In May, the City of Spartanburg announced the addition of a minor league baseball stadium to Downtown Spartanburg, which will be located behind the AC Hotel.

Many see this as the biggest investment in Spartanburg in recent history.

Phillip Stone is an adjunct professor of government and international affairs, Wofford’s archivist and chair of Spartanburg’s Planning Commission.

Before the announcement of this development, many skeptics believed that the piece of land where the developments are now happening was too big and close to Downtown.

“I get the sense that this has probably been in the works for years,” Stone said. “It’s just part of a bigger vision for growing Downtown Spartanburg.”

With this new stadium also comes other developments to the downtown area, including a hotel, new parking structures, a new office building and new apartment buildings.

All of these will be completed in the next few years.

A good friend of Stone suggested to him that a “downtown baseball stadium is one of the key ingredients for the redevelopment of a downtown.”

This baseball stadium will also give Wofford students another chance to get into the city to go watch a game, and will make Downtown a more exciting place to be as a college student.

Additionally, there could be a benefit to Wofford’s own baseball team.

Wofford’s Associate Head Baseball Coach Josh Schulman spoke about the possibilities that the stadium could bring for Wofford’s team and baseball as a whole

“We are seeing an opportunity for baseball, the sport, to grow as the city is growing bigger,” Schulman said.

Schulman sees this development as a unique opportunity for the city to not only expand into more professional baseball through the minor league team, but also to grow the game for all age groups.

“Right now, there are limited opportunities for exposure to baseball for young kids interested in the sport, whether that be driving to Greenville to see the Drive play or going to the limited indoor spaces around here,” Schuleman said.

Despite playing in two different stadiums during similar parts of the year, Schulman believes that Wofford’s team will benefit from the addition of the stadium.

Not only will it possibly add to interest in the sport, but it will also show the team that the city is bringing baseball players new opportunities.

“From our end as well, the more spotlight there is on baseball as a whole, we feel like there is a benefit to Wofford College on its own, for the fact that there is more of a commitment to baseball in the whole community,” Schulman said.

The minor league team will begin its season a couple of months after Wofford will, meaning that players won’t have to compete for local attention.

“We’ve been successful lately, and we think that the more there is a culture around baseball, the more that everyone involved will benefit from it,” Schulman said. “For the college player, they now have an example of professional baseball; we could have a player drafted to play downtown.”