WVU Baseball Rebrands Home Field After Ken Kendrick Donation

The Mountaineers’ home stadium has a brand new name, as WVU Athletics announced Thursday that following a “generous gift” from Arizona Diamondbacks majority owner and prominent WVU Baseball booster Ken Kendrick, Wagener Field will rebrand as Kendrick Family Ballpark at the Monongalia County Baseball Complex.

Kendrick, 80, is a native of Princeton, W. Va., graduating from WVU in 1965 with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration. He co-founded WVU’s Name, Image and Likeness collective fund, the Country Roads Trust, along with former Mountaineers’ athletic director Oliver Luck. Although he’s a prominent supporter of WVU athletics as a whole, Kendrick has maintained a particular interest in West Virginia baseball, as his Diamondbacks played the Mountaineers in scrimmage matches in 2016 and 2023.

It’s been a busy few months for Kendrick, whose Diamondbacks won the National League Pennant in October… and might begin to mull a relocation if they can’t agree to a new stadium in Phoenix.

WVU Baseball Upgrades Facilities

Per WVU Athletics, Kendrick’s donation will fund upgrades to the program’s facilities. Said renovations should wrap up in February 2025, in time for the Mountaineers’ next season.

“The gift also allows for upgrades to the  Monongalia County Baseball Complex to add an indoor pitching and hitting facility that will be accessible to the Mountaineer baseball program year-round,” the press release read.

“The addition to the ballpark will add an 8,200 square-foot structure next to the current clubhouse and include two regulation-size pitching lanes, a soft toss area and two full-size batting lanes. The pitching and batting areas will be outfitted with state-of-the-art Trackman technology to help coaches and players analyze performance.”

All 30 Major League clubs utilize Trackman, which employs radar and cameras in order to collect data on how players and the baseball they use move, monitoring pitch delivery and swing path, for instance, to fine tune mechanics. The Mountaineers have used Trackman in the past—as do a number of other D1 teams—but it sounds like these upgrades will give them access to the latest improvements to the technology.

WVU Baseball currently possesses a 7-6 record this season. They’ll take part in their Big 12 opener starting at 3 p.m. today, hosting conference newcomer BYU.