Mercer County Waterfront Park

Mercer County Waterfront Park, Apr-2001.

A view of the seats, luxury boxes, and press box.

From behind home plate, you can see the Delaware River and on into Pennsylvania.

• Location: Cass Street at NJ 29, Trenton, N.J.
• Opened: 1994
• Home team: Trenton Thunder, Eastern League (1994-present)
• Capacity: 6,440

Rating: 4 baseballs

Due to a rough winter, the park’s opening was delayed slightly, and the sod never exactly took that initial season, creating rainouts on evenings when the sky was clear.

That didn’t take away from an outstanding design job, however. The upper concourse is spacious, and the park looks out over the Delaware River. Numerous fly balls each season land in the drink, and several of them are even fair.

In 1999, about 400 seats were added to the park, a feat accomplished by building a few new rows in certain sections. This had the effect of reducing the amount of foul territory in the park, as well as cutting down on the number of dates on which the only tickets available were standing-room.

After spending the 1994 season as a Detroit Tigers affiliate, the club served the Boston Red Sox from 1995 to 2002. Uniform numbers retired by the Thunder include Tony Clark of the Tigers and Nomar Garciaparra of the Red Sox. For 2003, the Red Sox switched their affiliation to Portland and the New York Yankees moved their affiliation from Norwich to Trenton. To commemorate this, the batter’s eye was painted Yankee blue. For a short time, it also featured a painted Yankee Stadium façade along the top; this was in place in June 2004 but gone by August.