DOUGLAS, Mass. - As the site of a 1946 exhibition game between the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees, Soldiers Field in Douglas certainly has claim to baseball history, but its history runs much deeper than the majors. 

With temperatures approaching the century mark on Saturday, two high school baseball teams in our region turned the clock back a century as part of a new initiative to bring back the history of the Blackstone Valley’s blue collar rivalries of the 1920s. 

“Mill baseball in the Blackstone Valley was huge,” said Mike Brousseau, coach of Douglas High School’s baseball team. “That was Douglas and Blackstone, Millville, Northbridge, Hopedale, Millbury. It was crazy!”

Blackstone Valley Mill Baseball, as it was known, provided gritty rivalries, packed bleachers, and, as Coach Brousseau explained, a much-needed outlet for the region’s blue-collar mill workers of the early 20th Century.

“Mills had very large populations of workers, but it wasn’t always the greatest job,” Brousseau said. “One way they kept workers focused on the work and also maybe off other things like alcohol was to have pastimes for them, both the players and participants, workers, as well as their families and fans.”

The spirit of community and passion for the game that played out all those years ago at Soldiers Field left quite the impression on two Douglas High seniors, Connor Fleming and Matt Landry. 

“When we were going to the library to do the research, it kind of got so in depth that we didn’t really expect how far we’d get back, learning about the Red Sox and Yankees that were playing here,” Fleming said.

“It kind of gives people a little bit of an extra special feeling playing here, I definitely don’t take it for granted because a lot of teams don’t get to play on a field like this,” Landry said.

The duo’s senior project became a mission to revive the storied history of Blackstone Valley Mill Baseball, and they said there’s plenty of benefits in doing so. 

“Youth sports in Douglas is going down, and I believe rivalries will potentially bring back youth sports,” Fleming said. “The competition will bring back kids to wanting to play baseball.”

“Give them some interest, to want to develop some more skills,” Landry said. “Play in high school and be able to experience this themselves.”

In the years ahead, they hope the culture grows, and future players will take pride in having their names on a new plaque commemorating the annual showdown. 

“This could end up becoming something that’s pretty big, the word got around a little bit on social media and it’s only the first year,” Landry said. “I expect in the next couple of years people will pick up where we left off. Add some more things to it, add some throwback uniforms, add more spice to it. This is just the start.”

Douglas won Saturday’s tilt 7 to 1 over Sutton, with Tristan Meech taking home the inaugural Outstanding Player Award.