Evansville’s Bosse Field commemorates 100th anniversary

EVANSVILLE, Ind. (AP) – Bosse Field in Evansville has become the third baseball stadium in regular use to hit the century mark, joining Chicago’s Wrigley Field and Boston’s Fenway Park.

A 100th anniversary celebration was held Wednesday to mark the milestone before the Evansville Otters opened a series against the Windy City Thunderbolts. Former big league players, World Series managers, an actor from “A League of their Own” and baseball dignitaries were among those in attendance.

“I think this is much more unbelievable because this is from a city of 125,000 (people) – not a metropolitan area – and it’s never had a major league team,” Otters vice president Bix Branson said. “But yet, it’s still stood all these years.”

Evansville native Andy Benes, who pitched in the major leagues for 14 years, is part of a select group who has played on all three 100-year-old fields. Benes eventually became the No. 1 overall pick in the 1988 Major League Baseball Draft, but before that he played at Bosse Field for Central High School and the University of Evansville, leading the Aces that same year to their first NCAA tournament appearance.

“It’s just really cool to know that you’re playing where great managers, Hall of Fame managers, have managed; and great players have played,” Benes said. “When you’re younger and as you’re moving up you’re thinking, ‘Maybe it could happen to me.’”

Nearly a third of the 306 members in the Baseball Hall of Fame have appeared in some way at Bosse Field, the Evansville Courier & Press reported.

“It’s just an historic, iconic ballpark and we have people come from all over the United States. They walk in here and they almost without fail tell me, ‘It is so much more than I thought it would be. It has got so much character,’” Branson said.