RailRiders Baseball Is the Valley's Summer Address in Moosic

The valley's summer address sits on Montage Mountain Road in Moosic. PNC Field, a 10,000-seat ballpark opened in 1989 and rebuilt in 2013, is home to the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders, the Triple-A affiliate of the New York Yankees — the highest level of minor league baseball, one phone call from the Bronx.

Triple-A is a distinctive product: rosters mix top prospects finishing their development with major league veterans on rehabilitation assignments and career minor leaguers good enough to fill in up top. For Scranton fans, that means the lineup on a given night can include a future Yankee regular and a current one side by side, in a ballpark built to put both within easy sight of every seat.

The franchise's local roots run through names and eras — Red Barons under the Phillies, Yankees, then RailRiders since 2013, a name chosen to honor the valley's railroad heritage, trolleys included. The Electric City Trolley Museum even runs excursion trolleys from downtown Scranton to the ballpark on Montage Mountain, making the region's two pastimes share one ride.

PNC Field doubles as the valley's scholastic stage, hosting District 2 championship baseball and area high school football, so for many Lackawanna County families the first game they attend there has a relative in it. With baseball in its offseason, November is renewal season — ticket plans for spring, when the mountain turns green and the valley's evenings move back outdoors.

Scranton has rooted for professional baseball since 1887, through a dozen leagues and names. The current arrangement — Triple-A, Yankees, a rebuilt park above the city — is the strongest the valley has ever held, and it plays thirty minutes from everywhere in the county.