Ten years ago, fans and teams made their way out of Capital City Stadium's stands for what would be its last game.
Plans for grocery stores, Walmarts and student apartment complexes on the Assembly Street site came and went. But nothing could ever stick.
Meanwhile, local baseball teams from community leagues to Gamecock club baseball have been traveling and searching for places to play, some even driving right past the abandoned field on their way to various other locations in and around the city.
Chris Dorsey coaches American Legion baseball, one of the oldest baseball organizations in the country. After the last game of his team's season, he was driving by the stadium and decided someone should try to revitalize the property. And that someone, should be him.
“We just ended our season, and something just came over me, and I said, ‘I need a field. This field is sitting here. Nobody's ever going to be able to do anything on it, because it's got some wetlands problems, and it's just so expensive for a developer to come in there and do anything.' I said, 'Let's make a run at it,'” Dorsey said.
Dorsey then started the "Save Capital City Stadium" Facebook group to “test the market” and see what kind of action and interest he could get from the community. Within a few days, the group had grown to 600 members. It now has 1,500.
Dorsey had a meeting with Columbia Mayor Daniel Rickenmann in early August. With him, he outlined what steps they needed to take to get the idea off the ground.
The first was creating an unsolicited proposal, a written application to an agency for a new idea to start a contract with the government. Dorsey sought the Facebook group's help. And on Aug. 14, Dorsey turned in the group's unsolicited proposal with more than 125 letters of support.
Centuries of impact
Baseball has been in Columbia since 1867 when the first documented match took place. Several teams had their roots in Columbia, with teams from the Senators to Skyscrapers to Commissioners.
The stadium was built in the 1920s on top of an old, drained pond. The original wooden grandstands are gone, but the stadium remains on that site.
Early teams played at various stadiums around Columbia. In 1927, a fire destroyed a portion of an existing stadium. Pittsburgh Pirates owner Barney Dreyfuss donated the funds to a new stadium that would be called Dreyfuss Field, which is now Capital City Stadium.
“Dreyfuss Dell, as the stadium was first called, was a soggy home for minor league baseball for the next eight decades, off and on, depending on whether the town had a team," said Margaret Dunlap, Richland Library's local history manager.
The stadium would go on to host many teams. One of the most notable in Columbia baseball history, Dunlap said, is the Reds.
The Reds was a long-running team in Columbia. One of the biggest players to arise out of the team was Frank Robinson, a Hall of Famer who played for the team in the '50s.
Out fielder Frank Robinson went onto various other teams and now holds 10th place for the most home runs of all time players in the MLB.
Robinson was also one of the only two Black players on the team. His arrival on the Reds in 1954 was one of the first moves to integration in the City of Columbia.
Billy Routh, a member of Save the Capital City Stadium group, said his father was an announcer while Robinson played on the team.
“They started their broadcasting careers at Capital City Stadium for the Columbia Reds,” Routh said. “And this was at a time when Frank Robinson, who would later go on to become a major league Hall of Famer, played for the Columbia Reds in 1955. I actually have an audio recording of my dad calling Frank Robinson at bat in 1955.”
The stadium served a large role in its community outside of the players and teams. Members of Save the Capital shared fond memories of what attending games at the field was like for them.
Tim Graves grew up in Columbia and still lives here. He spent a lot of time at Capital City Stadium when he worked as a clubhouse manager for a team that played at Capital City.
Graves remembers a local celebrity named Dave, who spent a lot of time at the stadium and was known for his team spirit and rendition of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame."
"Everybody loved Dave," Graves said. "There wasn't anybody at the Sarge Frye field that didn't love Dave, and I guess because of his love of baseball, that ended up winding up him being over at Capital City Stadium as the person that you know everybody loved again over there."
Members of the group, including Dorsey and Graves, agreed Dave should be honored in the stadium somehow if it were to be rebuilt.
"I think it's best to just make sure that you know his, either his jersey, or his likeness, or pictures or something, is ... framed inside Capital City Stadium," Graves said. "He was certainly one that deserves to definitely be on a wall of fame inside Cap City Stadium."
An ongoing debate
The stadium closed in 2014 when the Blowfish, the most recent team to have played there, moved to Lexington County.
After the stadium was abandoned, there were several proposals for what would take its spot.
Dorsey said developers, such as grocery stores and student housing developers, tried to build on it but kept running into the problem with flooding. One of the only uses for the land would be a sports field, Dorsey said.
"One point in time they were going to do something else with that stadium, and they were going to completely bulldoze it," Graves said. "We were very sad when they were talking about having to do that, to a point where would have been some tears being shed if that ever came to fruition. And thank God it hasn't come to fruition and now we're doing what we're trying to do."
The community wants it to remain a baseball field and that is also the best use for that land as well, Dorsey said.
"The only thing that makes any sense to own that property, with the way the water is, is a baseball field that's been there, because it's been there for 100 years,” he said.
Unsure of the future
Dorsey is still working with members of the community who specialize in different areas to discuss plans. Several people have reached out to him expressing a desire to donate their time and help him navigate applying for funding sources.
But the future of the stadium is still unknown.
John McNabola, president of Gamecock Club Baseball, said he reached out to Dorsey to discuss how the stadium could benefit Columbia and its team.
Gamecock Club baseball has had trouble finding places to practice around Columbia. McNabola said its not easy for them to find a field they can use nearby. They now need to travel 25 minutes to 30 minutes from campus for practice. Capital City Stadium is a seven-minute drive from the heart of campus.
"We're lucky to play at Westwood High School, where we are. It's a beautiful field, beautiful school. It's just a little bit expensive, and we've always — guys of our teams have always been like, 'Hey, why don't we try and look into revamping that stadium?'" McNabola said.
The unsolicited proposal, with the letters, was well received, Dorsey said. But there are still obstacles the group needs to overcome. When Dorsey submitted the proposal, to his surprise, other developers became interested in the property.
"After 10 years of it sitting there, and all of a sudden after I get this storm going, and he's like, 'Yeah, we have other people ... you have to do a request for proposal now," Dorsey said.
He said he is the only interested party trying to make it a baseball field but is unsure who the others are.
The request for the proposal will take a couple of weeks. Despite the setback, Dorsey said he is going to continue to push forward. He wants the project to be for the community that made it happen, he said.
"This is going to be a community," Dorsey said. "This will be for Legion, for Gamecock club teams, for community events, community teams."