Chattering crowd, clean look, baseball players everywhere. Munson Stadium comes to life.

CANTON — "They paved paradise and put up a parking lot," goes the lament line in a classic Joni Mitchell song.

"They put a baseball field on top of a parking lot," goes a thump in the heartbeat of a Thurman Munson Memorial Stadium revival.

Upwards of 300 baseball games a year are imagined on Munson Stadium's two all-weather fields, the eye candy of a $5 million renovation.

A schedule heavy with games is not new, but artificial turf on the infields and outfields is.

The primary users at this point are McKinley High School and the Ohio Men's Senior Baseball League. The main field has been in place since the stadium opened in 1989. A second field, to be named after the late Hank Miller, was installed in 2014 on what used to be a parking lot behind right field.

Before Munson was a famous big-leaguer, he played against McKinley when Miller was the Bulldogs' head coach. McKinley's current coach, Zak Zelmer, describes having the refurbished ballpark as the team's home as "beyond our wildest dreams."

"There's a mystique, starting with who the stadium is named after," Zelmer said. "Jim Thome stood in the batter's box here. Right now I'm in the same clubhouse where Joe Charboneau sat when he was with the Canton Crocodiles."

The stadium was built on top of two softball fields that were part of Bauhof Park, next to a part of the Nimishillen Creek where Canton's southern border flows into Canton Township.

The view from the 5,500-seat grandstand — a grassy field flowing to I-77 traffic behind left field, an industrial building behind center field, houses on Allen Avenue behind right field — hasn't changed. It is a plain, out-of-the-way setting.

Originally, Stark County Regional Planning Commission visionaries Jim Holl and Ray Fete pushed to build stadium downtown. Those two traveled to minor league stadiums, talked to Major League executives, proposed a location flanked by Bender's restaurant and the Canton Repository, enlisted an architect to draw up a ballpark, and got a chilly reception.

Their voices had much to do with the fact any stadium got built.

Tom Bernabei, Canton's mayor since 2016, was assistant city law director when Munson Stadium went up.

"It's hindsight, but think what a downtown site has brought to Akron,," Bernabei said. "Of course you wish we had had more time to have done so, but they spent $31 million to build Canal Park."

Munson Stadium cost $2.2 million.

"To build something in the $30 million range," Bernabei said, "was something the city couldn't have afforded, although in hindsight when you look at the potential for downtown economic development and a cornerstone anchor, it would have been a great thing to have happened.

"It was on a short time notice. The city had 18 months to go from concept to completion."

Canton's minor league team bolted to Akron in 1997. The current renovation is intended to keep Munson Stadium viable, for whatever baseball games and other events land there, through 2057 and beyond.

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The stadium was alive one recent Tuesday. The parking lot was fairly full. On the newer field, workers were on their knees installing artificial turf.

A McKinley vs. Lake game finished up on the main field, the one surrounded by the grandstand. Malone and Walsh players watched and waited for their college game.

The crowd, not close to 1,000 let alone 5,500, nonetheless chattered up an atmosphere.

Lake made a sunset charge. A 4-0 McKinley lead began to melt in the seventh inning. Blue Streak batters Gavin Swope and Mason Champagne drove flies that got legs as they rolled on the artificial turf, all the way to the deep left-field fence.

When the Bulldogs and Blue Streaks cleaned out the dugouts, the Pioneers and Cavaliers moved in. Champagne was still aglow as he enjoyed a win and the stadium atmosphere.

"What they've done to this place is amazing," he said.

America is not full of amateur baseball parks with a big grandstand, arrays of rooms underneath, suites, a press box, and a shining red barn ringing with batting practice smacks.

Lake head coach Joe Anderson was a little boy in Green when Cleveland's farm affiliate was in Canton. He remembers watching his dad play at Munson in a Roy Hobbs league.

"This is one of the greatest places to play a high school game," Anderson said.

Malone pitcher Danny Miller watched some of the high school game from the grandstand before heading down for a college game under the lights.

"I never saw a game from the stands when I was in high school, playing for McKinley," Miller said. "You were looking up at the stands. It was weird sitting up there looking down.

"The new turf is great. Nothing can beat it with the kind of weather we have. The stadium looks a lot cleaner with it.

"This place grows on you. I love it."

Munson Stadium is a second home to Tom Crank. He has gone there for decades as a spectator, player and coach. He was there on this Tuesday as Malone's head coach.

"I'll never forget coming to the first game here in 1989," he said. "Deion Sanders led off the game with a hit for Albany-Colonie. Then he got thrown out trying to steal by the Canton catcher, Tom Magrann.

"It was funny. I met Deion Sanders when he was in town for his induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. I brought up that game at Munson Stadium. He said, 'That place is still there?'"

Alive and kicking.

Reach Steve at steve.doerschuk@cantonrep.com

On Twitter: @sdoerschukREP

This article originally appeared on The Repository: Renovation revives Thurman Munson Memorial Stadium baseball complex