Yankees to donate portion of ticket sales for Negro Leagues museum at Hinchliffe Stadium

PATERSON — As part of their Satchel Paige Bobblehead Night, the New York Yankees say they will donate a portion of their Thursday ticket sales to the Negro Leagues museum space being built at Hinchliffe Stadium.

The Yankees have not disclosed exactly how much they will be contributing to the Hinchliffe project.

A new building that will include a 3,800-square-foot food court on its first floor and 4,000 square feet of museum exhibit space on its second floor likely won’t open until September, said Mayor Andre Sayegh.

Sayegh said he discussed the Yankees’ donation with the team’s baseball operations adviser, Omar Minaya, this week. The mayor plans to attend Thursday’s Yankees’ game but said he will wear a Mets jersey.

“As a lifelong Mets fan, we’ll accept any assistance we can get to make sure it’s a first-class museum,” Sayegh said.

Montclair State University alumnus Charles Muth already has donated $5 million for his alma mater to provide museum programming at the Hinchliffe site. Meanwhile, the state of New Jersey this month kicked in another $2 million toward the construction of the food court and museum building.

Sayegh had planned for Hinchliffe to host its first baseball games last Sunday, but those high school contests had to be relocated because of delays in putting down all the artificial turf at the field. Now the city has scheduled Hinchliffe’s debut for Wednesday, May 17, with a high school doubleheader in which the Paterson Eastside Ghosts will play the opener and the Paterson Kennedy Knights the nightcap.

Subscriber exclusive: Why did a Montclair nonprofit group receive $8M for the Hinchliffe Stadium project?

Sayegh is holding a Hinchliffe reopening celebration on May 19, and the New Jersey Jackals minor league team will be playing their first home game there on May 20.

The mayor has made the reconstruction of Hinchliffe one of the cornerstones of his revitalization plan for Paterson. The project, which also includes a 315-space parking garage and a 75-unit senior citizen apartment building, currently is projected to cost $105 million — $11 million more than estimates from the project's start in 2021.

Joe Malinconico is editor of Paterson Press.

Email: editor@patersonpress.com

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Yankees will donate ticket sales to Hinchliffe Stadium in Paterson NJ