Oscar Huber Ballpark
Madrid, NM
Review by Mike
Oscar Huber Memorial Ballpark was the home of the Madrid Miners of the Central New Mexico League. This great little ballpark is off the beaten path in the small, bohemian, former coal mining town of Madrid, New Mexico. It lies about midway between Albuquerque and Santa Fe, if you take the scenic route. The ballfield was originally built in 1928 by the miners and residents of the town.
With the coal mine generating electricity for its mining operations, Oscar Huber, the man behind the construction of the stadium, leveraged this infrastructure to install lights and thus Huber Ballpark became the first ballpark west of the Mississippi to host night baseball, seven years before the major leagues.
An annual Christmas wonderland took over the park every year, again making use of the plentiful electrical power, with colored lights, decorations and even a working train that chugged around playing field. There is still an electric bugler affixed to one of the light poles. The light poles have been chopped off about 2/3 of the way up, for reasons unexplained.
There are many legends of barnstorming teams playing in Madrid, including the Brooklyn Dodgers and St. Louis Browns, but there is little evidence that this actually occurred… although I prefer to think that it did. With the decline of the coal industry came the decline of Madrid and Huber Ballpark sank into disrepair. Now a destination for artists and people looking for a quiet retreat, the town has a relaxed scruffiness about it that is warm and welcoming.
As for the ballpark, a group of dedicated citizens set about to save the stadium in the 2010s and the result is a completely rebuilt grandstand. It may be a new structure, but it was built to the exact specifications of the original Huber Ballpark. A cozy stand of bench seating with a wonderful roof to protect fans from the blazing New Mexico sunshine. The fieldstone walls that surround the ballfield were a WPA project added in the 1930s, as are the claustrophobic dugouts. I’d recommend wearing a helmet before heading to the bench.
A manual scoreboard stands above the right-centerfield fence and the foundations of the former clubhouse can be seen just beyond that. On the day of my visit, folks were cleaning up from a public carnival the day before, so the field was not in great shape and a stage had been erected over the first several rows of seating, but none of that could take away from this little gem of a ballpark, hidden away along the Turquoise Trail, or quell the feeling that the ghosts of Miners past still roamed the outfield.
2025
--
--
286
Local historian Ellen Dietrich was kind enough to take me on my tour of Oscar Huber Ballpark and also provide these historical photos.
