If you grew up in Columbus, there’s a good chance you spent at least one sticky summer night under the lights at Cooper Stadium.
The cheers, the cheap hot dogs, the crack of a bat echoing through Franklinton—it was the kind of place that didn’t need to be flashy to be beloved. It just was.
Cooper Stadium had a long, winding life before it became the aging ballpark we remember.
Built way back in 1931, it was originally called Red Bird Stadium and modeled after Red Wing Stadium in Rochester (the Cardinals owned both teams at the time—clearly into the copy-paste method).
Over the decades, it changed names like a minor league chameleon: Red Bird, Jets, Franklin County Stadium, and finally Cooper Stadium in 1984, in honor of Harold M. Cooper—the guy who basically said, “Columbus needs baseball,” and then made it happen.
The stadium had a run like few others.
It hosted everything from Yankees exhibition games (with record crowds!) to high school state tournaments. And it wasn’t just baseball. We’re talking wrestling matches with Bobo Brazil and The Sheik, roller derbies, concerts with legends like Bob Dylan and Garth Brooks, and even a giant human American flag formed during Desert Storm.
But for most of us, Cooper Stadium was the Clippers.
With their classic navy and white uniforms and their AAA connection to the New York Yankees, the Clippers lit up summer nights in a way that felt close to magic. You could sit behind home plate for cheap, feel like part of a community, and maybe—just maybe—catch a foul ball.
The Clippers packed up and moved to Huntington Park in 2009
The final game? A bittersweet sendoff in front of over 16,000 fans on September 1, 2008. We cried. We clapped. We probably ate too many peanuts. It was perfect.
As for the stadium itself, it didn’t get the retirement it deserved.
There were big dreams—a racetrack, an automotive tech center, even a new home for OHSAA tournaments—but they fizzled. Today, the old Coop sits in half-demolished limbo, slowly being reclaimed by time and tall grass.
