Michael Bushnell
Publisher

 Welcome to week two of our tour of stadiums used by teams in the All American Girls Professional Baseball League.

This week we’re in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where we spotlight a short-lived woman’s ball team, the Minneapolis Millerettes.

An expansion team, the Millerettes joined the league in 1944 and played their home games in Nicolett Park. They were named after the Minneapolis’ men’s minor league team, the Millers, who chalked up a stellar history between their founding in 1884 until 1960 when the team folded upon the arrival of the major league Minnesota Twins.

The Millerettes only played at Nicollet Park for half a season when the league literally gave up on the twin-cities market. For the remainder of the season, the team was nicknamed “the Orphans” as they became a traveling team playing all their games on the road, folding after only one season.

Ground was broken for Nicollet Park in 1896 and was christened Wright Field. Shortly thereafter the name was changed to Nicollet Park. The capacity of the field was only 4,000. The stadium was renovated in 1912 and lights were added in 1937.

The final game was played on September 28, 1955, when the Millers beat the Rochester Red Wings in the Junior World Series. The Millers moved to Bloomington for their remaining five seasons and Nicollet Park was demolished. A bank, a condominium, and a medical center clinic now occupy the site. Near the drive-up window of the bank, a memorial plaque was erected noting the location of what was once Nicollet Park’s center field corner.