A forgotten baseball stadium that once drew thousands of fans — and one of the greatest pitchers in baseball history — has become the spark for a new community-driven effort to preserve Riverhead’s overlooked stories.
Riverhead Free Library librarians Joann White and Michael Ryan say the idea for the library’s new “Riverhead Remembers” local history project grew out of their astonishment after learning that Satchel Paige once pitched at a long-vanished Riverhead venue called Wivchar Stadium, later known as Riverhead Stadium.
Neither librarian had ever heard of the stadium.
Then they discovered many longtime Riverhead residents had not heard of it either.
“We started asking our patrons, we put stuff out on social media, and we got no response,” White said. “A lot of blank stares, a lot of people going, ‘I have no idea.’”
That realization led to a larger question: What else has Riverhead forgotten?
Now the library is asking residents to help answer it — by bringing in photographs, documents, personal correspondence and stories tied to life in Riverhead through the decades. The library will digitize all materials and return originals to their owners, while building a growing archive of community history.
“We really want to know their story,” White said. “A picture is great, but we need to learn a little bit about the story in the background.”
The effort is centered partly around the mystery of Wivchar Stadium itself — a short-lived sports venue that operated from roughly 1949 to 1951 near what is now the Pulaski Street sports complex and the Riverhead Central School District offices on Osborn Avenue.
Despite hosting professional-style events and drawing crowds reportedly exceeding 6,000 people, almost no photographic evidence of the stadium has surfaced.
Source: RiverheadLOCAL
