H.P. Hunnicutt Field (I)

H.P. Hunnicutt Field (I) in Princeton, WV, was the home of Princeton affiliated baseball from 1988 through 1999. After the 1998 campaign, the ballpark was demolished and rebuilt in a project that carried through the following season.

In 1988, Princeton High School's baseball Tigers and a new Appalachian League franchise, affiliated with the Pittsburgh Pirates and called the Princeton Pirates, started play at a new ballpark. The wooden structure, built around the Tigers' existing diamond, was unlike the classic but fire-risky ballparks built in the first half of the 20th century - more solid and much more modern.

The Tigers' football stadium, directly adjacent to the ballpark, is named for Hunnicutt's wife Anne. The couple, who moved to West Virginia in 1938 after H.P. landed a Pepsi-Cola franchise, had just set up the H.P. and Anne S. Hunnicutt Foundation. The ballpark was among its first projects.

After Pittsburgh didn't renew the affiliation, the franchise clung to life in 1990 as the Princeton Patriots, a "co-op team" - using players who were unassigned within their own farm system, most of them being Philadelphia Phillies signees. Jim Holland then took over as general manager, leading the club from that precipice and through the next 25 seasons.

Holland promptly landed the local-favorite Cincinnati Reds as the new parent club for the Princeton Reds. He also created the Mercer Cup traveling trophy, awarded to the winner of the season series between Princeton and the nearby Bluefield Blue Jays - and, when the Reds didn't renew after the 1996 season, he landed the Tampa Bay Devil Rays as the franchise's third parent club, the team now being called the Princeton Devil Rays.

League rival Bluefield's Bowen Field, which despite its street address lies a few yards into Virginia, is just 12 miles away - inspiring Holland to create the Mercer Cup, named after the county in which both Princeton and Bluefield lie, for the winner of their season series. The ballpark's stated capacity was 2,500, but the last game of the 1994 Cup series drew the site baseball record 4,050.

H.P. Hunnicutt Field (II) opened on the same site in time for the 2000 season.