Michael Bushnell
Publisher

This week, our tour of Negro League ball parks brings us to Parkway Field in Louisville, Kentucky. 

Originally built in 1923, the park was home to the Louisville Colonels of the American Association and the Louisville Buckeyes of the Negro American League.

The Buckeyes were an outgrowth of the Cleveland Buckeyes, another Negro League team that played in Cleveland from 1942 to 1950, defeating the Washington Homestead Grays in the 1945 Negro League World Series.

 
The Buckeyes played only one season in Louisville, their second to last season of existence in 1949.

Parkway Field was used largely by the University of Louisville from 1950 through their team’s 1998 season when they moved to Cardinal Stadium. 

Parkway was a home run park for University of Louisville teams in the late 1980s and early 1990s. 

The teams of that era were given the nickname the “over the wall gang” because they hit so many home runs in the stadium during that period.

The stadium was demolished after the 1998 season. The dugouts and part of the diamond survived until recently when they were removed and the area graded. 

The field is still used by the University of Louisville as a practice field for soccer and football.