If you grew up in Rhode Island I’m sure this abandoned baseball stadium looks very familiar to you, because this is a special one. Welcome to the McCoy Stadium.
Filmed/Edited/Narrated by Jason Allard
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You’re looking at what was once a massive social center in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. The home of a beloved baseball team - the minor league affiliate of THE Boston Red Sox actually. This is also a place that I went to every summer. Do you have any idea how many little baseball caps of ice cream I ate here? Yeah, like I don’t know 5,000.
Today, the field, stands, and concessions all sit abandoned, and the stadium’s eventual demolition is looming in the future.
On the afternoon of November 3, 1940, Mayor McCoy laid the foundation cornerstone. But I like to imagine he didn’t lay it but threw it like a first pitch.
Known at first as Pawtucket Stadium, it was completed in 1942, and in 1946 was officially named in honor of Mayor McCoy, who had died in August 1945. One pretty cool footnote in the history here is that On October 30, 1944, Senator and Vice-Presidential candidate Harry S. Truman addressed a Democratic rally at the stadium, in support of re-electing President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
The Pawtucket Slaters, a Class B affiliate of the Boston Braves, was the first team to call McCoy Stadium home. The Slaters would play for only four seasons in the New England League…Then after a gap of 16 years…. McCoy became home of the Pawtucket Indians for only 2 years, who competed at the Double-A level as an affiliate of the Cleveland Indians.
BUT THEN, in 1969, the Boston Red Sox had their Eastern League affiliate, the Pittsfield Red Sox of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, play at McCoy Stadium. Attendance was huge, and a year later the Pittsfield Red Sox relocated here and became the Pawtucket Red Sox, known lovingly by the community and fans as the PAWSOX.
Through the years McCoy stadium became more family friendly, more iconic, and underwent several updates and renovations. This was thanks to owner Ben Mondor, a Rhode Island Saint. He was generous, cared for the community, and above all, loved the team.
Under his ownership, attendance here increased from 70,000 in 1977 to over 600,000 annually during the 2000s. That’s a lot of hot dogs!
The PawSox brought four championship titles to McCoy Stadium and Pawtucket, winning the Governors' Cup in 1973, 1984, 2012, and 2014.
But easily, the most notable thing to happen here was the longest game in professional baseball history. On April 18th, 1981 a game between the Pawtucket Red Sox and Rochester Red Wings went for 33 innings over 8 hours and 25 minutes. The final, 33rd inning was eventually played on June 23rd, with the Pawsox winning 3-2 after just 18 minutes.
With a renovation of McCoy Stadium costing an estimated 70 million dollars, and no prospects of bringing baseball back here, it seems like this is the end of the baseball era in Pawtucket. But it’s not the end of this site, as new development plans are already underway.
The city of Pawtucket plans to demolish McCoy Stadium to make way for a new high school serving all students in the the city, replacing the two nearly 100 year old high schools currently in use.
So while it’s not baseball, and no one will be walking around with pawsox ice cream cups, it’s still a positive move, and it means that McCoy won’t become an abandoned relic like so many other places in Rhode Island. Will I miss this place? Absolutely. Will I ever prefer the name WOOSOX over the Pawsox? Probably not but it IS really fun to say.
I’m just glad there’s going to be a relatively happy ending here after the decades of memories McCoy Stadium has brought all of us, all of those worry-free golden summer nights sitting in the stands ….and of course the WILD fourth of July fireworks shows. So let’s all raise a hotdog, or 5000 to McCoy Stadium, Paws and Sox, and our guy Ben Mondor.
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