Preacher Roe Park, Salem, Ark.

Preacher Roe Park

Sign identifying Preacher Roe Park, Aug-2008.

The baseball field at the facility.

Quick Facts:

Location: State Highway 9 north of Route 62, Salem, Ark.
Opened: Unknown
Capacity: 150 (approx.)

The pitcher Preacher Roe, who was most famous as a member of the Dodgers during their pennant runs in the late 1940s and early 1950s (and for admitting to throwing the outlawed spitball in an interview after his career ended), was born in Ash Flat, Ark., 18 miles east of Salem on Route 62. As of 2008 (yes, he was still alive when I saw the field; he died about three months later, at age 92), he lived about 25 miles north of Salem, in West Plains, Mo.

A dozen years after I happened upon this field in the Fulton County seat, I learned how it came to be named for the hurler, who had a further connection to the Razorback State thanks to his having attended Harding College in Searcy. Warren Corbett, a member of the Society for American Baseball Research, states that near the end of Roe’s playing career, town fathers in Salem were looking to light their ball field in the early ’50s, by which point the Roes lived in West Plains. Roe agreed to play in an exhibition game each year for several seasons as a fundraiser to pay off a bank loan that financed the lights. Sadly, this story is not mentioned anywhere at the field, although I had learned from the online Encyclopedia of Arkansas that Roe lived in the county when he grew up, his family having settled near Viola, west of Salem.

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