If you don’t know the story of Jackie Robinson stadium in Daytona, you’re missing an important part of baseball history. In 1946, Jackie Robinson, banned from playing a game in Sanford for the Triple A club of the Brooklyn Dodgers, played in City Island Ballpark, the city ignoring Jim-Crow segregation laws. The stadium was renamed after Robinson in 1990.
The ballpark, located on an island separated from the cute historic Beach Street shops and restaurants by the Halifax River, overlooks the bridges leading to the barrier islands, making it a spectacular place to watch fireworks that often are a finale of a baseball game.
I’ve been in the area for 21 years (a member of the Daytona Beach/Palm Coast Penn State Alumni club since shortly after its creation) and have attended many games at the stadium. While in my time they’ve added a big screen for displaying players’ names and stats and the on-field fun sponsored competitions (Shrimp Tossing, anyone?), the outfield scoreboard and stats are still manually updated. Even before the craft beer explosion, concessions offered premium imported beer at the same price as domestic. And if you stayed for all nine innings, you’d often received a parting gift (many birds in our neighborhood enjoyed the loaves of white bread we once finally accepted.)
In 2003 a young man ruined his career by hitting a nesting osprey in the head intentionally (sadly, Ozzie died, but his mate, Harriet lived on.) In 2012, the umpire ejected the “music man” from the game for playing “Three Blind Mice” after several disputed calls (the rest of the game, the PA was silent.) From 1995 through 2016, Joe Rowe, known as “Front Row Joe” attended 1,439 games consecutively , saying “I just thought it was time” when he broke his streak. No glitz, no glamor, just Americana at its finest.
I like the Tortugas mascot Shelldon (who for some reason was dressed as Moses at the beginning of last night’s game) but I’ll always have a soft spot for Cubbie, the Daytona Cubs mascot. It’s just easier hugging a bear cub than a turtle, right?
Pretty much since its inception, the Penn State Daytona/Palm Coast alumni chapter has attended baseball games at Jackie Robinson stadium. We’ve reserved hospitality areas at the park in the past but this time we chose to tailgate, as one would expect from a Penn State crowd. As we drove up to the parking area, I was surprised to see the Nittany Lion emblem proudly displayed on a blue tent — right at the entrance to the park! You’d have to be willed this location at University Park!
We’re not sure why, but with our $10 tickets, we also received free food vouchers good for a hot dog, corn dog, or pizza slice AND popcorn or chips AND a soft drink. Quite the deal!
The game had lots of runs (and errors from the other team). The weather was great and the seats had giant fans swirling the air in the reserved ticket section There was a marriage proposal on the field (no, no Kiss Cam, thankfully), spectacular fireworks after the game, and the Tortugas won! Can’t wait until we do this again next year!
Daytona/Palm Coast Penn State Alumni 