Monongalia County Ballpark


Monongalia County Ballpark is a baseball stadium in Granville, West Virginia. The stadium, opened April 10, 2015, is the home of the baseball team of West Virginia University, a member of the Big 12 Conference, and the West Virginia Black Bears of the Class A-Short Season New York–Penn League.

Construction

Plans were announced to build a new stadium for the West Virginia Mountaineers baseball team in 2013. Ground was broken for the new ballpark at University Town Centre, an off-campus shopping and entertainment complex in Granville, adjacent to WVU's home city of Morgantown, on October 17, 2013. The ballpark will be a fan friendly design with 2,500 fixed seats with additional hillside and club seating, a fan amenity deck, and a park that will be open year-round. The field will be a synthetic surface, other than the clay pitcher's mound. In August 2014, the Jamestown Jammers of the Class A-Short Season New York–Penn League, a Minor League Baseball affiliate of the Pittsburgh Pirates of Major League Baseball, announced that they would move to West Virginia, taking the name "West Virginia Black Bears", and use Monongalia County Ballpark as their home stadium.
As a result of inclement weather in February 2015, the scheduled opening of the stadium was pushed back to April 10, 2015.

Attendance

In 2015, the Mountaineers ranked 39th among Division I baseball programs in attendance, averaging 1,801 per home game.

Milestones and facts

Awards

In the ballpark's inaugural season, it was named the best short season Single A ballpark in the country according to BallparkDigest.com.