Senior Fredericton Royals return to Baseball Hill after two-season hiatus

On a night earlier this summer, after nine innings ended and the crowd dispersed, Kirk Cornell walked out to an empty, quiet Royals Field.

Under the lights, he stood there in awe of the beauty of the ballpark, home to baseball in Marysville for more than 120 years.

He imagined the ghosts of Fredericton baseball past, from the mill workers who played on the field in the 1800s, to his own senior baseball career with the Fredericton Royals in the late 1990s.

"For people involved in the baseball community, this place is a little bit of heaven, really," Cornell said.

But for the previous two summers, Fredericton's Baseball Hill has been a bit quieter. 

The Fredericton Royals senior men's team, which played its first game at Royals Field in 1895, took a two-year hiatus from the New Brunswick Senior Baseball League. The league cancelled its season in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Royals didn't play in 2021, after the former management group decided to step away.

The team returned to play this season along with the Chatham Ironmen, forming a five-team circuit with teams in both New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island.

The Royals were resurrected thanks to a group of volunteers led by two former players, who couldn't bear the idea of another season without senior Royals baseball.

"They've been playing ball here for well over 100 years," said Cornell, who played five seasons with the Royals and now serves as assistant coach and co-manager.

"For there not to be a senior team out of Fredericton in the league, we had to do whatever we could to try to stop that."

Cornell was at Crabbe Mountain when he heard the Royals' former management group had decided to retire.

Around that same time, Cornell phoned his friend, New