📍 Binghamton, New York
⚾ Home of the Binghamton Rumble Ponies

Opened in 1992, Mirabito Stadium has been a fixture in the city of Binghamton for decades. The ballpark seats just over 6,000 fans and narrowly avoided contraction during Major League Baseball’s minor league realignment in 2021. In the years since, the facility has undergone several rounds of renovations aimed at meeting updated league standards, including improvements to player facilities, fan amenities and overall infrastructure. These upgrades have helped ensure the venue remains a viable home for the Double-A Rumble Ponies for the foreseeable future.

As the closest minor league city to Cooperstown, baseball’s supposed birthplace and epicenter, Binghamton has held many close ties to the sport. For forty years, the Triplets were the talk of the town, a minor league club named after the three cities in the area: Binghamton, Johnson City and Endicott. The city also boasts homegrown talent like “Wild Bill” Hallahan and Billy Martin, but even bigger names have appeared on the rosters of the hometown teams. Murals and plaques honoring pioneer Bud Fowler – the first African-American known to play organized baseball – and former Triplets’ players such as Whitey Ford and Thurman Munson make up the Binghamton Baseball Shrine, a memory-filled wall on the main concourse that even goes as far as including modern-day products of the pipeline like Mets star David Wright.

The franchise that would become today’s Rumble Ponies relocated to the area from Williamsport in 1992, coinciding with the construction of Mirabito Stadium, and has uniquely spent its entire history in Binghamton as the Double-A affiliate of the New York Mets. Formerly known simply as the Binghamton Mets, the team rebranded as the Rumble Ponies in 2017, a nod to the city’s six antique carousels and its subsequent designation as the Carousel Capital of the World. Over the years, the team has seen consistent success in the Eastern League, capturing four league titles.

Mirabito Stadium, despite its age, is a solid example of a classic minor league environment, combining a long-running Mets partnership with a venue that reflects Binghamton’s relationship with the game. Both the recent and upcoming renovations of the park will ensure that professional baseball continues to persist in the Southern Tier.