Seton Hall Pirates Baseball (Big East) @ Owen T. Carroll Field (South Orange, NJ)

I go back to school to watch baseball

*This visit occurred on March 11, 2025.

In going over my calendar of sporting events, I had COMPLETELY forgotten that I came here once! Part of that is likely because this visit was before I started these reports; in fact, all but one of the rest of this month's posts are from games I attended before I started writing "2025 posts".

I will admit that a big reason I didn't write about them is the fact that all but one of these are at indoor arenas, which I find kinda difficult to write about as they're pretty much all the same IMO (the last one is an American football stadium, which in a way has the same issues but is bigger).

However, I decided to write a little bit about them AFTER I had started the baseball series. I felt it was the right thing to do for the sake of "completeness", and it helps this blog not be so narrow focused because, in case you haven't noticed, all these events are in the Northeastern United States - where baseball CANNOT be played in the winter.

Anyway, now that I've gotten all of THAT preamble out of the way, let's get into the actual game this post is intended to discuss:

Seton Hall University was the first Catholic University in the United States established by a diocese/archdiocese (in this case, the Archdiocese of Newark). In a way, it’s a special place for me and my friends, as my brother came here for a few years before transferring, and one of my closest friends spent six years here in an undergrad/grad program.

While the university is probably best known for their basketball program (being a member of the basketball powerhouse that is the Big East), their baseball program (i.e. the one I saw for this trip) has a pretty interesting history. They have a few “minor” titles to their name (i.e. conference championships and College World Series¹ appearances), but more notably, Baseball Hall of Famer Craig Biggio played for the team in his college days (alongside guys such as former MVP Mo Vaughn).

There’s not much to say about the field - it’s part of a multisport field on campus that also hosts soccer (and also hosted American Football before that program got cut). However, the nice thing is that admission to most Seton Hall sports (i.e. NOT basketball) is free, and parking is too! There’s a dedicated seating area around the infield, which gives the game a much more intimate feel (similar to a Cape League game). Similar to Clem Spillane Field in Wareham, you can also get a good view of the game from the main bleachers for soccer, which essentially serve as outfield seats (I believe they are also a bit less crowded/more shaded as well). Finally, the parking garage is close enough to the field that you could feasibly watch the game from the upper levels of it (though I believe the university asks that fans not do this as it’s kinda unsafe).

I don’t remember much about the game except that I arrived late, had to leave early, and that Seton Hall lost to my old college’s neighbor - the New Jersey Institute of Technology. As a side note, I’m kinda sad I didn’t get to see them (or my school, which was D-III) when I was in college, as they played in a stadium shared with an independent league team that folded in 2015 (the stadium has since been demolished).

MERCH

The one drawback of being a smaller program playing on a smaller, on campus field: there’s no dedicated merchandise or concessions sold at the game per se². However, the campus bookstore is close by and open to the public, so if you want to show your “Pirate Pride”, you still can! I'm not sure where you can get food however...

I ended up going to said bookstore after leaving the game, but didn’t find anything I was really interested in. It’s got your standard college bookstore fare, but again, basketball is their main sport, so most of their other sports don’t get the same level of attention (in terms of sport specific hats/jerseys). There are New Era 5950s available if that's your thing, however.