Kindrick Legion Field

Home plate entrance to Kindrick Legion Field, Aug-2006.

The seating bowl, as seen from down the third-base line.

The ballpark experience is only enhanced by the view.

Chronological Tour: Stop 318

• Location: Memorial Park, Warren Street north of Lyndale Avenue, Helena, Mont.
• Opened: 1932 (current stadium built 1949, renovated 1972)
• Home team: Helena Phillies (1978-83), Gold Sox (1984-86), Brewers (1987-2000, 2003-18), Pioneer League
• Capacity: 1,700

Rating: 3 baseballs

Here is another example of a ballpark which was erected for Legion ball yet has also seen use as a professional stadium. The facility is tucked away in a park behind an industrial section of Montana’s state capital.

Local baseball historian Curt Synness advises that the park was built in 1932, seven years earlier than I had originally thought. He also told me of Ace Kindrick, for whom the field is named. Synness describes Kindrick as a “longtime Helena Legion baseball supporter, manager, ticket-taker, bus driver, etc.” – precisely the sort of man who should be honored with a ball field named for him. I have added e-mail from Jeff Kindrick, Ace Kindrick’s son, telling more about the park’s namesake.

I got here for a game in 2006, and I saw a park that has received some recent updates, including orange seating in the main bowl that came from the Oakland Coliseum. A party area has also been added down the first-base line.

In 2017, the Elmore Group, owner of the Helena Brewers and several other clubs, announced that the Brewers would be transferred to Colorado Springs for 2019, when the existing team there is moved to San Antonio. The prospect of Kindrick Field getting a replacement professional tenant in the immediate future is unlikely.