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| From Baseball's Canadian-American League by David Pietrusza: Winter Park began as an ice skating rink run by Father Martin and St. Mary’s Church and quickly evolved into a full-fledged ballpark under Knotty Lee. The park opened in spring 1936 with work on the grandstand uncompleted but was finished, including a very, very small roof, by June. There were problems. “I know,” recalls Perth’s Norman Hibbs, “one game we were playing, and the grandstand roof collapsed. Nobody was seriously hurt, but a few people were hurt a little bit.” “Left field was awful short,” says Spencer Fitzgerald. “They had balls that used to bounce off the roofs of the house. It wasn’t much of a ball¬park.” Right field, however, was fairly deep. “You could urinate over that left field fence,” Barney Hearn sums up succinctly. Lights were installed only after the Can-Am League departed. In 1946, the Border League arrived, and Bradley & Williams of Syracuse installed a system for $17,500. In the early 1950s, after the loop folded, the lights were sold and reinstalled in Valley Field, Quebec. Winter Park presently stands as just a ball diamond, devoid of lights and stands, and is now called Father Martin Park. |
| Winter Park Ogdensburg, New York |