For over one hundred years, baseball has been played on the Parkhurst Field grounds. Opened in July 1906 as the A.,J.&G. Baseball Park and home of the professional New York State League's JAGs (Johnstown-Amsterdam-Gloversville).
For over one hundred years, baseball has been played on the Parkhurst Field grounds. Opened in July 1906 as the A.,J.&G. Baseball Park and home of the professional New York State League's JAGs (Johnstown-Amsterdam-Gloversville). the Park once featured a grandstand which accommodated 1500 spectators. JAG Park would become a popular stop on the F.J.&G. railroad line (now the Rail Trail) located just beyond the left field wall and was convenient for MLB players and many of the world's premier teams to play barnstorming exhibition games.
Hall of Fame great Honus Wagner and the Pittsburgh (Pirates) Nationals played on these grounds. The Boston (Red Sox) Americans played a game here en route to Detroit on July 5, 1907 with their player/manager, Hall of Fame pitcher Cy Young. Countless minor league players, including "Moonlight" Graham, the ballplayer/doctor immortalized in the film Field of Dreams, played here while pursuing their life-long dream of making it to the Major Leagues. Joe Birmingham, a player on the JAGs 1906 team, went on to play for and eventually manage "Shoeless" Joe Jackson and the Cleveland (Indians) Naps.
The Park would be home to the Danforth Baseball Association semi-pro team over the next decade and continued to host exhibition games featuring the Cuban Giants, Brooklyn Royal Giants and Philadelphia Colored Giants (Negro league teams), the New York Bloomer Girls and more. On October 13, 1913, two days after winning the World Series as a starting pitcher with the Philadelphia Athletics, Hall of Fame pitcher Chief Bender played on this field. In 1918, the F.J.&G railroad company gave up their lease on the property and the Parkhurst family purchased the baseball grounds. On August 14, 1923, local baseball legend George Burns (N.Y. Giants, Philadelphia Athletics and Cincinnati Reds) came to town with the Reds to play a game against the local Elks team.
Parkhurst Field continued to host significant games for the next thirty years until the Parkurst family graciously allowed the newly-formed Gloversville Little League to begin playing here in 1955. GLL eventually purchased the ballpark from the Parkhurst family in 1992 and is proud to be one of the only Little League charters in the country to be able to claim that it owns and plays on the same grounds which MLB teams and Hall of Fame players once roamed.
