One Ballpark, a Whole League: How Keizer Became Home Base for the Mavericks League
The Salem-Keizer Volcanoes' park beside Interstate 5 now hosts an entire four-team league — an unusual baseball arrangement born in Salem's backyard.
There is no other arrangement in American professional baseball quite like the one in Keizer. The ballpark at 6700 Field of Dreams Way — built in 1997 for the Salem-Keizer Volcanoes, visible from Interstate 5 — is home not to one team but to a whole league: the Mavericks Independent Baseball League, whose four clubs all play their games under the same lights.
The setup has a history that explains it. The Volcanoes arrived in 1997 as a Class A affiliate in the Northwest League and built a loyal following in a park that won design praise for its intimacy. When Minor League Baseball reorganized after the 2020 season and the Volcanoes lost their affiliation, Salem-Keizer faced the choice that ended baseball in many small cities. Instead, the franchise helped invent its replacement: an independent league of its own.
The Mavericks League, launched in 2021, fields the Volcanoes alongside the Campesinos de Salem-Keizer, the Salem Senators — a name carried by Salem teams going back generations — and the Portland Mavericks, reviving one of the most colorful names in Northwest baseball history. Because every team is based at the same park, the league's schedule is a standing festival: no travel, no visiting clubhouses, and a home crowd that can follow all four rosters across a season.
For players, independent ball is the game's open road — a place for undrafted and released players to be seen, and for veterans to extend careers on their own terms. For fans, the Keizer version offers something affiliated ball never could: the whole league, every night, fifteen minutes from downtown Salem, at prices and distances built for families rather than expeditions.
November is the quiet season at the park, when the field rests and front offices build next summer's rosters and promotions. But the experiment deserves attention even in the dark months. When organized baseball left Salem-Keizer, the community did not accept the ending. It founded a league. That is a sports story, and it is also a Salem story.
