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GOSS STADIUM AT COLEMAN FIELD
Built: 1907 (renovated 1999 and 2009)
First Game: April 12, 1907 (Salem High 4, Oregon State 0) Goss Stadium at Coleman Field, which has stood on the Oregon State campus since 1907, is now the oldest continuous ballpark in the nation. The Beavers have played at the site of Goss Stadium since the program began play more than 100 years ago. The stadium itself has undergone numerous changes - including multiple renovations and expansions - but the playing field itself has stood in place since day one. And just like day one, Goss, formerly known just as Coleman Field, has hosted games in front of one of the best fanbases in the nation. In 2012, the Beavers went 18-6 at home and averaged nearly 2,000 fans as the club posted its fifth 40-win season in school history. That continued the trend of packing the park and watching the Beavers utilize Goss as one of the Pac-12 Conference's toughest venues for opposing clubs. The team hosted its fourth NCAA Regional in 2011, and the support the club receives at its home diamond helped the Beavers to an NCAA Super Regional appearance. Nearly 69,000 fans attended games at Goss Stadium in 2011, an average of 2,285 per, setting school records for a single season. Oregon State went 23-7 at home, just the fifth time in program history the Beavers won 20 or more; the 23 is good for third in school history. A project spearheaded by head coach Pat Casey expanded the stadium prior to the 2009 season and gave the ballpark a facelift. Nearly 1,000 seats were added down the left and right field lines, enabling more Oregon State fans to witness one of the top programs in the nation. The seating addition is far from the only change fans saw beginning that year. A stadium suite, called the Omaha Room, looms over right field with seating for approximately 70. Modeled after the club level at football's Reser Stadium, it can also be used for team banquets and other various events. Underneath the Omaha Room are two rooms -- an academic room and a Hall of Fame room. The academic room and Hall of Fame area are utilized to celebrate the fine history at Oregon State and to allow its current student-athletes the chance to excel in the classroom. Last, but certainly not least, is a player's lounge located underneath the left field stands that gives Oregon State players the chance to relax before games and unwind afterwards. The expansion completed a string of stadium upgrades as a video board located in right field was installed prior to the 2007 season. The board was the first of its kind in the then-Pacific-10 Conference and allows fans to watch replays and enjoy capabilities rivaled by Major League stadiums. Attendance has spiked at the campus park. Oregon State's last six seasons at Goss Stadium have seen the best six years for average attendance. Four of those seasons have seen the Beavers average better than 2,000 fans per game, which ranks the team annually in the top 30 nationally for attendance. It is common to see the Beavers rank second in the Pac-12 and on the West Coast.
In each of the four seasons Oregon State has hosted a regional or super regional, each game, totaling 16 in all, surpassed the 2,000 mark in attendance. Also, the Beavers saw crowds of 3,000 or better in eight of those 16 games.
Oregon State has ridden that wave of support to an incredible home-field advantage. Over the past six seasons, the Beavers are 163-50 (.765) at home, keeping in line with the team's all-time winning ways. In 104 years at what is now Goss Stadium -- and 102 seasons -- OSU is 1,083-463-1 at home, posting an impressive .700 winning percentage. Pat Casey, now in his 19th season at Oregon State, has especially taken advantage of Goss Stadium, using the fans' passions and his team's talents and turning them into wins. In his 18 previous seasons, Casey's clubs have posted a 300-126 (.704) mark at home. In 2005, Oregon State set a program record with 26 home wins. A year later, the Beavers set the record again, finishing with 27 wins at venerable Goss Stadium. Casey, just one four coaches in the past 60 years at Oregon State, has seen two of the most significant stages of Goss Stadium. Previous to the 2009 expansion, in 1999, the park, then known just as Coleman Field, saw a major renovation. That renovation brought improved seating areas, a new press box and improved locker rooms and dugouts. Nine years later, and with the completion of the new seating areas, Casey and Oregon State fans uneveiled a ballpark he had strived for since coming to Corvallis prior to the 1995 season. Over the past 12 years, Goss Stadium has seen other improvements. In the spring of 2002, lights were added to the ballpark, making night games a possibility. And prior to the 2007 season, a new scoreboard with video replay capabilities went up in right-center field. During