing in 2010 and the team’s lease ending in 2020, the writing was on the wall for a team move. Trading McCoy Stadium for Polar Park was certainly a good move for the Red Sox and Worcester has proven to be a success both in terms of fan engagement and economic development. But the soul of the game is a little diminished with the loss of a classic and historic venue like McCoy Stadium.
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