McDonough Park
(From September 1991 Historical Society Newsletter)
McDonough Park’s history dates back to 1920 . According to the Shuron News, October 1942, the Standard Optical indoor baseball team of 1918-19 captured the city title without losing a game. With several members of this indoor team as a nucleus, Standard Optical entered a club in the local Industrial Baseball League of 1919 and won the pennant. The United States Lens Company, Standard Optical’s immediate neighbor to the east on Lyceum Street, also had a team in this circuit and games were played at Gulvin Park (established in 1915), and at Maxwell Field. Between 1920 and 1922, the two companies fielded the semi-professional Stoco-Lens team that will “…long be remembered for the fine brand of baseball served up at Stoco Park.” From this account we can conclude that Stoco Park, later named Shuron Park, was established for the use of this team. Chief among the first-class opposition brought in to play the locals were the Chicago White Sox and Boston Red Sox, representatives of the American May League.
The park had simple bleachers and no lights until August 13, 1930. That night, an All-Geneva team played the California Owls, featuring Mary Novack, “the world’s champion female player,” at first base. They played under seventeen flood lights. There were few significant changes until 1947, when a sub-lease of the park was arranged for the summer, and local organizers bought the Granby (Quebec) Red Sox. A major support drive was started, led by William Beatty. The group secured funds to install new lighting and stands at what was then Shuron Park (after a merger in 1925, Standard Optical Company become the Shur-on Standard Optical Company). Shuron, at some point prior to 1947, had deed the park to the city for recreational purposes. Geneva’s team, named the Redbirds, join the Border League and opened the home season on Saturday, May 17, 1947, against the Ottawa Nationals on a soggy field. Nat Boynton, in his autobiography Media Rare: Adventures of a Grassroots Newsman, described the park as it looked that night: “The little clubhouse had cinderblocks walls and a roof, installed and the outfield was ringed with deep post holes, but no fence posts from the left field corner to deep center. But there were bleachers – and lights.” Two thousand gallons of gasoline were burned on the base paths in an attempt to dry them before game time. The team was welcomed by the Winneck Post drum corps and two thousand fans. The host Redbirds won their first game by a score of 4-2.
Many fine players performed at the park over the years, most notably Pete Rose and Tony Perez in 1960. It was also here that Bernice Gera, the first woman umpire in professional baseball, made her debut. On June 21, 1977, Geneva Community Sports, the organization that leases the park from the city renamed it McDonough Park after Joseph McDonough, former police chief and strong supporter of professional baseball in Geneva.
A brief history of the baseball field McDonough Park in Geneva, New York