Rebel Park
New Market, VA
Review by Gary
Records show that baseball has been part of New Market, Virginia’s local heritage since 1866. Built in 1923, Rebel Park has been home to the New Market Rebels of the Valley Baseball League (VBL) since the leagues inception that year. Since 1947, the Rebels have been chartered as a not-for-profit community owned team. The VBL is a wood bat, summer collegiate baseball league that features teams that play in the Shenandoah Valley in western Virginia.
Offering what many may argue is one of the most scenic views of any ballpark in the eastern United States, fans attending games at Rebel Park are treated to unobstructed panoramas of the Shenandoah Mountains from foul pole to foul pole before the sun goes down on clear nights in the summer.
With seating for just 550, Rebel Park may fill up quickly for games that always start at 7:30 PM. The best of these fixed seats are the individual chairbacks in the “reserved” section behind home plate, enclosed by a 4-foot red brick wall. With only one entrance at the back of this paddock, spectators who are lucky enough to grab one of these seventy or so chairs can enjoy primo seating. Latecomers can find spots on raised aluminum bleachers down either baseline.
Both covered dugouts are longer than usual and are further down the baselines from home than at most ballparks, enabling fans to be right up on the action. The vintage press box is a two-story structure that may seem closer to the New Market Civil War battlefield on the other side of Interstate 81 than to home plate. With the press box set about twenty feet behind the bricked-in seats, a paved concourse provides access for fans to amble to the concession stand and gift shop from the baseline seating.
A vast covered pavilion with picnic tables close to the left field corner allows fans to relax in the only shaded seating at Rebel Park. The ballpark also has a nice presentation of the league’s Hall of Fame members and logos of the VBL’s current ball clubs. Brendan Donovan (2016), Brett Gardner (2003), John Kruk (1981) and Javier Lopez (1996) are all former Rebels who have made it all the way to the Majors. Rebel Park is a classic throwback to a simpler time. The residents of the town must surely treasure their team and this great facility in which they play.
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2026
288
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