The Edenton Steamers are a collegiate summer baseball team located in Edenton, North Carolina. Beginning in 2020 they will participate in the Tidewater Summer League. 2019 was the Steamers 22nd year as a member of the Coastal Plain League where they won 11 North Division titles and 7 East Division titles, three Petitt Cup Championships, and had a league-record 14-year streak (2004–2017) of posting a winning record, having made a playoff appearance in 13 of those seasons. Edenton also established a CPL standard by winning seven consecutive division-half titles from 2011 through the first half of 2014. In 2015 the Steamers capped the summer with its third Petitt Cup Championship, tied for the league record in that tally, and was named the Summer Collegiate Team of the Year by Perfect Game CrossChecker.
Steamers players are recruited from colleges around the United States. The team's nickname and logo reflects steamed clams.
CPL and the Steamers
The Edenton Steamers began play in the Coastal Plain League (CPL) in 1998, the league's sophomore season and were members of the CPL's North Division along with the Martinsville Mustangs, Peninsula Pilots, and Wilson Tobs.
Steamers history
Historic Hicks Field
The Edenton Steamers call Historic Hicks Field home, located adjacent to John A. Holmes High School on the corner of East Freemason and Woodward streets in Edenton, North Carolina and was built as a Work Projects Administration (WPA) project in 1939.
The main structure is an all-wood grandstand with a roof that was built to accommodate slightly more than 500 people. The main grandstand is the oldest remaining wooden grandstand of its type in North Carolina.
Hicks Field was home to minor league baseball and semipro teams up until 1952, including the Edenton Colonials of the original Coastal Plain League, the Albemarle League, and the Virginia League.
The Albemarle League was well known for its baseball prominence throughout the area as collegiate players would grace locales such as Elizabeth City, Hertford, Edenton, Windsor and Williamston for a summer full of great baseball.
Hicks Field was also the longtime spring training site for a number of Minor League teams during the 1940s, including Binghamton, New York and Reading, Pennsylvania. In 1995, Hicks Field was added to the National Register of Historic Places.
Players such as Bob Feller and other Major League all-stars have set foot inside this historic stadium. In 1946 Hicks Field played host to arguably one of the best games of that era as an Albemarle League all-star team faced off against a Major League all-star team composed of players from the Pittsburgh Pirates, New York Yankees, Washington Senators and Chicago White Sox. The Albemarle team was defeated but for the 4,500 in attendance they were treated to some of the best players in all of baseball.
In 1997 Hicks Field underwent extensive renovations, including a complete remodeling of the main grandstand behind home plate and the addition of two new grandstands, one down the first baseline and one down the third baseline. New bathrooms were built along with a manual wooden scoreboard that was placed above the fence in right field and a second deck was added to the left field fence to give Hicks a "Fenway Park" feel. After the renovations were complete, Hicks Field had grown in capacity to seat 1,200 people and now gives off a nostalgic feeling that can rival any major league baseball stadium.
In 1998 the Edenton Steamers were formed in the new Coastal Plain League and Hicks Field became the Steamers home ballpark. Hicks Field continues to host the Steamers, Edenton-Holmes High School baseball, and American Legion Post 40 contests, as well as various tournaments throughout the summer. Historic Hicks Field was home to the CPL All-Star game in 2001, when the North All-Stars defeated the South All-Stars 1-0, and was voted the No. 2 summer collegiate baseball venue in the nation by Baseball America (regarded as the definitive publication for the sport) in 2004. Historic Hicks Field is the smallest field in the CPL in both capacity and dimensions. It is 300 feet down the left field line, 336 feet to left-center, 350 feet to straightaway center field, 330 feet to right-center, and 298 feet along the right field line.
Early years and modern rebirth
Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, the Edenton Colonials called Hicks Field home. The Colonials played in three different leagues: the Albemarle, the Virginia, and finally the Coastal Plain League (Class D) in 1952, folding after that season.