Verducci Field


Verducci Field at Seton Hall Prep when it was still a baseball field, Jun-2009.
Looking across the plate at the first-base dugout.
An umpire’s-eye view of the game.
Quick Facts:
Seton Hall Preparatory School was chartered, along with its senior institution Seton Hall University, in 1856. The Prep, as it has long been known, was first to admit students, late that year. (My great-grandfather Hugh was an 1885 graduate of the Prep.) For over a century, the two schools shared the college’s South Orange campus, but in the mid-1980s West Orange High School relocated to a new campus on the other side of Eagle Rock, and the Archdiocese of Newark acquired the old high school as a new home for the Prep.

Verducci Field, located behind the school, long saw use for baseball, football, soccer, and so forth. It was named for Tony Verducci, a former football coach at the Prep. As a baseball field, it had an especially short left-field porch, so much so that a large screen was erected above the wall to protect nearby residential properties. I may be mistaken, but I believe balls that hit the screen and stayed in the field were in play, much as they are in right field at the new ballpark in Hartford, Conn. Still, the high screen failed to stop a lot of balls from leaving the yard in that direction. The short porch also may have helped hone the pitching skills of Rick Porcello, who went 10-0, 1.44 with the Pirates as a senior in 2007 and two seasons later was pitching for the Detroit Tigers.

Gifts from Porcello and others helped the Prep complete work on the Kelly Athletic Complex around the corner on Prospect Avenue. The baseball team moved their games to the new site in about 2015; there is a separate field at the KAC for football, soccer, track, and lacrosse. Verducci Field now features artificial turf, installed in 2012, and is still used as a practice field and for some junior varsity games.

Game Date League Level Result
Sat 13-Jun-2009 Independent 17U Vailsburg Jr Legion 10, Wladyka National 3
56 Sat 15-May-2010 Super Essex HS Seton Hall Prep 9, Montclair 1
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This page updated 12-Dec-2021