My gal and I finally visited Polar Park on Friday morning and received a nice tour from WooSox employee Kevin Handrigan, a retired firefighter for the city. At first, I had a feeling of regret, knowing Rhode Island could have helped the PawSox build a new stadium in our city, but that regret soon turned to an acknowledgement of this park’s modern facilities. Everything is better than what the franchise had in Pawtucket with dilapidated McCoy Stadium..
Polar Park pays homage to franchise history. Its walls include several photos and plaques honoring the achievements of the Pawtucket Red Sox during 50 years in Rhode Island, including four Governor’s Cup championships.
There is a photo of the late PawSox owner Ben Mondor on a Hall of Fame wall, along with his sidekick, Mike Tamburro. The history of baseball in the entire Blackstone Valley, which extends from Worcester down to Pawtucket, is honored with pictures and stories hung in frames for visitors to see. Kevin Handrigan told us the story of the first perfect game in National League history, thrown in 1880 by a Worcester pitcher who attended Brown University. I never knew Worcester had a team in the original National League from 1880-83.
I guess what won my heart was seeing the WooSox employees coming into work as lunch time approached. Many of them will remain on the job until tonight’s 6:30 game is over and the fans have gone off into the night. They seem like the same polite, dedicated workers the PawSox always employed. In fact, many former PawSox workers came north with the franchise, including my friend Bill Wanless, who always handled media relations and ran the press box for many years. The PawSox were defined by their employees, from Ben Mondor on down to the kid cooking hot dogs underneath the stands.
You get my age and you’re no longer surprised when the world changes. Old textile mills become condos. Steel mills turn into malls. Ball parks go empty and new ones take their place. But the game goes on, and now it is Worcester’s turn to sustain the sport that runs so deeply through the history of New England towns, dating back to before the Civil War.