Arcata Ball Park

Arcata Ball Park is a collegiate baseball venue in the Western United States, located in Arcata, California. Opened in 1941, it is the home of the summer collegiate Humboldt Crabs. Arcata Ball Park is located at the corner of F Street and 9th Street in downtown Arcata, near the Plaza. The ballpark is tightly surrounded by a bus station on the third base side, busy F Street on the first base side, the Arcata Police Station and library behind right field, and Highway 101 just over the left field fence.

Arcata Ball Park
Humboldt Crabs, fan appreciation day, Arcata Ball Park
Location888 F Street
Arcata, California 95521
Coordinates40.868077°N 124.084369°W / 40.868077; -124.084369
OwnerCity of Arcata
Capacity909 (seated), 1,000+ (with standing room only)
Record attendance1,622 (2009)
Field sizeLeft Field: 339 ft (103 m)
Center Field: 410 ft (125 m)
Right-Center: 424 ft (129 m)
Right Field: 340 ft (104 m)
SurfaceNatural grass
Construction
Broke ground1934
Opened1941
Renovated1952, 1974, 1978-80, 2006, 2018-19
Tenants
Humboldt State Club baseball
Arcata High School baseball
Humboldt Crabs (1945-54, 1965–present)

Humboldt Crabs

The summer collegiate Humboldt Crabs are Arcata Ball Park's primary tenant and have been for over fifty years. The Crabs, who formed in 1945, are the oldest continuously operated summer collegiate baseball team in the country, celebrating their 75th consecutive season in 2019.

The Crabs have won the California National Baseball Congress championship many times, advancing to the NBC World Series in Wichita, Kansas, for most of the 1960s, '70s, and '80s.

Over 65 former Crabs have gone on to play in the MLB. These include Bruce Bochte, Craig Lefferts, Mike Harkey, Mike Redmond, and Dane Iorg.[1]

Renovations

In June 1952, the light poles were moved and raised 10 feet, a 20-foot fence was installed in left and center field, and home play was moved 8 feet closer to the grandstands and the entire diamond moved along with it, all to accommodate the new freeway, Highway 101.[2] In May 1978, just weeks before the start of the Humboldt Crabs season, the City of Arcata tore out the redwood grandstand, "condemned by a dry rot problem," and replaced it with new all-aluminum bleachers, for approximately 1500 fans, on a newly poured concrete slab that included a ramp entrance to replace the old stairs.[3] The original estimated cost of $34,600 was exceeded, and the bleaches did not arrive before the start of the season on June 10, 1978, so bleachers were borrowed from St. Bernard's School, and with the cost overruns many of the planned improvements were not made for decades.[4]

Between August 1974 and October 1976, CalTrans expanded Highway 101 from four lanes to eight lanes, so the city had to put up a taller fence in left field to keep home runs off the highway as much as possible.[5] A new press booth was built before the start of the 1980 season and dedicated to longtime PA announcer and Times-Standard sports editor Don Terbush. That wooden press booth was used until a new metal media booth was built in front of the old booth in 2019.

In 2006, after years of playing with a softball field in right field, the park was renovated and the softball infield and backstop were removed.[6]

Between the 2018 and 2019 seasons, the City of Arcata installed new ADA regulation bleaches, able to seat approximately 909 fans, to replace the old bleachers that would sway every time you stood up and had been in use since 1978.[7][8][9] The city is also talking about building a new press box and building NCAA regulations dugouts. The current dugouts are chain-link fence with no roof.[10][11][12]

See also

References
  1. "HUMBOLDT CRABS". california baseball. Retrieved January 24, 2019.
  2. "Arcata Ballpark Gets Face Lifting". NewspaperArchive - Times-Standard. June 20, 1952. Retrieved July 30, 2022.
  3. "Arcata Park work is in full swing". NewspaperArchive - Times-Standard. May 14, 1978. Retrieved July 30, 2022.
  4. "Problems still plague Arcata Ballpark". NewspaperArchive - Times-Standard. June 22, 1978. Retrieved July 30, 2022.
  5. Lani Stites, Barbara (January 24, 2019). "The Arcata Freeway: How it Split the Community More Than Just Geographically" (PDF). Barnum History Contest – via Humboldt State Library.
  6. "Arcata Ball Park gets a facelift". Times-Standard. August 11, 2006. Retrieved January 24, 2019.
  7. "New $242,000 ADA-Compliant Bleachers Arrive at Arcata Ball Park". Lost Coast Outpost. Retrieved January 24, 2019.
  8. "Should We Call it a Crab Pot? | Humboldt Crabs". humboldtcrabs.com. Retrieved January 24, 2019.
  9. Arcata, City of (January 24, 2019). "City of Arcata Parks and Recreation Master Plan". City of Arcata.
  10. "Crabs, Arcata eye ballpark changes". Times-Standard. July 25, 2017. Retrieved January 24, 2019.
  11. "Arcata Ballpark Slated for Renovations". June 4, 2018. Retrieved January 24, 2019.
  12. "Big improvements planned for Arcata Ball Park". Mad River Union. July 16, 2017. Retrieved January 24, 2019.
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