The Cougars played in the Independent Northeast League, which is now known as the Northern League East. They were a family run operation and Baxter Stadium was a family built ballpark. It really wasn't much more than a high school field with wood and metal bleachers running down each foul line and a small section of molded plastic "box seats" behind home plate. The scoreboard was manully operated by a kid on top of the left field fence who had trouble keeping track of what was going on. His big problems came when a run was scored; he'd run behind the scoreboard to change the inning score, the total score, and the hit count. This took him so long that he's usually missed the next two pitches. It was fun watching him call to the left fielder who obligingly told him the count.

The food and souvenirs were okay, but also housed in hand-hewn shacks. Despite the rawness of the place, I liked it. It was a fine example of baseball entrepeneurism at work. Here was a family that wanted a baseball team and they were going to have it if they had to do it all with their own hands. The team owner was very obvious, walking about tossing little treats to the kids, and getting the crowd going.

And what an interesting crowd it was. There were over 3,000 in the park on the night of my visit; about 1/3 were campers (including my niece), 1/3 were orthodox Jews stopping in on their way home from the Catskill resorts, and 1/3 were assorted other folks. An interesting assortment and not your usual ballpark crowd, but it was a lively crowd who enjoyed the game and the fireworks that followed.