Colburn Park

Main entrance to Colburn Park, Aug-2003.

The seating areas, as seen from just behind shortstop.

A better look at the grandstand, including some of the ‘box seats’.

• Location: East Union Street (NY 31) 1½ miles east of NY 88, Newark, N.Y.
• Opened: 1968 (?)
• Home teams: Newark Co-Pilots (1968-79), Orioles (1983-87), New York-Penn League; Newark Barge Bandits, North Atlantic League (1995-96)

In the late 1960s, the town became home to one of the first-ever farm clubs of the expansion Seattle Pilots. The Newark Co-Pilots stayed in the New York-Penn League for a dozen years, even after the Pilots moved to Milwaukee. Later, the park acquired a Baltimore Orioles franchise in the same league.

For two seasons, Colburn Park, which is located near the canal even though the waterway isn’t visible from the field, was also home to a team in the short-lived independent North Atlantic League, a club appropriately called the Barge Bandits.

The stadium consists of mostly bleacher seating, with the exception of eighty molded seats in the first two rows that were sold as box seats. Four of those seats were missing when I arrived at the park.