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Even though corn doesn't line the outfield at Sam Lynn ballpark, it’s still one of baseballs “Field of Dreams”.

As a follow up to my prior article last month regarding the announcement by the Bakersfield Blaze to depart from the City of Bakersfield after the 2009 season, unless a new ballpark was put in place, I have decided to focus on what’s really important to Bakersfield baseball. Tradition and history, and Sam Lynn Ballpark has played a vital role in both.

Maybe erecting a new baseball monument instead of breathing new life into one so rich in history and tradition is not really the answer. Maybe the issue is not about whether or not the Blaze decide to stay in Bakersfield, but rather will baseball remain a part of Bakersfield.

Could a plan be put into action to resurrect the 58-year old stadium?

Built in 1941 for the Bakersfield Badgers, Sam Lynn Ballpark is perhaps best known as the ballpark that was built backwards. It is the only venue in professional baseball in which the batter faces west. The ballpark was named after Sam Lynn the former local owner of a Coca-Cola bottling company who donated much of his income to youth baseball leagues, and became one of the founders of the California League. Ironically, he died just months before the league began play.

In the 58-years following the parks construction, it has been allowed to fall into a state of deterioration, despite attempts in both 1993 and 2006 to renovate the aging facility. Despite the fading paint the park sits as a timeless reminder of baseballs golden age.

At 354 feet to center field, Sam Lynn also has the shortest center field in professional baseball.
However, it still poses a challenge to be a hitter’s park due to the fact that the outfielders are closer together. Over to the right field wall, Sam Lynn features an out-of-use catwalk set into the wall about 15 feet above the warning track. If the ball bounces off the catwalk or the wall above it is played as live, but if the ball stays on the catwalk it is a ground rule double. The bat racks and on-deck circles are located about 80 feet away from the cement dugouts that are slightly taller than 6 feet, thus creating what’s been called  "the walk of shame" for any batter who strikes out.

The sport of baseball has forever been shrouded and associated with many mysteries, countless curses and ghosts. So too has the mystery behind the only professional ballpark with a west facing field. 

As the baseball community has accepted Sam Lynn Ball Park as being a quirky little stadium, is it possible to save Sam Lynn from extinction? As efforts are being made to save the Padre Hotel, and the now beautifully restored majestic Fox Theater. One has to ask, the same about Sam Lynn Ballpark. Or is the answer to filling seats, a new state of the art ballpark?

If you build it they will come, or will they?

A perfect example of this is when the Chicago White Sox ten years ago bulldozed friendly old Comiskey Park, built in 1910 by Charles Comiskey himself, because the owners thought a modern, concrete goliath would better equip them for the 21st century and draw more fans. But after the initial excitement wore off, fans stayed away in droves from the sterile food courts and the steeply pitched upper deck. The White Sox now draw fewer fans to now renamed US Cellular Field, than they did at Comiskey, despite wining an AL Pennant and World Series Championship in 2005. Proving that baseball fans do not allow ourselves to be played for suckers by people who see us not as fans but as a "revenue stream."

Fields like Sam Lynn Ballpark are baseball's Libraries of Alexandria, the repositories for its greatest treasures. The memories, which distinguish baseball from every other American sport, are the reasons we can't give up the game even after owners and teams abandon us.

I for one am in favor of keeping those treasures polished and protected for baseballs generations to come. Without these precious gems as reminders of the past, we deny younger legions of baseball fans the chance to look back into baseballs fabled past. 

There is one advantage to Sam Lynn’s west-facing field. You get to enjoy the colors created by a pre-game sunset fading behind the center field wall. Usually you don't get to see it at other parks because it's behind you, but at Sam Lynn much like its history, it's right in front of you to enjoy.

Sam Lynn Fun Facts:

Sam Lynn Ballpark holds the California League single game attendance record at 8,175, set on July 3rd, 1995.

Sam Lynn used to have an operating digital display above the left field wall that showed pitch speeds and player stats. In 2002, then-prospect Josh Hamilton hit an opposite field homerun that sent the ball smashing into the front of the display (a-la "The Natural"), rendering it permanently inoperable. Today the display still remains over left field, but is covered with a banner advertising the team's website.