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PNC Field, home of the Scranton Wilkes-Barre Yankees opened in 1989 at a cost
of $25 million dollars. The stadium is located at exit 182 off interstate 81
just south of the city of Scranton.

235 Montage Mountain Road
Moosic, PA 18507
570-969-2255
1-800-872-7200

Driving Directions Here

THE STORY BEHIND THE STADIUM

More than a decade of work finally started to pay dividends, just minutes
after eight o’clock, on the evening of April 26, 1989,- with the grand
opening of the then named Lackawanna County Multi-Purpose Stadium, and the
return of professional baseball after a 30 year absence.

The two County Commissioners who had put their political lives on the line
over the project formed the ceremonial battery. Joe Corcoran was on the mound
to deliver the first-ever pitch, while Ray Alberigi was crouched behind home
plate. Scranton native and Pennsylvania Governor Robert Casey had just been
announced as the first batter when Corcoran and Alberigi called “Time Out!”

Then the earliest call to the bullpen in baseball history brought in a
reliever: 10-year old Jim McGee. The Governor promptly countered by yanking
John McGee out of the home dugout as a pinch hitter. The father-son
double-switch was a planned tribute to John McGee, the Scranton man who 10
years before, initiated the baseball effort and spent most of the decade
working with Corcoran and Alberigi to bring the project to life.

In the late 1970’s, McGee formed a group to study reviving minor-league
baseball on a local level.   Although the results looked quite promising, no
one offered McGee’s baseball plan a second look until Joe Corcoran and Ray
Alberigi were candidates in 1983. Baseball became part of their campaign, and
businessman Bill Gilchrist stepped forward and offered a 50-acre site for a
stadium.

Corcoran and Alberigi took office in 1984, hired McGee, and then helped form
Northeastern Baseball, Inc. (NBI). The non-profit group sold 2200 advance
sales season tickets. NBI then used the ticket money to purchase the
Waterbury (Conn.) Indians AA club.

Local ownership of a minor league club was a guarantee that a team would
definitely occupy a stadium when built: so the Commissioners formed the
Lackawanna County Multi-Purpose Stadium Authority and design, financing, and
construction were given the go ahead.

Construction estimates ballooned far past the original budget of $7.5 million,
but Governor Dick Thornburgh pledged a 4 million dollar state grant.

NBI then came to terms and signed a purchase agreement with the owner of the
AAA Maine Guides. The deal was considered a triumph because this was probably
the only one of the 26 AAA franchises in the nation that would be up for sale,
but NBI was $2,000,000 short of making the payment. McGee convinced Luzerne
County Commissioners, Frank Trinisewski, Jim Phillips and Frank Crossin, to
make $1,000,000 commitment to the project. The Lackawanna County Commissioners
approved the rest of the funding so the money to buy the coveted franchise was
"in the bank."

By now newly elected Governor Robert Casey, impressed that this was now a
solid regional project, was convinced to increase the proposed grant to seven
million dollars.

Back at the closing table in Maine, NBI hit a snag when the owner of the AAA
Guides balked at their signed deal and immediately filed suit to void the
sales contract in Federal Court in Portland much-publicized mid-winter trial
was followed by a surprise  decision when the judge broke the plain-language
sales agreement.

But, NBI promptly challenged the decision in the First Circuit Court of
Appeals in Boston. In October of 1987, the Appeals Court recognized the
original contract and ordered Maine to sell its team to Scranton/Wilkes Barre!!

In 1988 was a year of fast-tract construction and concerns about money to
finish and furnish the facility. In December, Corcoran and Alberigi visited
Harrisburg to petition the Governor for a larger state grant.  Baseball’s
Christmas came on January 17,1989.  Knowing that a Phillies AAA team was a
certainty and that the County was pressed to finish the Stadium for a
now-delayed April 26th, Opening Day, Governor Robert Casey announced an $11
million state grant.

The financial pressure was relieved and the stadium was sold-out for the
Opening Ceremony. Young McGee’s historic delivery looked a bit low, but was
called a “strike”.  Professional baseball was safe at home in Lackawanna
County.

The Governor’s $11,000,000 delivery had a much harder time finding the plate,
however. The Stadium Authority, in the closing months of construction and
while under pressure to get ready for the first season, spent some funds
without formal bidding.

News accounts prompted a newly elected State Auditor General, who was already
planning her run for governor, to conduct a lengthy and much-publicized
investigation that lasted longer than the entire ’89 baseball season. Her
final report was inconclusive and the media coverage forced a frenzy of
follow-up investigations by agencies with any possible jurisdiction on the
bidding issue or the grant. The State Attorney General, the District Attorney,
the PA State Police, the State Department of Community Affairs, and the State
Treasurer’s Office all played tug-of-war with Stadium Authority documents as
they re-worked the Auditor General’s investigation.

Meanwhile the state grant was in limbo and the Authority scrambled to survive
one cash flow after another, while interest charges on the missing state money
ballooned.

When all was investigated, said and done-the findings were exactly the same
as what the Authority members had voluntarily disclosed a year earlier: a
small percentage of funds was expended without public bid, but there were no
criminal actions, every dollar was accounted for, every purchase was a fair
price and all merchandise was in place.

On Monday, March 19, 1990, nearly five years after the first discussion of
state aid for the project, Stadium Authority Chairman Ted Burns and
Commissioner Joe Corcoran accepted a check for $6.3 million as the first
installment from the State on its $11 million commitment.

On February 1, 2007, Peter J. Danchak, president of PNC Bank, Northeast
Pennsylvania reached an agreement with the county and team to rename
Lackawanna County Stadium, PNC Field.

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