64/60 Sports

You can still smell the peanuts. The Cajun roasted ones. Whether you were fighting with the neighbors for a foul ball over the first base side, or waiting for someone to jack one out and hit the second tier wood fence, or just itching to have Bobby Morris autograph anything, you were on a cloud. Actually, you were in St. Cloud Commons.

It was a ballpark that had every ounce of charm you could as for in a ballpark. You could rub elbows with the drunk 6 o'clock news team from WSAZ. You could go down beside the visiting dugout and talk to the visiting teams pitchers warming up and hanging out. Or, you could go try to steal one of the teams bats, your choice.

It was hearing the PA guy say PAAAAAABBBBBBLLLLOOOOO DELLLLLLGAAAAAADOOOO as the Dominican came to the plate. Seeing Jason Seahorn hit for contact and hustle, pre Super Bowl days. It was trying to piss off Harry Beary. It was Little League coaches taking the whole team out to root, root, root for the Huntington Cubbies, and thinking he was cheap because he didn't spring for Reds tickets.

The Ball Park itself had seen various forms of Minor League ball through the years, of course the most prominent was the Cubs, who took the field in 1990 and lasted until 1994. The Cubbies were not a failure though. Being in the East Tennessee based Appy League was what did them in. Travel expenses and long bus rides took their toll on the Rookie League team. With a shoestring budget to begin with(that is just how it is in rookie ball) the logistics just were not going to work out. And, sadly, they did not.

As a testament to the city and it's loyal fans who came out to every game at St. Cloud, The Appy League kept the franchise afloat, however they had lost the Cubs sponsorship and where essential an Independent team, changing the name to the River City Rumblers for the 1995 season. A few seasons later, the Altoona Rail Kings packed up and moved town due to the city being rewarded a new affiliated minor league team who was going to also build a new stadium. They hit the road and came to Huntington and were re-christened the Huntington Rail Kings, and remained in the indy Heartland league. The league declared bankruptcy half-way through the season, and the majority of the teams jumped ship to the new upstart Frontier League. However, that leap would be made without Huntington.

So finally, after being built in 1910 and seeing various teams and leagues take residence between the old wooden grandstands, St. Cloud Commons, as well as Huntington's, relationship with professional baseball came to an end.

I had the opportunity to return to St. Cloud, which still stands to this day, as a ball player in the years of 1996-1998. Playing 3rd for the Catlettsburg Cardinals against the Star-Studded Huntington Patriots. It was the sight of, even though it was a loss, a signature game that proved that a rag tag Catlettsburg team was up to any challenge on any given day. It was one of the rare occurrences in which we actually played ball right instead of 'jackin' around'.

St. Cloud still stands to this day, and is not in it's former shape by no means, but is still in usable shape. Various levels of ball are played on it, and Softball is a regular user of the field. It's Huntington's own lil' Fenway that nobody really understands what they got. As mentioned before, being built in 1910, makes it one of the 5 oldest ball parks in the world.