Warren Ball Park

The Warren Ballpark is one of the oldest surviving baseball fields in the United States. The first game was played there on June 27, 1909, five years before Wrigley Field opened in Chicago. Today, high school and semi-professional teams use the ballpark.

The ballpark was constructed at a cost of $3,600 by the Calumet and Arizona Mining Co., which later was purchased by Phelps Dodge. Warren at the time was a suburb, though it later was absorbed into the town of Bisbee . The ballpark features a concrete grandstand covered with a wooden canopy that is listed as a state historic building and was renovated by the Works Progress Administration in 1937. The grandstand holds dugouts, locker rooms, showers and manager’s offices and provides bench seating behind home plate.

According to oral histories gathered by the Friends of Warren Ballpark , visiting professional teams regularly played exhibition games there in the first half of the 20th Century. A post-season game on Nov. 7, 1913, between the New York Giants and Chicago White Sox that featured future Hall of Famers Tris Speaker, Sam “Wahoo” Crawford, Urban “Red” Faber and Ray Schalk for the White Sox, future Olympian Jim Thorpe for the Giants, and Hall of Fame umpire Bill Klem behind the plate.

The Warren Ballpark also holds a place in labor relations history because 1,300 striking miners who were part of the Bisbee Deportation were held there before being placed aboard railcars for the trip to Hermanas, N.M., in 1917.

Details 90 Arizona St. Bisbee, AZ 85603 http://www.friendsofwarrenballpark.com/