Boston Park League

The Boston Park League, located in Boston, Massachusetts, is the oldest amateur baseball league in the United States.

The Boston Park League (BPL) was founded in 1929 by Bob Cusick, program director for the Boston Parks and Recreation Department. Cusick envisioned a high quality, yet highly participatory, amateur baseball league with teams based in, and featuring residents of, the various neighborhoods of Boston. Charlestown, East Boston, South Boston, Hyde Park, Brighton, West Roxbury, Roslindale, Jamaica Plain, Roxbury, Mattapan, South End, and Dorchester all have had teams at some period of time.

The league was rabidly popular among local area baseball fans, and in the 1930s and 1940s many games would draw as many as 5,000 attendees. Once the playoffs got underway, that number was known to swell to as many as 12,000 fans per game. Attendance remained high throughout the 1950s and 1960s, often in the range of 5,000 to 6,000 fans per game.

Such popularity made the league among the best compilations of amateur talent in the nation, featuring top quality players from local and regional high schools and universities. At its peak, the BPL comprised a sizeable population of former professional players, many of whom still had hopes of garnering enough attention to get another shot at a professional position.

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