Photograph © Steven L.J. Russo
With the Can-Am League moved on and the war coming in, Falcon Park again went dark… this time for another 6 long years. Very long when you realize that the stadium opened in 1927 and only 2 teams have ever played here... that's 2 seasons of service in the 20 years Falcon Park I had been open for business. Falcon Park’s sister city and ballpark… Batavia’s Dwyer Stadium, didn’t open until 1939 but has so far had a steady stream of quality baseball as a New York Penn-League team. For some reason however, the NY-Penn League (then known as the PONY League), continued to overlook Falcon Park. When the war came to an end, a new league which looked an awful lot like the Can-Am League came to town. They were known as the Border League and they sort of featured the ballparks, that the Can-Am League had shun after awhile. Both organizations ran under the umbrella of "Class C". The Border League featured the Sherbrooke Canadians, the Granby Red Sox, the Kingston Ponies, the Ogdensburg Maples and the Watertown Athletics. The new Auburn team was dubbed the Auburn Cayugas named after one of the largest of the Finger Lakes and the county that Auburn resides in. Unlike the Can-Am League which ran almost completely under Major League affiliation, only Kingston ran with an affiliation (Philadelphia Athletics). The rest of the co-op teams forged ahead in the first year of the new Border League. Again this league didn’t have the prestige of the Can-Am League but after 20 years and only 2 years of pro-ball, Auburn wasn’t about to complain. This team however was not the typical Auburn team with semi-decent hitting and miserable pitching. This was actually a very good franchise.