LECOM Park Part Of Pirates Florida Tradition

Get ready. Before you know it, LECOM Park’s gates will swing open. In case you don’t have the Pittsburgh Pirates spring training schedule handy, February 25 is the first game on the club’s Grapefruit League calendar.

Between entertaining the Blue Jays later this month, to the final home spring contest on March 28 with the Minnesota Twins, there will be 14 additional games on tap over at the ballpark on 9th Street West in Bradenton.

There’s a lot to get excited about when the Pirates return to training camp. For me, the ballpark is right up there as the main reason for getting psyched for the 2023 exhibition season to begin.

Last spring was my first visit to LECOM Park. Having relocated from the Cooperstown, New York area, baseball history is my main interest in the game. Once I entered LECOM, I wasn’t disappointed in the atmosphere, or the character of the ballpark.

My three favorite ballparks are Doubleday Field in Cooperstown, Wrigley Field in Chicago, and Boston’s Fenway Park. The grounds where Doubleday sits just off Main Street in the home of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum have been hosting baseball games since 1920. Wrigley, home of the Cubs and Fenway, is where the Red Sox play 81 games each MLB season, tracing their regular baseball history to the turn of the 20th century.

Old doesn’t mean outdated.

Right behind the Red Sox and Cubs’ homes is LECOM Park. It is the third oldest stadium still being used by an MLB team. LECOM Park is the oldest field still in use in both the Grapefruit and Cactus Leagues.

LECOM Park has been around long enough that when it opened (originally built in 1923), the Commissioner of Baseball, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, attended the field’s opening ceremonies. Home to the Pirates since 1969, there’s a charm to LECOM that is baseball friendly, and aesthetically pleasing.

During my initial visit to LECOM Park last March, I found myself walking around, checking out the grandstand, outfield seating, concession stands, and fan plaza. Due to my roaming, I missed several innings between the Pirates and visiting Baltimore Orioles. No complaints.

For a gem of a ballpark in what the Pirates have in Bradenton, there needs to be a partnership with local municipalities. I suspect the City of Bradenton, Manatee County, and the Pirates have a wonderful avenue of communication.

Before Pittsburgh breaks camp and heads to Cincinnati on March 30 for their season opener against the Reds, I want to increase my visits to LECOM Park. The more history I learn of the grounds, who played there in the past, how a series of renovations transformed the fans’ experience, and what veterans of the Pirates organization remember of their first experience in the grand old park, the more I will be a bigger fan of the whole spring training experience.

So, when teams like the Philadelphia Phillies and New York Yankees bus it to LECOM Park for afternoon games, seeing some of the game’s greatest attractions get their work in for a couple of innings at a time will be an added treat. It’s the ballpark that has me sold on the Pirates, as spring arrives.

Once the MLB games count for real, then it’s the Pirates who have me sold on the game.