Edward A. LeLacheur Park: A Brief Look into the Future(s)

A quick visit to the future home of the Lowell {remember to update this once the team gets named}

*This one’s a little strange in that I was only here for about five minutes after seeing the Boston Fleet at the nearby Tsongas Center. The UMass Lowell River Hawks baseball team (who currently play in the stadium) had a game that day; it was supposed to be DURING the hockey game (I think), but got postponed to the evening due to rain (I actually considered watching a bit of it as it was free, but ultimately decided not to). I’m throwing it into this blog as a sort of “unofficial visit” as I didn’t do much here THIS year, but I’m almost certain I’m going to make a return here next year for reasons I’ll get into after giving a little bit of background on the stadium’s history. However, I won’t go into UML’s baseball team as there’s really not that much to talk about with them IMO, plus I didn't actually get to see them play.

Also, I've been debating whether or not to make this an official post since I started setting up this blog; ultimately, I've made it this somewhat hidden little "special feature". Anyhoo...

In 1996, The New York-Penn League expanded to the Greater Boston area with the arrival of the Lowell Spinners. For their first two years, they played in a "temporary" field, but in 1998, they moved downtown with the opening of Edward A. LeLacheur Park on the campus of the University of Massachusetts Lowell. While the team's on field success is somewhat debatable (four division championships but no league titles), their success in the stands is hardly debatable. For years, they sold out game after game, and were usually among the league leaders in attendance (LeLacheur was on the "smaller" end, so they were never the top draw in the league). However, when researching their numbers for this post, I found that there had been a notable decline in their attendance toward the late 2010s - they were still drawing six figures a season, but nowhere near as well as they used to (they had fallen to somewhere around the middle of the pack in terms of NYPL attendance).

Fast forward to 2020, and as part of the Great MiLB Shuffle, the Spinners were one of the many teams cut from Minor League Baseball. Unable (or unwilling) to find a new league to play in, the Spinners folded. Over the ensuing years, the Boston Red Sox (whom the Spinners were under for their entire tenure) supposedly had interest in bringing affiliated ball back to Lowell, but nothing really seemed to have come of it. My guess is that this happened for several reasons:

1. MLB specifications for Minor League stadiums. LeLacheur Park would have needed very large scale renovations in order to meet MLB's required specifications for the Minor Leagues, and I'm guessing no one could figure out where/how to get the money.
2. The aforementioned UMass Lowell River Hawks baseball team. They play in LeLacheur Park too as it's on UML's campus, and issues around scheduling the MiLB team and River Hawk games in April and May (thanks to the now longer season) would have likely frustrated MiLB (plus the fact that UML bought the stadium from the city in 2022). There’s a similar situation near the other end of U.S. Route 20, where a team in Eugene, Oregon had issues due to sharing their stadium with a college team (which may actually result in the MiLB team leaving as it’s currently ongoing...).
3. The geographic makeup of the Minor Leagues. Lowell would almost certainly have been in one of the A leagues had they been affiliated; unfortunately, only one of those leagues even comes remotely close to Lowell (the South Atlantic League), and they’d still be a good four hours away from the nearest competition (the Hudson Valley Renegades). In addition, the likely team to land in Lowell was based in Salem, VA (the Salem Red Sox) - a team that plays in the Low-A Carolina League, though it’s more likely they would’ve been put in the SAL and the Greenville Drive (the Red Sox’ current High-A team in the SAL) would be sent to the Carolina League. Had that not happened, however, the team would be SEVEN hours by car from their NEAREST league competition (the Delmarva Shorebirds in Salisbury, MD on the Delmarva peninsula), and much, MUCH further from most of their league (thus making travel costs INSANELY expensive as MiLB rules require teams to fly if their opponent is over 500 miles away; Delmarva is JUST under this limit). Salem WAS owned by the Red Sox (which is what made them "likeliest" to move), but the Sox sold the team to the notorious Diamond Baseball Holdings in 2023, likely killing any potential for a move.

With the return of Minor League Baseball looking more and more unlikely, there were apparently discussions about tearing down the stadium (my guess is the university would've moved the baseball team to a multipurpose field and/or built a much smaller stadium in its place). However, in 2025, the city announced that the Futures League would be adding a team in Lowell in 2026 - the league fellow NYPL “brethren” Vermont and Norwich/Connecticut¹ joined when the shuffle happened. The team’s name hasn’t been announced yet as of this being posted, but I’m kinda hoping they’re working with whoever owns the Spinners trademark to bring that name back (though I’m guessing they won’t be able to use the Spinners’ Red Sox inspired unis without paying royalties). No ownership group has been announced either, though I suspect that may be due to some unresolved situations heading into the fall of 2025 (i.e. some of the league's other teams may be facing stadium issues soon).

So that’s the future of LeLacheur Park - but now let’s talk about the present (or the past, really).

During my visit, I felt that the stadium was, more or less, decent, but you could see that a lot HADN’T been done since the Spinners’ demise. There were still Spinners items laid about the stadium, and large parts of the concourse were blocked off due to the River Hawks not drawing very large crowds. I didn’t see any of the concession stands being open either (a lot of them were in the blocked off parts of the stadium), but that may have been due to me being so early and not sticking around (as well as the rain).

There’s also space for a retail store at the stadium; similar to Brockton, it’s at “street” level outside of the gates (which, I should note, are also at street level unlike Brockton). Whether or not Futures League Lowell 2026 will use the store for anything remains to be seen, but considering that Brockton DIDN’T use their “team store” until they got the Frontier League team, who knows what they’ll do.

I have not heard of any other renovations being done for the park, but I’m excited to return next year to see how things are for the Lowell Whatchamacallits.