Boys Of Summer No More: Baseball Strikes Out in Pawtucket

In my little town, I grew up believing, God keeps his eye on us all, And He used to lean upon me, As I pledged allegiance to the wall, Lord, I recall, My little town...     --Paul Simon

A COVID casualty…

Last June, I didn’t get to return one final time to one my favorite places to see a baseball game, McCoy Stadium. I’ll never take in a sandlot competition there ever again. “There” is Pawtucket, Rhode Island, a hardscrabble small city, blue collar, proud of its once mighty place in the Industrial Revolution, and as a center for New England textile manufacturing in the 1920’s. Mills there once employed thousands of workers and drew power from the rushing waters of the Blackstone River.

Those days are long gone now, with most clothing factories having moved to the South first and then, later offshore. Churches with spires reaching up into the sky that once boasted of seating for upwards of 1,000 worshippers are now closed, along with the state’s once ubiquitous downtown department store, Apex.  But still I loved Pawtucket and the cozy confines of McCoy, having gotten to know its charms while a pastor in South County, Rhode Island.  I even caught my first and only foul ball in its parking lot, a singular gem in more than five decades of baseball fandom.         

I so enjoyed going to Pawtucket for a PawSox game, to watch the Triple A farm team of the Boston Red Sox battle an opponent, on a warm summer night, a Coke and a hot dog in hand, the stands filled with Little League Baseball teams and Cub Scout troops and folks like me looking for a fun and inexpensive way to spend the evening. Each year a group of guys from the church I serve would pile into our cars for the forty-five-minute drive south.

But now: there is no return.

You see, the Red Sox are moving the Paw Sox to Worcester, Massachusetts in 2021, and while I’m sure the new location will be sparkly and brand new, still, I will so miss driving into Pawtucket, with its small city, small town vibe. Pawtucket is the kind of place it’s easy for us to forget or overlook in our country, home to so many, but not a flashy big city swimming in prosperity nor a well to do bedroom committee for high tech and executive level workers.      

The PawSox were a big deal in Pawtucket. For fifty-one seasons, the cry of “Play ball!” echoed through its intimate cement and iron ballfield, with seating for 10,000 fans. Every spring and summer, folks from around southern New England like me would drive to McCoy for a game and spend some money and pay for parking and bring some life into the downtown.  What happens in our nation to small cities and small towns like Pawtucket when they are left behind from economic development? When the ballpark closes or the factory closes, when it can seem as if they are invisible to the more prosperous places and people around them?

The economic, social, and mostly invisible decline of so many American cities and towns like Pawtucket, has been on my mind because it is not just the PawSox minor league baseball team shutting down. In some professional housekeeping largely overlooked because of the pandemic, Major League baseball this winter announced that 41 minor league teams around the country will be disbanded permanently, leaving behind a slew of empty stadiums and broken hearts, in small cities and towns around the United States.

Places like Lowell, Massachusetts, that will bid goodbye to the Lowell Spinners. Burlington, Vermont fans will say a fond farewell to the Lake Monsters, along with Burlington, Iowa that won’t be able to cheer for the Bees anymore, a team that claims roots going all the way back to 1892.  The list of shuttered teams leaves a big economic hole in many places that are already down and out or struggling.  Norwich, Connecticut. Auburn, New York. Hagerstown, Maryland. Lancaster, California.

Here’s an idea. When travel opens back up again, when those of us who love a road trip will get behind the wheel and just drive, watch out for the places you might not normally visit, the places that highways pass by, the lonely places, the invisible places and then get off the byway and visit.  Eat at a little diner. Walk Main Street. Poke your way around an antique store and remember….

We need places like Pawtucket in our nation and in our lives. Need the people there too.  Need to care just as much about those anonymous cities and towns as much, maybe even more so, than the wealthier places that so many of us call home.

Goodbye PawSox. Thanks for a great run.