Connecticut has a grand baseball tradition going back to the first college baseball game with modern-day rules taking place between Yale University and Wesleyan University in 1865. There are 20 college baseball teams (6 Division I, 4 Division II, 9 Division III and 1 JC) in the small state, and a slew of impactful major leaguers including Jeff Bagwell, Mo Vaughn, Brad Ausmas and George Springer. Connecticut is far and away the best cold-weather state for baseball in the nation, with 3.37 pro players per 100,000 residents in a recent Baseball America study.

NEW HAVEN
New Haven has a particularly rich baseball legacy. With five colleges (Yale, Quinnipiac, New Haven, Southern Conn. St and Albertus Magnus within 10 minutes of each other), each spring is filled with outstanding players and teams competing against each other.

Yale Field
Historic Yale Field has an amazing legacy. Ted Williams couldn’t hit the ball over the center-field fence in batting practice; Frankie Viola from St. John’s outdueled Yale’s Ron Darling 1-0 in 12 innings in the 1981 NCAA Tournament; and in 1948, a retired Babe Ruth shook hands at home plate with Yale Captain and future U.S. President George Bush.

Yale baseball began playing at the site at the turn of the 20th century, before building a 12,000 seat stadium in 1928. In 1993, the stadium was renovated again for Double-A baseball, and in 2018, the grass was replaced with turf.
In the spring of 2025, Yale baseball won the Ivy League regular season title under head coach Brian Hamm and pitching coach Chris Wojick, and hosted the Ivy League tournament.

WEST HAVEN
Frank Vieira Field
Legendary baseball coach Frank “Porky” Vieira coached the University of New Haven Chargers for 44 years with an extraordinary 1,127-324-6 record and 17 trips to the World Series. He passed away in the spring of 2025, but his legacy is preserved at Frank Vieira field.

Coach Vieira sent 90 players to professional baseball, but he himself was an outstanding athlete as well. Along with success in college baseball, he averaged 31.8 points per game in basketball for Quinnipiac College. Though only 5-feet 6 inches tall, he beat Wilt Chamberlain in a one-on-one game, a testament to the will to win that inspired thousands over his career.

Quigley Field
Quigley Field has been at the center of the pulse of baseball in the New Haven area, between amateur and college games, and home of the West Haven Twilight League since 1933.

STORRS
Elliott Ballpark
UConn opened its state-of-the-art baseball stadium in 2021. A vanguard program in New England, their field matches the national-level of play that UConn has been bringing to college baseball the last 20 years. A wonderful setting for games, a highlight is the grass hill down the right field line for leisurely watching the games.