Riverside Stadium
Harrisburg, PA

Team: Harrisburg Senators
Affiliation: Montreal Expos 
Capacity: 6,300
Completed: 1987
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I would say that there are three things about Riverside Stadium that are outstanding.  Those things would be (in order): location, location, and location.  Riverside Stadium is supposedly the only professional baseball park in the country that's located on an island.  City Island Park sits right in the middle of the Susquehanna River, providing a wonderful array of activities and a beautiful vista of the city skyline.  Aside from the park, City Island offers a beach, picnic areas, miniature golf, boat rides, a miniature train, batting cages, volleyball courts, and a little "village" with stands offering everything from souvenirs to wonderfully grilled foods.   The place is a recreation heaven for a family or a couple.  

Unfortunately, the stadium itself is rather average.  It's not a bad ballpark (does such a thing exist?), but neither is it particularly spectacular.  The seating area contains a standard grandstand (with roof) and two large bleacher sections down each line.  Actually, the whole park pretty much consists of bleacher seating, with box seats offered only in the first four or five rows.  Fortunately, most of the bleachers in the grandstand do have backs.  The trees in the outfield make for a pretty view, but one wonders why the designers literally turned our backs to a great city skyline across the river, facing the grandstands away from the city.  Probably the date of construction has something to do with that, as 1987 was just a few years before the ballpark "renaissance" of the 1990's, when architects started getting more creative with their designs. One area in which the park is not average, however, is in the quality of baseball played here.  As of June, 2000, the Senators have won an impressive four straight Eastern League Championships. 

There is some interesting baseball history in this town.  While the current stadium was built in 1987, professional baseball got it's start in Harrisburg in 1883, and they have hosted games in both the minor and Negro leagues.  In 1952, the team actually attempted to field a 26-year old stenographer/shortstop named Elanor Engle, but her contract was voted down by the league.  In 1953, a flood destroyed the stadium, causing a baseball void until the current stadium was built.  In 1993, Riverside Stadium  was converted into a Florida spring training park for the movie Major League II.  I was actually there for some of the filming, though I regrettably have no pictures and have yet to see the movie.  In typical Hollywood style, they created the illusion of Florida by placing Florida-based ads in the outfield, and they even shipped in a bunch of palm trees.  

I have heard that there are renovations planned for this place over the next few years.  Somehow I doubt that they'll be able to make the place face the city, but with some work on the seats and a few more touches, this could be a great park instead of just an average one saved by a great location.   

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The view is very picturesque, but...