Rockland Baseball Has Roots in Nyack

If you follow the game of baseball like I do, you must know the Rockland Boulders are opening their new baseball stadium over in Ramapo this weekend. It is wonderful to have professional baseball back in Rockland... Yes folks, you read that correctly. Professional baseball in the county started in Nyack a long time ago—thanks to the love of the game by Pierre A. "Doc" Bernard and his Clarkstown Country Club.

Bernard organized ballgames using semi-professional teams like Penn Red Caps, the Black Yankees and the House of David on the front lawn of the club. He even had a make-shift lighting system allowing his team of local players to take on the pros. Bernard's Winchesters played a full schedule, but the trouble with their "field" was its lack of size and inadequate facilities for spectators. (Often, the players tripped over the lighting wires.) So Bernard came up with the financing in the middle of the great depression to build his Baseball Stadium in Central Nyack. It took lots of dynamite and a few of his elephants to level the top of the mountain.

After a year's work and at a cost of $75,000, the stadium opened for games in 1933. Steel towers were erected for banks of lights; the first night professional baseball game in Rockland Country under the lights was played on June 29, 1933 in Central Nyack. (The first professional major league night game was not played until May 24, 1935 in Cincinnati, Ohio.) 

The CCC Stadium had seats for 6,000 fans, plus 2,000 bench and 500 chair seats for Ringside Boxing. The Winchesters played other professional teams around the NY and NJ area, but there was a depression and few fans could afford the 25-cent tickets. Bernard could not draw flies... and had trouble paying his players. So the following year it was a team of Rockland County All-Stars that took on the pro teams. Sometimes there would be two or three dollars left over after the visiting team of semi-pros and the light bill was paid.

Bernard's baseball dream was no goldmine—he tried dog-racing and was quickly shut down by the Clarkstown Police for illegal betting. A few years later the stadium went bust. (An interesting side note: the light towers at the stadium were removed and installed in the Nyack High School stadium being built by the WPA, thanks to the friendship of Bernard and School Superintendent McCallman.)

Bernard was fond of calling himself "The Father of Night Baseball," among other titles.

But that's not all for professional baseball in Nyack. In the 1940s The Nyack Rocklands or the "Rockies" were formed as a North Atlantic Class D ball club with a Philadelphia Phillies franchise. From 1946 to 1949, the Rockies played professional baseball on the diamond at Nyack High School. Managed by Emil Schwab, a ticket was only 50-cents, and they played night games thanks to Bernard's lights and steel towers.

It's great to have professional baseball back in Rockland County, and at a bargain price of only $8 a ticket. See you at the ballgame!