Old
Time Baseball: Ball Parks
By Harvey
Frommer
With
the 2016 World Series thrills and
hoopla, magical moments and time out for fatigue all but behind us, a
flashback
to a more primitive, more basic and in some ways more appealing
national game
pays dividends.
The
early environment of baseball
games was that of a gentlemen's affair marked by the absence of
spectators
except for those invited by the teams. What spectators there were
lolled about
on the grass or sat on chairs or benches. The umpire was generally
attired in
tails and a tall black top hat, and in those early years he seated
himself at a
table along a baseline. Circa 1860, the general public became more and
more
involved as spectators, and winning replaced gentlemanly ways as
baseball's
operative factor.
The
Cincinnati Red Stockings
began play in 1876 in the National League in a ball park located in an
area
known as Chester Park. In order to get to the ball game, fans had to
ride on
special trains or in carriages. Crowds of 3,000 were common and
considered a good
payday for the team. When the National League came into being, the
White
Stockings played their home games in a rickety wooden park on Dearborn
between
23rd and 24th streets on Chicago's West Side.
During the
1880s and 1890s most
parks were surrounded by wooden stands and a wooden fence. Some of the
stands
were partially protected by a roof, while others were simple wooden
seats of
sunbleached boards. That is how the word bleachers came to be. When
those parks
were filled to capacity, fans were allowed to stand around the infield
or take
up viewing perches in the far reaches of the outfield.
John B. Day transferred
the Troy
National League franchise to New York in 1883; arrangements were made
for games
to be played on the polo field of James Gordon Bennett, publisher of
the New
York Herald. For most of the 1880s, the team played its games on a
field at
110th Street and Fifth Avenue, across from Central Park's northeast
corner. In
1897,a game between Boston and Baltimore drew more than 25,000 fans,
the
overflow crowd was permitted to stand just a few feet behind the
infielders,
creating a situation where any ball hit into the throng was ruled an
automatic
ground-rule double .
In
1899, the Giants moved to New
York City plot 2106, lot 100, located between 155th and 157th streets
at Eighth
Avenue in upper Manhattan. The location was called "the new Polo
Grounds," a horseshoe-shaped stadium with Coogan's Bluff on one side
and
the Harlem River on the other. The Polo Grounds seated 55,897, the most
of any
facility in the National League. A four-story, misshapen structure with
seats
close to the playing field and overhanging stands, it was an odd ball
park that
afforded fans the opportunity to be close to the action. There were
4,600
bleacher seats, 2,730 field boxes, 1,084 upper boxes, 5,138 upper
reserved
boxes, and 2,318 general admission seats. The majority of those who
came to the
Polo Grounds sat in the remaining lower general admission seats.
The visitors' bullpen was just
a bench located in the boondocks of left center field. There was no
shade from
the sun for the visitors or protection from Giant fans who pelted
opposing
pitchers with pungent projectiles. The upper left field deck hung
over
the lower deck; and it was virtually impossible for a fly ball to get
into the
lower deck because of the projection of the upper deck. The overhang
triggered
many arguments, for if a ball happened to graze the front of the
overhang it
was a home run. The double decks in right field were even. The short
distances
and the asymmetrical shape of the convoluted ball park resulted in
drives
rebounding off the right field and left field walls like billiard
shots. And
over the years hitters and fielders on the New York Giants familiar
with the
pool table walls of the ball park had a huge advantage over opposing
teams.
Fires and progress would
make steel and concrete replace the wood and timber of the nineteenth
century
ball parks. The idiosyncratic dimensions of stadiums, the marching
bands, even
the real grass in many instances-all of these would ultimately become
footnotes
to baseball history.
As late as 1900 some clubs even
allowed fans to park their automobiles or carriages in the outfield.
The
environment at those games made it difficult for fans to follow the
action
clearly. Even though scorecards and programs were sold, no public
address
system existed, and there were no names or numbers on the players'
uniforms.
Players were sometimes pressed
into service to double as ticket takers. And during breaks in the
action on the
field, the dull moments were enlivened by the festive performances of
brass
bands.
The
St. Louis National League
entry was known as the Browns and then the Perfectos-an odd name for a
club
with a not so perfect track record. The team left the National League
twice,
then returned and finished twelfth twice, eleventh three times, tenth
once,
ninth once, and once in fifth place in the years 1892-99. To attract
customers
to Robinson Field, St. Louis owner Chris Von der Ahe transformed his
ball park
into what he called "the Coney Island of the West." He installed
chute-the-chutes (tubs that plunged with their riders into a pool),
night
horseracing, a Wild West show.
The popular tunes
of the day were
played by the Silver Cornet Band-an all-female aggregation
bedecked in
long striped skirts and elegant blouses with leg-of-mutton sleeves and
broad
white sailor hats.
In
1899 Chris Von der Ahe changed
the uniforms around in his zest for more color-the new garments
featured red
trim and red-striped stockings. The new uniforms brought new nicknames
for the
St. Louis team- Cardinals or Redbirds, they were called, and so they
would
remain.
Read more
about this topic in
my new release:
http://www.lyonspress.com/book/9781630760069
****************************************************************
Dr.
Harvey Frommer, a professor at
Dartmouth College in the MALS program, is in his 40th year of writing
books. A
noted oral historian and sports journalist, he is the author of 42
sports books
including the classics: best-selling “New York City Baseball,
1947-1957″ and
best-selling Shoeless Joe and Ragtime Baseball,as well as his acclaimed
Remembering Yankee Stadium and best-selling Remembering Fenway Park.
His highly
praised When It Was Just a Game: Remembering the First Super Bowl was
published
last fall.
His
Frommer Baseball Classic –
Remembering Yankee Stadium (Second Edition) is his newest sports
effort. A link
to purchase autographed copies of Frommer Sports Books is at: http://frommerbooks.com/
The
prolific author is at work on
THE ULTIMATE YANKEE BOOK (2017) http://frommerbooks.com/advance-praise.html