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Phil Welch Stadium
/ St. Joseph Saints
The first thing you'll notice about Phil Welch Stadium, the home of the St. Joseph Saints, is that fans leave their personal belongings in the ballpark -- i.e., seat cushions and lawn chairs -- even when the ballpark is empty. While that's not quite akin to leaving your door unlocked at night, it does portray a certain friendliness to the fans of Saints baseball, and we're guessing most of them are on a first-name basis. A neighborhood ballpark built in 1939, Phil Welch Stadium was formerly the home to various Western Association teams (St. Joseph Angels, 1939; St. Joseph Cardinals, 1946-1951, 1953-1954; St. Joseph Ponies, 1941; St. Joseph Saints, 1940) and college teams until the St. Joseph Saints, a college wood-bat team in the M.I.N.K. League set up shop in 1996. It's definitely not a fancy place, but it's the sort of place a ballpark fan could fall in love with quickly.
Phil Welch Stadium was also a regular stop for the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro Leagues, according to Buck O'Neill: "We used to play here, and this place used to be packed," O’Neil told the St. Joseph News-Press. "We'd play a doubleheader in Kansas City on Sunday, a night game Monday, Tuesday we were in St. Joe, Wednesday in Omaha and Thursday in Des Moines." One can imagine these legendary players facing the same sort of playing conditions faced by the college players of today: small clubhouses and an interesting field configuration featuring outfield light stanchions in front of the outfield fence, clearly in play.
For an NBC team, the Saints draw pretty well. Much of that can be attributed to the winning nature of the team -- it's annually a contender for league championships and a berth in the National Baseball Congress -- but part of it has to do with the cozy nature of the ballpark. It will never win awards, and some of the seating is a little on the uncomfortable side unless you're into bleachers (only the first four rows are theater-style seats), but it's a core part of the St. Joseph community.
Concessions
What to Do
Before/After the Game Today much of that Wild West heritage is displayed in St. Joseph's 13 museums. The Pony Express National Museum (914 Penn St., www.ponyexpress.org) commemorates the service that loomed larger in legend than in real life (it lasted only 18 months, rendered redundant by telegraph and railroad). Several museums operate under the umbrella of St. Joseph Museums Inc. (3406 Frederick Blvd.; www.stjosephmuseum.org/), including a historical museum. And you can see where outlaw Jesse James drew his final breath at the Jesse James Home Museum (12th and Penn; www.stjoseph.net/ponyexpress). |
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