Moana Stadium

Main entrance to Moana Stadium, Aug-2004.

The seating areas as seen from along the third-base line, Aug-2009.

The park is several miles south of the Reno casino strip.

• Location: Moana Lane west of Virginia Avenue, Reno, Nev.
• Opened: 1961
• Home team: Reno Silver Sox (1961-64, 1966-81, 1988-92), Padres (1982-87), California League; Reno Chukars (1996-98), Blackjacks (1999), Western League
• Capacity: 4,000

With the exception of one season, Reno was in the Cal through 1992, with the teams generally known as the Silver Sox. The stadium started to deteriorate in the late 1980s, however, and the team eventually left town. Western League teams came in for four years, but even that loop abandoned Moana (pronounced moe-anna, I am told). When I first tried to photograph the park in 2004, I could not get in.

I returned in 2009 and arrived during a doubleheader being played by the semi-pro Reno Astros, a club founded by some folks who had been associated with the Houston club at one time. I found a ballpark that has seen better days. The new Reno Aces Ballpark is downtown, several miles north of Moana, and there is speculation that the old stadium, with a single wooden grandstand covered by a roof and several other sections of open-air seating, will be torn down shortly.

A Golden League team played several seasons at the University of Nevada field on the north side of I-80.