The Bluefield Ridge Runners are a summer collegiate baseball team of the

Appalachian League The Appalachian League is a Collegiate summer baseball, collegiate summer baseball league that operates in the Appalachian regions of Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, and North Carolina. Designed for rising freshmen and sophomores using wooden ...

. They are located in

Bluefield, West Virginia Bluefield is a city in Mercer County, West Virginia, United States. The population was 9,658 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. It is the principal city of the Bluefield micropolitan area extending into Virginia, which had a populatio ...

, and play their home games at Bowen Field at Peters Park.

History

Previous Bluefield teams

Professional baseball Professional baseball is organized baseball in which players are selected for their talents and are paid to play for a specific team or club system. It is played in baseball league, leagues and associated farm teams throughout the world. Moder ...

was first played in

, in 1937 by the Bluefield Grays. They were affiliated with six different

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball league composed of 30 teams, divided equally between the National League (baseball), National League (NL) and the American League (AL), with 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada. MLB i ...

teams and also played as an independent club for a few seasons. As the Bluefield Orioles, they were affiliated with the

Baltimore Orioles The Baltimore Orioles (also known as the O's) are an American professional baseball team based in Baltimore. The Orioles compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East Division. As one of the America ...

, but the team ended their affiliation with Bluefield and the

at the end of the 2010 season. Bluefield's 53-season affiliation with the Orioles, which lasted from 1958 to 2010, had been the oldest continuous affiliation with the same major league franchise in

Minor League Baseball Minor League Baseball (MiLB) is a professional baseball organization below Major League Baseball (MLB), constituted of teams affiliated with MLB clubs. It was founded on September 5, 1901, in response to the growing dominance of the National Le ...

. The

Bluefield Blue Jays The Bluefield Blue Jays were a minor league baseball team of the Rookie Appalachian League representing the twin cities of Bluefield, West Virginia, and Bluefield, Virginia. The team played their home games at Bowen Field at Peters Park, a histori ...

became an affiliate organization with the

Toronto Blue Jays The Toronto Blue Jays are a Canadian professional baseball team based in Toronto. The Blue Jays compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) American League East, East Division. Since 1989, the team has p ...

in 2011.

Collegiate summer team

In conjunction with a contraction and reorganization of

beginning with the 2021 season, the Appalachian League was reorganized as a collegiate summer baseball league designed for rising college freshmen and sophomores; the Bluefield Blue Jays lost their affiliation with Toronto, but the city was given a new franchise in the revamped league. The new team became known as the Bluefield Ridge Runners. The moniker is in reference to the city's

railroading Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of land transport, next to road ...

heritage. Their namesake, the Ridge Runner

narrow-gauge A narrow-gauge railway (narrow-gauge railroad in the US) is a railway with a track gauge (distance between the rails) narrower than . Most narrow-gauge railways are between and . Since narrow-gauge railways are usually built with tighter curv ...

passenger train, has been a local tourist attraction since 1964. It traverses a loop throughout Lottio Park beyond the right field wall at Bowen Field, the team's home ballpark.

References

External links

*
Statistics from Baseball-Reference
{{West Virginia Sports 2021 establishments in Virginia Amateur baseball teams in West Virginia Amateur baseball teams in Virginia Appalachian League teams Baseball teams established in 2021 Mercer County, West Virginia Tazewell County, Virginia Sports in Bluefield, West Virginia