This entry has been updated.
Robin Roberts Stadium, then named Reservoir Park, opened on May 12, 1925. About 12,000 people watched a Three-I League baseball game between the Springfield Senators and the Terre Haute Hottentots. (The Senators lost, 6-4.)
The Senators remained a Three-I team until 1949, then switched for a single season to the Mississippi Valley League. The Senators went out of business in 1951, and the city had no professional baseball until the 1970s.
In 1976, the park was renamed in honor of baseball Hall of Fame pitcher Robin Roberts, a graduate of Lanphier High School, and in 1978, the AAA-level Springfield Redbirds began play in Springfield.
After the Redbirds moved to Louisville, Ky., following the 1981 season, the Class A Springfield Cardinals became the city’s home team through 1993. The Springfield Sultans played two seasons in the park, followed by the Frontier League Capitals for six years.
No professional baseball was played in the city for the next six seasons, until the Springfield Sliders were formed in 2008. The Sliders were sold and renamed the Springfield Lucky Horseshoes in 2022.
The future of Robin Roberts Stadium was in doubt as the park approached its centennial in 2025, partly because of its age and location, and partly because a major sports complex south of Springfield was close to opening. “(T)he ball club is content to be the stadium’s tenant for the foreseeable future,” a review on stadiumjourney.com said that year.
The park was showing its age as far back as 2010, State Journal-Register sports editor Jim Ruppert wrote then: “Robin Roberts Stadium at Lanphier Park (the ballpark’s formal name) is more relic than treasure.” 
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Reservoir Park, with its opening in 1925, replaced League Park, which was located at 11th & Black. League Park was last used for a Three-Eye League team in 1914, known as the “Watchmakers.” Reservoir’s name was changed to Lanphier Park in 1934, to honor Robert Carr Lanphier of the Sangamo Electric Co. He requested that the park be named “Sangamo Park” but the board which controlled the stadium did not comply with his wish. Prior to the opening of Memorial Stadium for football in 1949, Lanphier was used for high school football. The field was laid out from the third base dugout to the right field fence. Portable bleachers were set up in left field to center field. Memorial’s first game on Sept. 22, 1949, saw Springfield defeat Feitshans 14-6 before 7000 fans.