Staten Island University Hospital, Community Park

Staten Island FerryHawks
Location	Staten Island, NY, United States
Building chronology
Built	2001
Tenants
Staten Island Yankees, 2001-2019 Staten Island FerryHawks, 2022- Wagner College, 2008-
Capacity
7,171 (largest reported baseball crowd: 7,500+) Dimensions: Left Field: 320 feet Center Field: 390 feet Right Field: 318 feet

Staten Island University Hospital, Community Park[1] in Staten Island, NY, was the home of Staten Island affiliated baseball from 2001 through 2019, ending the tenure as Richmond County Bank Ballpark at St. George. Originally to be called The Ballpark at St. George,[2] its moniker changed at its 2000 groundbreaking, when Richmond County Bank announced the purchase of naming rights.

In 2021, after the entire 2020 campaign was lost to the Coronavirus pandemic, MLB's Minor League Reorganization eliminated the Staten Island Yankees and most other New York-Pennsylvania League teams. The SI Yanks quickly declined MLB's offer to join the new amateur MLB Draft League, ceased operations - and sued both MLB and their former parent New York Yankees. Most points in that case have been dismissed, but a key claim remains pending - and the Baby Bombers business operation is one of four that later filed a joint suit specifically attacking MLB's long-time anti-trust exemption. That case was dismissed October 26, 2022, but the judge agreed the teams showed damage and violations that would have been actionable without the exemption. That not only sets up but also provides grounds for an appeal that could ultimately bring down the exemption.[3] The clubs filed their appeal on January 9, 2023,[4], and about six months later the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the dismissal.[5] Perhaps tellingly, the appellate court echoes the trial court: "[W]e must continue to apply Supreme Court precedent unless and until it is overruled by the Supreme Court."[6]

The Baby Bombers were obviously shocked when the Yanks announced an affiliate slate with the Hudson Valley Renegades in their slot. Reports at the time suggested Marvin Goldklang - a minority Yankees owner who is the 'Gades majority owner - may have been the difference. However, court documents released more than a year later and quoted by multiple media suggest another.

The SI Yanks had recently done what minor league teams do best: have fun with something big in pop culture. In 2015, a video of a rat dragging a slice of pizza that was bigger than the rat down a New York City subway stairway went viral. The rodent was dubbed Pizza Rat. Probably coincidentally, the club announced in June 2016 it would change nicknames through a name-the-team contest. "Pizza Rats" was among the fan submissions and the club included it in the nominees that were put up for vote. In December, the name change was temporarily suspended. The stated reason was that league and other official approvals hadn't come through, and no media broke anything more at the time.

In 2018, the club rebranded for a day as the Staten Island Pizza Rats. New York Yankee emails contemporary to the promotion that are among now-public court documents express "disdain"" and say the big Yankees were "embarrassed" - which may have been the last slice ... er, straw.

Theoretically, minor league teams that are not owned by their parent - like the SI Yanks - make their own business and operations decisions. In reality, the power dynamic is tilted toward the big club. The Yanks may have told SI to stop the change, or applied pressure elsewhere to block the necessary approvals. Either, or the incident itself, might have led the big Yanks to drop SI in the next affiliation cycle - which of course evaporated with the reorganization. It's also possible the big Yanks saw the reorg as a chance to escape being "embarrassed".

Meanwhile, the ballpark soon regained professional - but independent - baseball in the form of a new Atlantic League franchise. There was some speculation it would take the Pizza Rats nickname, but in November 2021, the club announced its brand: Staten Island FerryHawks.

The stadium exists because the Yanks and the New York Mets both wanted a nearby farm team but kept vetoing each other's moves toward one - until New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani struck a deal: NYC would build two stadiums in exchange for one non-veto from each Big Apple big-league club. The Mets' team would be in Brooklyn; the Yanks bought, moved and renamed the Watertown Indians. Now with an owned-and-operated NYPL franchise, they dropped their affiliation with their previous one in Oneonta, NY, the Oneonta Yankees. The College of Staten Island hosted the Baby Bombers until their playpen, designed by HOK Sport (now Populous), opened in 2001.

All this cooperation didn't last; the Mets later vetoed the Yankees' putting their Triple-A players into RCB for one season while their ballpark was rebuilt. They ended up playing that season as a road team called the Empire State Yankees.

The New York Metropolitans of the American Association - then a major league - played the 1886 and 1887 seasons at the nearby St. George Cricket Grounds before selling out to the Brooklyn Dodgers.

The stadium "plays" Staten Island ballparks in the movies The First Purge (2018), Bottom of the 9th (2019) and The King of Staten Island (2020).