NelsonCorp Field

From BR Bullpen

NelsonCorp Field
Location Clinton, IA, United States
Building chronology
Built 1937
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Capacity
5,500 (largest reported baseball crowd: 5,453)
  • Dimensions:
    • Left Field: 330 feet
    • Center Field: 401 feet
    • Right Field: 325 feet
Alliant Energy Field aerial.jpg

NelsonCorp Field in Clinton, IA, was the home of Clinton affiliated baseball from 1937 through 2019. After the Coronavirus pandemic-canceled 2020 season, MLB's 2021 Minor League Reorganization eliminated the Clinton LumberKings of the Midwest League.

The 'Kings then joined the Prospect League.

Opened as Riverview Stadium in 1937, the ballpark landed affiliated baseball immediately. That franchise lasted only until 1941, but a farm club returned when the Clinton Pirates joined the MwL's predecessor circuit, the Mississippi-Ohio Valley League, in 1954. The loop changed names in 1956 because it added teams in Iowa, and from then until the reorganization the 'Kings were the only MwL club that never changed cities.

The ball club did change nicknames - rather frequently, usually to use their parents' - until becoming LumberKings in 1994. The preceding off-season, the Clinton Giants decided to take a local nickname and ran a contest. When professional baseball first came to Clinton in 1895, it was the sawmill capital of the world. Only one contest entrant submitted "LumberKings", but it carried the day because it recalled "the old lumber business in Clinton".

Following the 2017 campaign, the Miami Marlins picked Clinton as their Low-A team after the much closer Greensboro Grasshoppers of the South Atlantic League dumped them and joined the Pittsburgh Pirates. In the reorg, the Marlins gave up Clinton for the greener pasture of a new stadium in Beloit, WI.