Joe O'Brien Field at Northeast Community Credit Union Ballpark

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Joe O'Brien Field at Northeast Community Credit Union Ballpark in Elizabethton, TN, was the home of Elizabethton affiliated baseball from 1974 through 2019. After that and the Coronavirus pandemic-canceled 2020 season, MLB's 2021 Minor League Reorganization made the Rookie-Advanced Appalachian League a collegiate wood-bat circuit.

The Appalachian Mountains and Watauga River gave "The Joe" one of the minors' most picturesque settings. Opened in 1974, then-Riverside Stadium was renamed Joe O'Brien Field in 1980 for the man who landed the Twins. NCCU bought naming rights in 2019 but "Joe O'Brien" remained the field name.

With a population of just 14,000 and the smallest ballpark in Organized Baseball, the E-Twins had 12 league crowns in their 45 seasons, 15 division titles - including runs of six and five straight - and only nine losing campaigns. The city-operated club's run nearly ended with the 2017 season, but after playing that year in limbo the parties signed a five-year deal including a renovation in the 2018-2019 off-season. Coincidentally, the city turned it over to a contractor that season.

Among minor league teams not owned and operated by their parent club, the E-Twin/Twins partnership was, until the reorganization ended it, tied for the second longest in baseball - in a league in which half of the affiliations pre-dated this century.