A Fine Upgrade

Entrance to Jerry Uht Park, Sep-2004.

A double-decked right-field grandstand enabled the park to avoid spilling into 10th Street.

A residential neighborhood is beyond right field; the Erie Civic Center is just past left field.

Chronological Tour: Stop 99

• Location: 10th Street between French and Holland, Erie, Pa. (map it using Google Maps)
• Opened: 1995 as Jerry Uht Park
• Additional names: UPMC Park (2017)
• Home team: Erie SeaWolves, New York-Penn League (1995-98), Eastern League (1999-present)
• Capacity: 6,000

Rating: 4 baseballs

Turns out they did everything right at Jerry Uht Park. The parking is convenient and inexpensive, and the facility sports a second deck running above the concession stands on the first-base side, enabling more seats to be shoehorned into a narrow space.

It was an outstanding effort, and the Seawolves were rewarded with an upgrade themselves. The team joined the Eastern League in 1999. Recently, the outfield bleachers depicted in one of the photos above were replaced by a picnic patio and beer garden. The scoreboard was also replaced. A more recent renovation put the entry plaza down the left-field line, off a dead end of 9th Street.

The park is adjacent to the Erie Civic Center, which hosts, among other teams, the Otters of the Ontario Hockey League.

Effective September 2016, the park bears the name of the health plan operated by the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. The previous naming sponsor, Jerry Uht, was a one-time Cleveland Indians farmhand who had donated $500,000 in endowment money for the new park when it opened back in 1995. He agreed to the club’s sale of naming rights in 2015.