The Complete Archive

The Spartanburg Herald predicted a “Big Crowd.” Remembering the packed stands of the previous summer when more than 50,000 fans had attended the Little World Series of American Legion Baseball in the same venue, most locals agreed. The New York Yankees were coming to town, and as a bonus their Minor League team the Binghamton Triplets was going to train in the Hub City during March and April.

The grand old lady known as Duncan Park stadium has endured a long chronology of celebrations and disasters, surprises and disappointments, outrages and tributes, heroes and villains, champions and also-rans since her gates were first opened and her turnstiles began to spin. Current residents of Spartanburg, South Carolina, know some of these, but no one today knows them all.

A little after one o’clock in the afternoon of Wednesday, July 28, 1926, Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis rose in the banquet hall of the Cleveland Hotel to address the most influential citizens of the small town of Spartanburg, South Carolina, the Hub City of the Piedmont, well known as a railway hub and, increasingly, as one of the busiest textile mill centers in the United States.

Duncan Park stadium was constructed in 1926 and is listed on the U. S. Park Service's National Register of Historic Places. It is situated on land donated to the City of Spartanburg, South Carolina, by the family of Major David R. Duncan in 1923.