Ogren Park at Allegiance Field

From BR Bullpen

Ogren Park at Allegiance Field
Location Missoula, MT United States
Building chronology
Built 2003
Former names
Play Ball Park
Tenants
Missoula Osprey
Missoula PaddleHeads
Capacity
3,500

Ogren Park at Allegiance Field in Missoula, MT, was the home of Missoula affiliated baseball from 2004 through 2019. After that and the Coronavirus pandemic-canceled 2020 season, MLB's 2021 Minor League Reorganization made the Rookie-Advanced Pioneer League - including the Missoula PaddleHeads - an independent circuit.

Named Play Ball Park its first two seasons as the home of the Missoula Osprey, it then landed a naming-rights deal with two unrelated companies. The name is sometimes styled without the "at" but stadium signage does have an @ symbol between the two sponsors' names.

A pair of ospreys, who mate for life, had a nest on a utility pole on the stadium site before it was built. Although it wouldn't open until the 2004 season, the nest and first tenants inspired the team's first brand upon moving to Missoula in 1999. Big Sky Baseball - which bought the club after the 2018 season - decided to rebrand the team for the 2020 campaign. "PaddleHeads" salutes kayaking, canoeing, and moose antlers.

The franchise started life in 1987 as the expansion Pocatello Giants, who lost the San Francisco Giants' affiliation after just three seasons. They changed brands twice in two more Pocatello years and again in moving to Lethbridge, AB in 1992. There, they continued as a co-op team called the Lethbridge Mounties through 1995. Finally finding a parent in 1996 in anticipation of the expansion of 1998 which created the Arizona Diamondbacks, they took the parent-derivative nickname Black Diamonds. They retained their affiliation in moving to Missoula in 1999.

It has a capacity of 3,500 people.