Griffin gets name on plaza at ballpark
Tribute honors feisty former mayor
Buffalo’s downtown ballpark forever will be linked with the lore and legacy of Jimmy Griffin.
The feisty former mayor, who died last year, not only rallied community leaders in 1979 to bring minor league baseball back to Buffalo, but also spearheaded efforts to build a first-class downtown stadium for baseball—a game he loved.
So it seemed only appropriate that Tuesday, the Buffalo Bisons joined with Mayor Byron W. Brown and members of Griffin’s family to formally dedicate the plaza outside Coca-Cola Field as “James D. Griffin Plaza.”
“We were pretty far down back in those days,” Griffin once said, “but I knew baseball could help this city.”
A plaque that will hang on the outside of the stadium facing Swan Street was unveiled, as were plans to raise money to erect a nearly 11- foot-tall statue depicting the former mayor on a pedestal.
Griffin’s widow, Margaret; daughters, Maureen and Megan; son, Tom; and brother, Joe, attended Tuesday’s ceremony.
“I can’t think of a more fitting place to honor my father,” Tom Griffin said.
The plaque reads: Under Mayor Griffin’s leadership downtown Buffalo and Buffalo’s waterfront experienced an unprecedented period of growth and revitalization. One of the cornerstones of his development was the return of professional baseball to Buffalo and the building of this great ballpark.
“I think it’s beautiful. It’s in very good taste, and it’s all true,” Margaret Griffin said. “He’d love it.”
Griffin—who died in May 2008 at 78 — loved baseball, and he loved the downtown ballpark, which cost $42 million to build and opened as Pilot Field in 1988.
During those early years, Griffin was a fixture in the front row of the club level on the first-base side, regularly greeting fans who approached him.
He used to drive through his South Buffalo neighborhood rounding up kids to take to the ballpark. “Go ask your mother if you can go to the Bisons game,” he would tell them.
“We’d have a blast,” said his daughter, Maureen Tomczak. “His passion for baseball, and this stadium, was really contagious.”
One of Griffin’s classic run-ins even happened outside the ballpark in 1988, when he threw a punch at former Erie County Parks Commissioner Joseph X. Martin.
Former Erie County Executive Ed Rutkowski, a longtime Griffin friend and political ally, wishes Tuesday’s honor had come sooner.
“But I’m sure he’s up there, looking down on us, very pleased,” Rutkowski said.
“It meant everything to him,”
Rutkowski said of the ballpark. “He was a die-hard baseball fan, and he wore that on his sleeve.”
John Tomczak, Griffin’s son-in- law, announced a memorial fund to raise $80,000 to $100,000 for a statue of the late mayor in shirt and tie — with ball and glove in hand — to be placed on the plaza next season.
Donations can be made through the customer service office at Coca-Cola Field or mailed to: Jimmy Griffin Plaza Fund, One James D. Griffin Plaza, Buffalo, NY 14203.
About $15,000 has been raised.
Reading the plaque about her husband’s accomplishments, Margaret Griffin recalled what he used to say: “Well, my mother would believe it, but my father would laugh.”
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