If We Build It, They Will Come: Berwind Park (Part 1)
A ballpark over one hundred years old, still haunted by the memories of former players. How many men have stepped up to home plate in all the past century?
Today, we separate our lives into compartments or boxes, work life, spiritual life and leisure life. However, The Rookie, a 2002 movie starring Dennis Quaid, speaks to me and proves this wrong. rookieIt is all connected, and it is never too late to chase your dream. Therefore, I pick up my pen and listen to the voices of the past and present. Here is another story that could surely birth a series of stories. That movie is one of my favorites along with The Sandlot, and A League of their Own.
I published a previous article about early baseball in St Mary’s, merely a recap of my TikTok video. I think I can do a much better job of honoring these long dead players and local landmarks here. Baseball in St Marys can be traced back to a benedictine monk and a bunch of farm boys playing in the St Marys Catholic Church wagon parking place in 1866.
This leads to a much larger question. Why study local sports history in the first place? Baseball and Football are in the background of the American historical experience. During the civil war, both the Union and Confederate boys were playing both football and baseball between battles. In WW1, there were occasional baseball games, when there was no shelling or the need to hide in the trenches.
Recently in the 1990s, at the MFO in the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt, US army men were still playing baseball between their peacetime duties, with a glove in one hand and a beer in the other. How do I know this? A man named Gausman who served our country overseas was one of the players. He was in the army. He still lives in St. Mary’s.
Have you ever watched a high school football game? In my imagination, I see knights lined up on the field, preparing to conquer the other team for the next three hours. You can hear the battle cries of the crowd behind you. If you watch the boys during warm up and listen to their boisterous voices in the locker room, you know in those moments they are warriors preparing to do battle. Berwind was once the home of Dutchmen football before Dutch Country Stadium was built. Another great story for another time. There is a link to a St Marys Flying Dutchman Football video I made earlier below the present photograph of the latest Flying Dutchmen baseball team.
At the time Dr Black and a few other leaders conceived the idea of Berwind Park, there were five other fields in both St Marys and the former Benzinger Township. This doesn’t even include the farm fields and factory lots where impromptu games were played. The most important games were centered at the Mr. Kaul’s Trotting Park, formerly on Theresia Street, where the Penn Dot trucks are kept today.
The Trotting Park was the heart of horse racing in Elk County. It was like a perpetual state fair, with bets being placed on the fastest horses. The local farmers brought their best products to be judged there. Men in their best Sunday suits and women in their long dresses and puffed sleeves were here to play after long hours on the farm, the mines, or the logging camps. There was an electric spark of anticipation and excitement in the air.
In the middle of the racetrack was the baseball diamond, the center of the St Marys baseball world in the late 1800s. The Trotting Park was built in the 1880s to provide entertainment and revenue to the Benzinger Township and St Mary’s. St Mary’s was still a small village back then, but nearly every street, road and neighborhood had a team, called a nine. They played all over to town, but to play at the Trotting Park was an honor.
In 1913, the St Mary’s Baseball Association received their charter for the creation of Berwind Park on July 26, 1913. These men prepared for the creation of a grandstand and a fence. The old Jablonski house was demolished and Roosevelt street was removed. Now, there was always a small neighborhood field in Berwind Heights, but this was an official field meant to bring in baseball teams, large and small, unknown and famous to St Mary’s for great competitions and fans from all around. Berwind Heights sits on an escarpment above State Road. You can see the edge of the cliff and the exposed rock on the side facing the road. Grading of future field began on August 26, 1913. The nineteen teens through the nineteen thirties were the golden age of baseball in St Mary’s. It would have been an exciting time to be here, major league players making a stop at one the train stations to see a game. St Mary’s had its own minor league team in 1916, with a few of those players moving on to the majors. It was no uncommon for Rube Waddell and Honus Wagner to stop in and find a team to play on. The Colts made Berwind their permanent home.
The old former public school building, now South St Mary’s Street Elementary School, was first opened on September 25, 1925. The building is less than a block from Berwind Park, so it is only natural that high school football would have also been played there. In the video you will see the teams from the fifties. If you look closely, at the pictures you will see the houses in Berwind Heights in the background. Check it out. Football was played here until the late 1960s, when the new high school on the Million Dollar Highway was built. Dutch Country Stadium was built with it. It is much larger than Berwind Park.
Berwind, however, is the home of St Mary’s baseball. How many former players would love to go back out there one more time for a game with their teammates. Maybe the present baseball boosters and the other teams who use it might consider alumni games? One last time at the plate for all the veteran Dutchmen and Crusaders, whether they are collegiate players or not. What do you think those young men in that picture below us would say?
I'm not even a baseball fan, to be honest, but this is just splendid. I can feel the ooze of history in the place. Thank you for sharing.
Fantastic history! I can feel your love for baseball and football! There are so many incredible stories in history about sports. Can't believe there was a diamond in the middle of a horse-track! I loved growing up in America with these sports! John Elway was our quarterback at my high school and I just thought that was normal? ha ha.
We just watched The Hill, a few weeks ago. Have you seen it? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDhQkPwjBVM - true story.