Joel Dinda's photos with the keyword: kvp

Kindleberger Park, Parchment, Michigan. Parchment was a company town, built around the Kalamazoo Vegetable Parchment paper mill. Back in the day, KVP fielded strong baseball nines in the local industrial league, and hosted games at this ballpark. Back then this was a fully developed stadium capable of holding several thousand spectators. Remnants of those glory days remain, if you look for them. By the 60s, KVP had been absorbed by Sutherland Paper Company, who still fielded the area's strongest ball team. But only a handful of teams were still around, so the entire Kalamazoo City League schedule was played at Riverview (later Sutherland, now Stryker) Field, in Kalamazoo, and this park changed its focus. Glad to see it's still in use, if somewhat diminished. ------------------------ My boss claims yesterday's Third Base photo was too abstract. So here's an entire ballpark. And here's another view of the Kindleberger ball field, from another age...

For comparison with yesterday's photo , here's an older picture--a postcard shot I picked up somewhere--of the Kindleberger Park baseball stadium in, I'd guess, the 1950s. Note the bleachers down the first base line, and the terrace above the retaining wall on the other side of the yard. One thing you can't see in either photo are the stairs-to-nowhere from the top of the hill which end well above the diamond on the third base side. And back then the playing field was much prettier, as you can see. That's the KVP mill in the background, mostly hidden behind the trees.