The John Winkin Baseball Complex is a multi-sport stadium on the campus of Husson University in Bangor. It is home to Husson’s baseball, football, and field hockey teams.

Named in honor of legendary baseball coach John Winkin, who spearheaded the drive to build the facility, the stadium has a seating capacity of 3,000, with 1,000 backed seats and 2,000 bleacher seats. The playing surface is FieldTurf, a synthetic material that is 2 ½ inches thick and topped with a layer of rubber recycled from sneakers and sand.

The field’s baseball dimensions are 345 feet to left field, 375 to left-center field, 400 feet to center field, 375 feet to right-center field, and 330 feet to right field. The outfield fence is 8 feet tall. Fences along the foul lines are 4 feet tall.

In summer 2000, Winkin – then an assistant coach for Husson – donated his China Lake summer camp to the school to be sold, with the proceeds earmarked for a brand new baseball field. The camp fetched $200,000.

“I feel this place needs it the most, and for that reason I’m comfortable in making the choice to do it here,” Winkin told the Bangor Daily News. “I’m returning something to a game that I’ve spent my life working at.”

Ground was broken for the first phase of the project – dugouts, masonry and netting for the backstop, a press box, and foundations for a grandstand – on Sept. 23, 2000.

A year later, Winkin gave $50,000 of his own money to Husson to further the project. In 2002, Harold Alfond joined the effort, adding $100,000 for the artificial turf and seats and bleachers.

Months after Harold Alfond Diamond was dedicated, Bangor businessman Charles M. “Chip” Hutchins announced he was buying the Adirondack (New York) Lumberjacks, an independent minor league team he would move to Bangor for the 2003 season.

While the Lumberjacks played their 2003 season at the University of Maine’s Mahaney Diamond, some eight miles north of Bangor, Husson and the city of Bangor negotiated a deal in which the city would give the school $381,000 to add lights to Winkin Complex, in exchange for the establishment of a scholarship for a Bangor student and Husson’s offering the stadium for public use.

With lights, the complex became the Lumberjacks’ permanent home in 2004. Unfortunately, financial problems dogged the club, which drew an average of 1,700 fans per game in 2004. When the Lumberjacks weren’t able to pay a security deposit to the Can-Am League in April 2005, the league canceled the club’s franchise agreement.

Two years later, coach Winkin expressed a desire to bring a New England Collegiate Baseball League team to the complex that bears his name. Teams in the NECBL play a 42-game schedule from the end of June through early August. The desire has yet to come to fruition.

Winkin Complex is also home to John Bapst Memorial High School’s varsity and junior varsity teams, Zone 1 American Legion team Motor City, and the Zone 1 tournament.