Jacksonville’s J.P. Small Park, where such baseball greats as Henry Aaron and Satchel Paige once played, is updated in hopes of attracting a new generation of stars.
On Jan. 24, city officials celebrated the reopening of the historic ballpark in Durkeeville after a $2 million makeover that included installation of artificial turf and professional-grade lighting, updated dugouts and new fencing.
The park is at 1701 Myrtle Ave. N.
“Dreams come true,” said City Council member Ron Salem, a lifelong baseball fan who spearheaded the project with aims of protecting a piece of the city’s history, creating a community improvement and driver of economic development in Durkeeville, and possibly attracting a Major League Baseball game to Jacksonville.
“As I tell people, if you can play a baseball game in the middle of Iowa, you can play one in the middle of Durkeeville,” Salem said, referring to MLB games played in 2021 and 2022 at the ballpark built on the filming site of the 1989 baseball movie “Field of Dreams.”
Salem became a fan of the Atlanta Braves while growing up in Jacksonville and listening to the team’s broadcasts on AM radio. His childhood hero was Aaron, who broke Babe Ruth’s home run record as a Brave in 1974.
At the ribbon-cutting ceremony, held on a crisp sunny morning with temperatures around 40 degrees, Salem wore a Braves jacket and recounted days when he and Council member Matt Carlucci, who also attended the event, watched from the stands as their sons played together on the Stanton College Preparatory School team.
J.P. Small Park is named for Stanton’s baseball coach from 1934 to 1969. Under legislation introduced by Salem and approved by Council, the field was named for Aaron in 2018.
The improvements were completed as the first phase of work on the park. Daryl Joseph, director of the city Parks, Recreation and Community Services Department, said further improvements will include construction of a baseball-themed playground outside the center field fence and a new museum highlighting the history of the baseball field Durkeeville outside the left field fence. Estimated cost of that phase of the project is $5 million to $6 million, he said.
In addition to Salem and Carlucci, the ribbon-cutting event drew Mayor Donna Deegan, Council President Randy White and Council members Jimmy Peluso, Michael Boylan, Chris Miller, Mike Gay, Ken Amaro and Rahman Johnson.
Former Mayor Lenny Curry, whose administration supported Salem’s request for funding for the park, also attended.
The ballpark is the home field for the Edward Waters University and Stanton baseball teams. Salem said Ken Babby, owner of the Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp Triple-A team, has expressed interest in playing one game a year at the park.
The baseball field dates to 1912 and was purchased by the city in 1936. Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig played at the stadium, originally known as Barrs Field and then Durkee Field, when it was a spring training site in the early 1900s.
Aaron played there as a minor leaguer in 1953, joining Black teammates Horace Garner and Felix Mantilla in integrating the South Atlantic League.
The stadium also was home to the Jacksonville Red Caps of the Negro Leagues, the organization for Black players that thrived before the racial integration of Major League Baseball.
J.P. Small is one of few remaining parks in the U.S. with ties to the Negro Leagues. It is also has a historic connection to Bill Lucas, a Jacksonville native who grew up next door to the park and later became the first Black general manager in MLB. He was Aaron’s brother-in-law, as his sister, Barbara, was Aaron’s first wife.
In 2024, MLB paid tribute to Hall of Famer Willie Mays and the Negro Leagues when the San Francisco Giants and St. Louis Cardinals played at historic Rickwood Field in Birmingham, Alabama.
Salem’s aspirations for J.P. Small include MLB using the field for a tribute game to Aaron.
In Deegan’s remarks, she said the opening ceremony was a chance to reflect on the park’s legacy in terms of racial relations.
“While the color barrier for play had been broken, and despite Hank Aaron’s success on the field, the path to acceptance for Black players was still fraught,” she said. “He received death threats, and had to overcome the racism of the time in pursuit of Babe Ruth’s home run record. Progress may have been slow, but baseball was still pushing boundaries many years before the rest of society was. The color barrier ended many years before the national Civil Rights legislation was passed. Baseball integrated before schools and public universities.
“This history shows that sports are often at the forefront of cultural movements that make positive change possible.”
Peluso, whose District 7 includes the park, said the project characterized progress he hoped to generate with legislation that he introduced in partnership with Salem to improve Durkeeville.
“Revitalization can’t just be done Downtown,” he said. “It can’t just be done in the nicest parts and the whitest parts of our city. It has to be in neighborhoods like Durkeeville. This project is a perfect example of that. This is what revitalization can look like when the community and the government come together.”
The ballpark was targeted for demolition in the early 1980s in the name of urban renewal, but was saved thanks to efforts by Council member Denise Lee, former Mayor Jake Godbold and community advocates.
After cutting the ribbon, Salem said he felt like a kid again.
“To get involved with something like this on the City Council and to watch it come to fruition while you’re still here, what a great feeling,” he said. “It’s such a legacy that I can come back to this park for the rest of my life and know that I played a significant part in making this happen.”