I am currently travelling and don't have time for one of my thoughtful and deep philosophical posts. So, as a substitute, another snippet is provided about London, which is 200 this year.
The Oldest Baseball Park
Is not in the United States. It is Labatt Memorial Park in London, Ontario. The colonizers started playing baseball here in 1877, just a little over fifty years after the trees were cut down and the ground broken along the Thames River. Since I live in London and know one of the people responsible for the authentication of this historical fact, and since the people here in London know and brag about this 'first', I will simply supply the sources you need for validation.
You can begin with the Wikipedia entry, "Labatt Park." The park pictured above has its own website: "Labatt Memorial Park."
The photo provided above is from Aimee Grace and it is found in an article by Thomas Vesey which is in the Mar. 27, 2026 issue of the Western Gazette. (The Gazette is a student publication at Western University in London.) Here's more:
"Inside the World's Oldest Baseball Grounds".
"It’s hard not to be romantic about baseball, especially at Labatt Memorial Park, the oldest continually used ballpark in the world, which first opened in 1877...."
"The London Tecumsehs, a former men’s professional baseball team, first built the field, then known as Tecumseh Park. The Tecumsehs were one of the oldest professional baseball teams in Canada and helped bring organized baseball to Ontario.
Robert Barney is a sports historian specializing in the Olympics and 19th-century baseball. He has studied Labatt Park and has helped prove the authenticity of its history during his time at Western University.
“Labatt Park is the oldest baseball grounds in history. No other baseball grounds in the world are older than Labatt Park, and so the authentication of that has been my biggest episode because it had a challenger,” says Barney.
The challenger Barney references is Fuller Field in Clinton, Massachusetts. Fuller Field was built and began operations in 1878, one year after Labatt Park....
The London Majors — who play in the Canadian Baseball League — and Western Mustangs baseball teams have called the park home since 1925 and 2006, respectively.
Now, nearly 150 years after its first games were played, Labatt Memorial Park continues to serve as it did in 1877, bringing people together through community and baseball."
It is fitting that "Labatt" is a brewer, which began in London in 1847. It does not appear that the hot dog was invented here, however, and I am not sure when one was first served in Labatt Park.
I just thought to check the ultimate arbiter these days and when asked, "Where is the oldest baseball field?" AI responded, "Labattt Memorial Park in London, Ontario, Canada".
