Canal Park

The main entrance and ticket booth at Canal Park, Jul-2009.

A look in at the main seating bowl from above the bleachers in right field.

It’s fun to stay at the YMCA ... that’s the building straight ahead.

Chronological Tour: Stop 121

• Location: Main Street between Exchange and State, Akron, Ohio (map it using Google Maps)
• Opened: 1997
• Home team: Akron Aeros (1997-2013), RubberDucks (2014-present), Eastern League
• Capacity: 9,297 (1997)

Rating: 4 baseballs

The people in the Rubber City came out in droves, as Canal Park sold out nearly every game in its first three seasons. Akron officials were hoping that the park will be the centerpiece of a downtown resurgence in this fading industrial city.

The park has a few architectural touches that make it look something like a smaller version of Camden Yards or Coors Field.

Unfortunately, while the park has held up fairly well over a dozen years, the Aeros are no longer drawing in the fans like they used to. I returned to the park on a Wednesday night in July 2009, with the club in first place in their division, and the park was nearly empty. The deteriorating economy may be a factor, but according to fans I spoke to at the park, so is the club’s complacency with regard to marketing a once-proud franchise. In an attempt to revitalize the fan base, the team changed its name to the RubberDucks for 2014.

Whether the name change had much to do with it is questionable, but Akronites have returned to the yard in the last few seasons. I attended on a fireworks night in 2015 that drew over 8200 fans. While that event-driven crowd was unusual, the club announced that the game was the sixth sellout of the season, which was about three-fifths complete.