Charleston Mayor Joe Riley honored at 'House that Joe Built' - Charleston Post Courier
Joe Riley, of course, did not want it to be named Riley Park. “I had picked out the name, a beautiful name, I thought,’ Charleston’s venerable mayor said Friday night. “Ashley River Park, I had that name and I thought it was terrific, like Fenway Park. Charleston’s city council had other ideas some 20 years ago, overriding the mayor’s opposition to naming the ballpark along the Ashley River as “Joseph P. Riley Jr. Park. A ballpark by any other name might sound as sweet on a summer night, but it’s somehow fitting that Charleston’s field of dreams — popularly known as “The Joe” — is named for the 72-year-old Riley, who is nearing the end of his 40-year run as... The Charleston RiverDogs celebrated Mayor Riley on Friday night, presenting him with a RiverDogs jersey bearing the number 40 and video tributes from the likes of actor Bill Murray and Gov. With more than 250,000 fans flocking each year to Riley Park, which is also home to The Citadel’s baseball team, it’s easy to forget how close Charleston came to losing pro baseball in the early 1990s. After Hurricane Hugo swept through in 1989,... Riley’s plan for a new park required a land swap between the City of Charleston and The Citadel, and building a 6,000-seat stadium on the site of an old landfill on the banks of the Ashley River. Source: www.postandcourier.com
