📍 Erie, Pennsylvania
⚾ Home of the Erie SeaWolves

Baseball has long been a staple in the Great Lakes region and the story here in Erie, Pennsylvania is no different. Since the postwar era, the city’s been home to a handful of professional teams in both affiliated ball and independent leagues. For the last three decades, the mantle has been carried by the Erie SeaWolves, a Double-A franchise that takes to the field each summer at UPMC Park.

Completed in 1995, the ballpark replaced Ainsworth Field as the flagship stadium of The Flagship City. Ainsworth, which was built in 1947 and hosted the Erie Sailors, a longtime minor league club that moved to Hudson Valley after the 1993 campaign, and the Frontier League team of the same name that competed for just a single season in 1994 before moving to Johnstown, is still in use today for high school baseball.

UPMC Park – originally known as Jerry Uht Park – is a part of Erie Civic Center complex, which includes the adjoining Erie Insurance Arena that makes up most of the stadium’s towering left field wall. The rest of the venue’s design is just as odd, with two disconnected seating structures down the lines that don’t meet behind the plate. In the right field corner is the Bud Light Party Deck, a bi-level picnic area that affords fans some nice views of downtown Erie. All told, the ballpark can seat 6,000 comfortably.

The stadium also has pretty good variety among the concessionaries, with options from local Pennsylvania vendors such as Smith’s Hot Dog Hut and the Penn State Berkey Creamery. One must-try item is The Grog, an alcoholic beverage comprised of Peach Schnapps, melon liquor, coconut rum, orange juice and pineapple juice.

The SeaWolves were formerly the Welland Pirates and played across the lake in Ontario before moving to Erie following the construction of UPMC Park in 1995. The team was named after a slang term for piracy-inclined mariners, with the squad’s logo featuring a wolf dressed in the style of a pirate. Leaning more into the “wolves” part of the name, fans love to let loose a few howls throughout the game to keep things exciting.

Throughout their thirty years in Erie, the club has been a true Eastern League contender as an affiliate primarily for the Detroit Tigers. The ‘Wolves have captured 8 division titles and won the league championship back-to-back in 2023 and 2024. A few plaques on the third base side of the ballpark honor important figures in Erie baseball history, like Mike Cannavino and Sam Jethroe, and other notable players from the Sailors and SeaWolves.