Juneteenth Play Ball event brings kids out to former Negro Leagues stadium

PATERSON, N.J. – When Hinchliffe Stadium was closed in 1997 and sat vacant and crumbling for 24 years, one of the main things – if not the primary factor – that saved it from the wrecking ball was its connection to Negro Leagues history and the efforts of the Friends of Hinchliffe Stadium.

But Hinchliffe has always been more than a Negro Leagues ballpark. To the residents of Paterson, it’s been a place to come together for a football game, a concert and, especially, high school competitions. So to see it filled on Monday – the Juneteenth holiday – with 200 area children frolicking on the refurbished turf field for an MLB Play Ball event really brought its rebirth full-circle.

“It's special,” said Bobby Jones, the vice president and chief business officer of the independent New Jersey Jackals and former Major League left-handed pitcher for the Rockies, Mets and Padres. “Paterson has so much history with baseball, but then you look at the youth sports and baseball's out of prominence – especially for African American kids, Latin kids. But to see that today is a beautiful thing and it gives it more direction of what could happen.”

Children from ages 4-10 cycled through stations that allowed them to run the 90-foot bases of the infield, swing at soft-toss pitches, play catch, sprint through agility drills and put it all together in a brief mini-game. Breyln Jones, Anthony Rodriguez, John Baker and Bryan Pena were among the Jackals participating with and encouraging the kids for 90 minutes on a sunny, 80-degree afternoon.

“The craziest thing is,” Jones observed, “they looked enthusiastic about helping the kids out. I mean not only they have to play a game later tonight, but we just got off the road and about a 14-hour bus ride. So for them to get in at nine o'clock this morning and come here on their own and be a part of it, just tells you what kind of character they have.”

Before the youngsters ran off to their stations, they gathered for a brief history lesson. Josh Rawitch, president of the National Baseball Hall of Fame, arrived before the clinic began with a thick black briefcase containing the plaque of Larry Doby, who played high school baseball and football and in the Negro Leagues with the Newark Eagles at Hinchliffe Stadium. The plaque was affixed to a pedestal bearing the Hall of Fame’s logo and placed at home plate, where Rawitch addressed the Play Ball participants to open the event.

“There was really no more perfect person than someone who literally grew up on this field, just like these kids,” Rawitch said of the decision to bring Doby’s plaque from the Hall’s gallery down to Paterson. “He tried out here. This is where he was spotted by Effa Manley to make it into the Negro Leagues. And then to go from literally this neighborhood to Cooperstown, it was a pretty obvious choice to bring his plaque. And it's pretty rare to bring those out of Cooperstown. We don't do it very often. But when we have an opportunity to like this for kids, who may or may not ever get a chance to go to Cooperstown, to bring a little piece of it to them is pretty important.”

After a group photo and a hearty chorus of “PLAY BALL!” they spread out to learn the fundamentals of the game from MLB and Jackals volunteers. Whether they were experienced Little Leaguers or picking up a bat for the first time didn’t matter: Everyone got a chance to swing at a pitch (or a ball on a tee), to run the bases and to have a catch on a field where Negro Leagues legends – and more than 20 Hall of Famers – once played. When it was over, they filed off the field, a new bat and ball set in hand.

Perhaps one – or several – of them will follow in Larry Doby’s footsteps, going from Hinchliffe Stadium all the way to a Major League ballpark.