Jack Russell Memorial Stadium

Home plate entrance to Jack Russell Memorial Stadium, Aug-2003.

Looking in from the left-field line.

Like many fields, this one points northeast.

Chronological Tour: Stop 254

• Location: Phillies Drive, off Seminole Street near Martin Luther King Jr. (Greenwood) Avenue, Clearwater, Fla. (map it using Google Maps)
• Opened: 1955
• Closed: 2003 (for pro baseball)
• Demolished: 2007 (main grandstand only)
• Home team: Clearwater Phillies, Florida State League (1985-2003); Dunedin Blue Jays, Florida State League (2019); spring training, Philadelphia Phillies (1955-2003); St. Petersburg College Titans, FCSAA Citrus Conference
• Capacity: 6,917 (2003)

Rating: 3 baseballs

The park was named after a 15-year major league pitcher who came to settle in Clearwater and, as a city commissioner, spearheaded the stadium construction drive. It consisted of a lower section with stadium seats, as well as an upper section of aluminum seating that reminded me of The Diamond in Richmond, Va., and aluminum bleachers down the lines. A section along the third-base line had been converted into a picnic pavilion. The field faces a rather conventional northeast.

In 1985, the Phillies entered one of their farm teams into the Florida State League, using Jack Russell Stadium. I saw the penultimate Clearwater Phillies game at the park. The next night, Robin Roberts, among others, was to make a special appearance to close the park; however, I was headed north to see my first game at the new park in Jacksonville. The next season, when the Phillies moved across town, they rebranded their minor league team as the Threshers.

A note of irony accompanied the closing of the park. Wilbur Snapp was the organist at Jack Russell Stadium for two decades; in 1985 he was ejected by the umpires when he played “Three Blind Mice” after a particularly contentious call. He died 6-Sep-2003, exactly two weeks after his beloved ballpark shut down.

The main grandstand was torn down in July 2007, but the field continues to host amateur games. St. Petersburg College, the state junior college serving Pinellas County, uses it as their home field, as does Clearwater High School. The park now features a single, non-covered aluminum grandstand behind home plate; the seats are the bleachers from the old stadium. The field still has the same dimensions as in its professional days: 340 feet down the lines, 400 to center with a high wall.

Jack Russell Memorial Stadium (the word Memorial was added after Russell’s death in 1990) was pressed back into professional service for the 2019 season, during a renovation and expansion of Dunedin’s stadium. The Dunedin Blue Jays played about 55 of their 70 scheduled games at the park.