Glens Falls Chronicle Serving the Glens Falls/Lake George region; Warren, Washington and northern Saratoga counties since 1980
By Ben Kinne, Special to The Chronicle
East Field Stadium in Glens Falls is giving a demolished baseball stadium in New Jersey a second lease on life.
A new scoreboard, video board and 1,500 stadium seats were all acquired in the spring of 2019 from the former Riverfront Stadium in Newark, New Jersey by Glens Falls Dragons owner Ben Bernard.
He said another team owner in the Perfect Game Collegiate Baseball League, the league the Dragons compete in, tipped him off to the opportunity.
“I received a phone call about the possibility of some seats being sold down in Newark,” Mr. Bernard said.
He traveled to Newark to see the seats in person, but there was still one big variable, the price tag.
“The project manager said ‘how many do you want?’, so I said it depends on the price,” said Mr. Bernard.
“The project manager said ‘how does $10 a piece sound?’ and it sounded good.”
Mr. Bernard said that a few weeks later, he and a crew from Rozell Industries came down to help remove the seats, place them in tractor-trailers, and drive them back to Glens Falls.
Then the project manager offered the scoreboard and video board, which presented some challenges.
“The scoreboard was 60 feet in the air, so we had a company from the area come down and look at it and they said they could do it” Mr. Bernard says.
The scoreboard has been installed at East Field, replacing the scoreboard that dated from the mid-1990s.
Mr. Bernard also acquired Riverfront Stadium’s LED video board that was installed after its original LED video board was damaged in Hurricane Sandy.
The video board is at East Field but has not yet been installed. Once installed, the 16mm LED board will stand 12.6 feet high and 29 feet long.
Meanwhile, Mr. Bernard says they plan to install the seats from the New Jersey stadium at East Field to replace the wooden bleachers that date from 1980 and are in an advanced state of age. In some spots, especially the outfield, the seats are a little daunting.
The replacement seats are being stored in storage containers at Rozell’s on Queensbury Avenue.
Mr. Bernard said they hope the improvements will help draw more fans. Right now the Glens Falls Dragons are drawing 100 to 200 fans a game.
“I think we’ve found that the Perfect Game League in other former minor league cities, where the ballparks are nice, they’re drawing 800-1,200 people a night,” Mr. Bernard said.
“There’s no reason we shouldn’t be able to do that.”
Mr. Bernard said there is no timetable for the project, but that three concrete companies will come in the fall to see how difficult the project will be and how much it will cost.
The City of Glens Falls plans to pay for the improvements with its share of ARPA (American Rescue Plan Act of 2021) funds and the remaining $100,000 from two state grants, so that fans will be able to enjoy a ballgame in the East End for years to come.
The 2022 Glens Falls Dragons season runs through Friday, July 29.
Remaining home games at East Field are scheduled for Friday, July 15, Tuesday, July 19, Sunday, July 24, Tuesday, July 26 and Friday, July 29.
General admission: $5 for adults, $3 kids 12 & under. Info: 518-746-4121.
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