The new ballpark under construction here is the latest effort to bring baseball back to a town that has a rich history tied to the game. But the project is also an attempt to revitalize a city core that has been deteriorating for decades.
The new ballpark under construction here is the latest effort to bring baseball back to a town that has a rich history tied to the game. But the project is also an attempt to revitalize a city core that has been deteriorating for decades.
Hagerstown city officials and business owners are excited about the new minor league ballpark that’s under construction, but not all of its neighbors are cheering about it.
The opening of the Doleman Museum will signal a shift in how Hagerstown acknowledges and celebrates its extensive Black history. The city traditionally demolished Black landmarks and neglected its Black cemeteries, according to Emilie Amt, a professor emeritus at Hood College who has studied the history of African Americans in western Maryland.
Hagerstown has an argument for calling itself one of the premier Little League towns in America. It sent teams to the Little League World Series in 1950, 1968, and 2008, each one bringing together the small Western Maryland town and fostering excitement in the community.
The ownership group of the new baseball team in Hagerstown aren’t baseball people. But they are Hagerstown people, and history has shown that local ownership can lead to sustained success for a minor league ball club.
Now, 37 years later, Boulton is a major player in America’s independent baseball leagues. He recently partnered with Bowen and others to create a new independent league baseball team for Hagerstown, which lost its old team in 2021.
Professional baseball is part of Hagerstown’s DNA. Pro teams have played in the city for more than 100 years with only brief gaps The latest gap began September 2, 2019, when the Hagerstown Suns played their last game at historic and outdated Municipal Stadium.
Using data from the American Community Survey, the Povich Center found that by 2018, both tax revenues and the population surrounding the ballpark nearly tripled, while rents increased by 31%. Residents of the area briefly also became more educated, though that change has largely reversed. Income levels experienced a modest decline, while housing valuations fell sharply.
PointsBet sports book terminated its marketing deal with the University of Maryland in late April, according to published reports, and all parties are silent on the fallout from the end of the contract.
unding cuts and staffing shortages at the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) over the past decade have coincided with a decline in the state’s ecological health.
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