We were trekking up the Bronx River Parkway recently when we noticed something strange. The Parkway runs parallel to the Metro-North’s Harlem line, and we passed the large green sign that said we’d exited the Bronx and arrived in lovely, leafy Westchester County.

A very short while later, maybe a hundred yards or two further up the Parkway, I looked over and saw the Metro-North stop for Wakefield. As Wikipedia verifies, Wakefield is part of New York City, not Westchester. The Wakefield Metro-North stop, adds Wikipedia, is at 241st Street.

I know some stations’ addresses don’t necessarily match what the stop is called; Hartsdale, for one, has a Scarsdale address (1 Fenimore Road in Scarsdale). But it seems weird to have a Bronx stop located on Westchester ground.  

Wikipedia also includes a map that actually comes in handy. While the Westchester/Bronx border is a perfectly flat line across almost all of their contingent land, the border juts out like a big zit where Wakefield is located (Wakefield. like a particularly horrific blemish, is in red).

So it appears everyone was right: We did indeed cross out of the Bronx and into Westchester, only to pass a Bronx stop a moment later.

Trippy.

It is, simply and frankly put, the saddest ballfield in all of New York.

No, not Shea. Smartass.

On this, the unofficial national holiday and brightener of spirits known as Major League Baseball Opening Day, we salute the most pathetic baseball field–this Field of Nightmares, this Diamond in the Rough–we’ve ever seen.

If you’re on the Harlem Line heading south, look to the east just past Mount Vernon West, just after the lot filled with yellow and white cement mixers. (If you’re heading north, it’s a little past Wakefield.) It’s under a broken sign that once read “HUGH RICHARD” or somesuch but now reads “HUGH RICHA”.

It’s a dirty and lonely stretch of the metropolitan area right along the Westchester/Bronx border known as Bronkers. And right along the border is this former ballfield. You’ll see a black backstop that actually looks to be in good shape. You’ll see concrete walls along the baselines, perhaps to hold fans, perhaps to protect adjacent lots from foul balls.

You’ll see what was once the infield covered in an array of blighted industrial decay: Trucks, machinery, rubble.

As we venture out to those corporate-backed temples to our national pastime today, let us take a moment and raise a $9 Bud to the loneliest little field in the world.