The New Team in Downtown
The Flying Boxcars will take the field next spring in a different type of professional baseball
By Jeff Thoreson
The new look of professional baseball in Hagerstown extends beyond a new name, new uniforms, and a new stadium. The league the Flying Boxcars will play in when they take the field in the spring of 2024 is different from the Minor League Baseball system that the Hagerstown Suns played in from 1981 to 2020.
During those three decades the Suns played in two different classifications, three different leagues, and were affiliated with five different Major League teams. The Atlantic League of Professional Baseball is an MLB Partner League, but none of its 10 teams are affiliated with a specific Major League team.
Instead, players in the Atlantic League are scouted by all teams and are free to sign with any. Typically, players signed from an Atlantic League team start higher up in a Major League team’s farm system or even at the Major League level. Many players have Major League experience and are working their way back to the big leagues.
The league, which began play in 1998, has a history of attracting top talent. Hall of Fame players Tim Raines and Rickey Henderson have spent time in the Atlantic League, as have players like Daniel Murphy, Jose Canseco, Roger Clemens, Mat Latos, and Steve Lombardozzi Jr. More than 40 percent of Atlantic League players have spent time in the Major Leagues.
“What you’re going to see in the Atlantic League is a lot of Major League players who want to return the Major Leagues,” says league chairman and founder Frank Boulton, who also owns the Long Island Ducks. “It will be Triple A ball or better. There was a time this year when every Long Island Ducks player on the field had major league experience.”
The Atlantic League is generally regarded as the highest level of baseball among the four independent leagues. More than 1,200 players who have come through the league in its 25 years have signed contracts with Major League organizations.
“The Atlantic League is one of the first calls an agent makes when a player gets released at the Major League level," says Boulton.
The Flying Boxcars will spend their first few weeks of the 2024 season on the road next spring but hope to take the field at the new Hagerstown Multi-Use Sports and Events Facility downtown in May. The stadium is another aspect of the Atlantic League that stands out. All teams are required to play in a stadium at or above the Triple-A level. So, if you follow the team on the road, expect nice ballparks.
The new downtown ballpark at the corner of West Baltimore Street and Summit Avenue will be a state-of-the-art stadium that seats more than 3,000 for baseball and has the flexibility to host other events.
Boulton, a part-owner of the Boxcars, was convinced by his Hagerstown partners Howard “Blackie” Bowen, Don Bowman, and James Holzapfel that the downtown location would be key to the Boxcars success. Boulton says he looked at several sites outside of town that would have been much easier to develop.
“My partners said, ‘No, no, no. We need to build in downtown.’ That was paramount,” Boulton says.
“I got involved in the baseball project to create economic development for Hagerstown,” Bowen says.
The partners all agree the new downtown park will be a big economic engine for Hagerstown.
Construction continues to progress, and Boulton says the majority of the outside should be done by the time cold weather sets in. When finished, the Flying Boxcars and their fans will have a spanking-new, comfortable stadium to once again watch professional baseball in.
The Hagerstown Suns, which played at the now-razed Municipal Stadium, got caught up in Major League Baseball’s minor league realignment in 2020, and the city has been without professional baseball for three years, even though the Hub City’s relationship with professional baseball goes back almost to the beginning of baseball.
The team name pays tribute to Fairchild Aircraft’s production of C-82 and C-119 cargo planes at the Hagerstown Regional Airport between 1949 and 1955. The fuselage of the plane was said to be as big as a train boxcar. The Fairchild planes were used as military transport planes for both cargo and troops.
Since the Atlantic League’s inception more than 45 million fans have attended games. The league prides itself as being affordable family entertainment.
North Division
Lancaster Barnstormers
Long Island Ducks
Southern Maryland Blue Crabs
Staten Island Ferry Hawks
York Revolution
South Division
Charleston Dirty Birds
Gastonia Honey Hunters
Hagerstown Flying Boxcars
High Point Rockers
Lexington Counter Clocks