Those readers that have been with me from the beginning know that I currently reside in Amsterdam, NY. Just a short walk down the road is
Shuttleworth Park, home to our local baseball team, the
Amsterdam Mohawks. They play in the New
York Collegiate Baseball League (
NYCBL).
It's a fun time to be had at a small stadium nestled within a little riverside park where I regularly walk
Klara, my German Shepherd Dog.
Being new to town, and not knowing much about the club, I did a little online research (gee, this internet thingy is great. It might catch on!). My search revealed, among other things, an article which detailed some of the rich and colorful baseball
history that the town boasts.
It so happened that the
1942 Yankees had played here against the
Amsterdam Rugmakers of the
Can-Am League.
Back then Shuttleworth Park was called
Mohawk Mills Park.
"In July 1942 the New York Yankees, with DiMaggio, Henrich, Keller, Rizzuto, Gordon, Selkirk, and Rolfe in their lineup, struggled to a 9-5 ten-inning victory over the Rugmakers, but that wasn’t the unusual part of the story."
The
story, by
David Pietrusza, describes the earliest days of the park and more importantly the terrible fire that all but destroyed it just 8 days before the Yankees were to play, and how the town rallied to restore it in time.
UPDATE: Following the completion of the 2010 season, the Mohawks became a part of the newly founded Perfect Game Collegiate Baseball League (
PGCBL).
