Washington Park
Santa Clara, CA
Review by Mike
Washington Park is a bit of a mystery, at least to me. This classic old ballpark, built in 1935, has a lovely, covered grandstand, a well-maintained field and looks like it should ooze with history and notoriety, except that… I’d never heard of it before. Browsing the internet, I can find a few folks who mention it, but mostly there is… silence.
Perhaps this is because only one professional team ever played there, the 1979 Santa Clara Padres of the California League, who were an ad-hoc team added that season to create an even number of teams and actually played many of their home games in San Jose due to scheduling conflicts at Washington Park.
The ballpark is easy to miss. You can’t see it from the road because it is in the middle of a large rectangle of land that houses an elementary school, middle school, football field, offices and houses on the periphery. You could drive by a hundred times and never know a WPA-era ballpark is just over there.
Sadly, I was not able to get inside, but a walk around the exterior yielded these shots, which show a really substantial roof covering wooden bench seating for about a thousand fans. There are no additional open-air bleachers as maintenance buildings and, possibly, clubhouses line both sides beyond the grandstand. Real, below grade dugouts are on either side and a nice scoreboard is in left-center. The ballpark faces southwest, which I can only imagine leads to some challenges for hitters in the late afternoon. There are banners on the exterior highlighting many “Pony League” championships through the years.
Doing what we do, we always know that there is the chance we won’t get inside a place we are just driving by, but, for me, this one was a tough miss. Washington Park appears to be well-cared for and well-used, tucked away out of sight, aging gracefully, a hidden gem and a well-kept secret. Shhh… don’t tell anybody.