that same period, the Beavers got a new playing surface in the infield as FieldTurf was installed. The outfield remains natural grass. The stadium's videoboard was the first of its kind in the Pacific-10 (now Pac-12) Conference. Located in right center field, it was a welcome addition to the historic ballpark. Fans have the opportunity to watch replays, catch game highlights from past Oregon State victories and keep abreast of play in other conference games. As one of the few teams in the nation with a videoboard, the Beavers have the ability to provide a true gameday experience. The park has an interesting history, to say the least. When Oregon State began fielding a varsity baseball team in 1907, the school laid out a diamond on a lot just south of the main campus. A century later, that same site still serves as the home of the Beavers, making Goss Stadium at Coleman Field the oldest diamond in the Pac-12 Conference and the oldest college fields in the country. Over the past century, the campus has grown around Goss Stadium at Coleman Field, making it one of the most picturesque settings in college baseball. The ballpark is a short walk down Waldo Place from the Memorial Union and OSU's central campus area, making it easy for students to stop by a game between classes. The field is named for former Oregon State player and coach Ralph Coleman, who guided the Beavers for 35 seasons from 1923-66. The stadium is named for John and Eline Goss, whose major lead gift to the $2.3-million fundraising effort made the project possible. John Goss was an Oregon State track and field letterman in the 1930s. The naming of the stadium is also a memorial to his older brother, James Goss, an Oregon State graduate. The Goss family made additional contributions to OSU toward endowed scholarships for student/athletes and other top academic students, including graduates of Portland's Grant High and members of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity. The park is symmetrical, measuring 330 feet down the foul lines, 365 to the power alleys and 400 to center. The fence is 14 feet high from left field to left-center, then eight feet high from left-center to right field. The concrete, steel and brick structure has a press box, a lobby/concession area, restrooms, locker rooms, dugouts and storage areas. The stadium was designed to complement the architecture of the surrounding campus, and to evoke the aura of baseball's historic parks. The first game after the addition of Goss Stadium to Coleman Field was on March 12, 1999, when defending national champion Southern California topped the Beavers 5-2. The stadium was dedicated on April 17, 1999 as OSU beat California 11-5 before a crowd of 1,246 and a national cable television audience. The ballpark saw its first night game on April 26, 2002, as the Beavers beat fourth-ranked Stanford 3-1. A set of lights meeting professional Class Triple-A standards was installed that spring thanks to the generosity of longtime OSU boosters Bert and Shirley Babb. Goss Stadium at Coleman Field has batting cages behind the left-field fence. When conditions call for indoor practice, the Beavers head for OSU's Truax Indoor Practice Facility, which opened in August, 2001. The team's players can also head to the McAlexander Fieldhouse, which was renovated in 2011 to provide the Beavers with two new batting cages that are available year-round. The Fieldhouse is located across a small parking lot beyond left field. The addition of Goss Stadium to Coleman Field ended years of speculation over whether the Beavers would be able to remain playing baseball at their longtime home. As Oregon State expanded, land near the center of campus became scarce and the school's master plan called for the site to eventually be turned over to academic uses. In 1961, The Oregonian newspaper noted: "In the not-too-distant future, Oregon State baseball hopefuls won't have railroad tracks as a long-distance batting target. Coleman Field will eventually hold no basepaths, only buildings in this era of construction for higher education. Already one classroom building for this site is beyond the drawing board stage." For over 30 years, that possibility prevented any major improvements to Coleman Field. Long-term plans for the OSU campus called for moving the baseball field southeast of the intersection of Western Boulevard and 26th Street. In 1996, the baseball program explored building a press box and storage/concession building at Coleman Field. The possibility of building a stadium was also looked into, and that gradually became the goal of the baseball program and many Beaver boosters. The generous donation from the Goss family was the key to a private fundraising effort in the late 1990s. The ballpark's name was ammended to Goss Stadium at Coleman Field in their honor in 1999. |
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