FARMINGTON — Hippach Field — and the pulse of activity that orbits around it — is almost impossible for drivers turning onto Main Street in Farmington on late spring and summer nights not to notice.
The field’s overhead lights cut through clear night skies, a beacon at the entrance of Farmington’s downtown. On any given evening, there’s a flurry of Little League baseball players running in and out of the field’s brick-pillared fence – meeting up with their friends, dodging foul balls and their parents when it’s time to corral the kids into the car and head home.
Hippach Field has been providing nights like this for the people who call the Farmington area home for the last 100 years. The field’s history, and the memories it has helped create, will be the focal point of a centennial celebration Saturday evening.
“Hippach Field has been a community asset for all these years not just for people in Farmington, but Franklin County as a whole,” said Roger Spear, co-coordinator of the Hippach Field Centennial Celebration. “It’s been the place to go for sporting events. It has provided special memories for generations of families.”
Spear, along with a team of seven other coordinators, has been working for the last six months to bring this special anniversary celebration to Farmington. The free event will begin at 6 p.m. at Hippach Field, with baseball concessions and a presentation of the field’s history. Then at 7 p.m., the first pitch will be thrown to kick off a vintage baseball game, which is the night’s main event.
The celebration is a collaboration among the town of Farmington, local historians and community members. The night’s events were organized by a committee which included Spear, Paul Mills, Dave and Ellie Duley, William Leighton, Town Manager Richard Davis, Parks and Recreation Director Matt Foster and police Chief Jack Peck.
Over the last century, Hippach Field has been a hub for numerous athletic organizations and recreational activities. It features two baseball fields — one Little League field and one major league field, a playground, tennis courts, a basketball court, a fieldhouse and a picnic area.
The baseball fields are used by area Little League teams, Babe Ruth teams, Mt. Blue High School’s varsity team, and the University of Maine at Farmington’s baseball team.
“It’s been our keystone park in town here, and even for a lot of northern Franklin County. It’s been one of the best baseball facilities for about a century now,” Foster said. “The people of Farmington, I think they know that they have something really great.”
HIPPACH’S HISTORY
Hippach Field was dedicated in June 1916. Its age rivals those of America’s oldest professional baseball parks, including Boston’s 104-yeard-old-Fenway Park and 102-year-old Wrigley Field in Chicago.
The field is named after Howard Hippach, an alumnus of the Abbot School, which was an all-boys school on a site that’s now home to the University of Maine at Farmington.
Howard Hippach graduated from the school in 1914, where he was an three-sport athlete, including baseball, Spear said. When Hippach returned to his native Chicago following graduation, he was killed in an automobile accident.
In memory of their son, Hippach’s parents donated money to the Abbot School to buy the field and pay for improvements to it, including the construction of the grandstand, the fieldhouse and the brick fence — which have been maintained throughout the last 100 years.
After the Abbot School closed in 1918, and the field changed hands several times, the field was deeded to the town of Farmington in the 1930s.
In the early and mid-20th century, baseball was booming at Hippach Field. Spear said at that time most towns in Maine had local teams that would even pay to bring in professional players to supplement local talent.
In the late 1940s, Cassius Clark, who then owned the local Coca-Cola bottling plant, started a semi-professional team, The Farmington Flyers, which played at Hippach Field. Black would find homes for the players in the community, as the team drew talent from across the country. Spear said those games drew about 2,000 people to Hippach Field.
“That was really the heyday of baseball in Farmington,” Spear said.
Around that time, in 1948, Wilton’s town team had made it to the Amateur New England Baseball Championship. In a game that drew 1,400 people to Hippach Field, the Wilton team defeated a team from Connecticut to move on to the national championship, held in Battle Creek, Michigan.
“It’s very nostalgic. Town folks, and surrounding town folks, have been playing or viewing sporting events here for years,” Spear said.
PLAYING IN THE PAST
With the Parks and Recreation Department now overseeing the daily operations of the park, Foster says a lot of attention is paid to maintaining the sentimental quality of what he called the town’s “keystone park.”
While a portion of the original green-and-white grandstand burned in the 1990s, it was repaired and is still used for baseball fans to watch games. Air conditioning was added to the 100-year-old fieldhouse, which is a clubhouse during the school year for the UMF baseball team. The recreation department’s summer programs also function at the fieldhouse.
“A lot of people have come from all over to do a lot of different activities here,” Foster said. “I can’t even tell you the amount of people who are 50, 60, 70, and 80 years old who tell me they have fond memories of playing at Hippach Field.”
The festivities at Saturday’s celebration will reach even beyond the scope of Hippach’s 100 years, with the vintage baseball game being played by 1860s rules. The Dirigo Vintage Baseball Club will face off against the Sunrise Baseball Club in the 7 p.m. game. The teams are nonprofit organizations that put on vintage games across the state.
Playing in period uniforms and under the 1860s rules, players will not use gloves, they will be allowed to catch balls on a bounce for an out, and foul balls will not count against hitters as strikes.
To further build on the historic overtones of the evening’s events, the Farmington Historical Society will have an exhibit set up, and Model T cars will be on display.
Lauren Abbate — 861-9252
Twitter: @Lauren_M_Abbate
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