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Jesus, those corner outfield walls at Borchert are like a Little League field.
Was there actual beer in the beer barrel? That would have been one hell of a promotion: buy a center field ticket at County Stadium, receive all you can drink beer from the barrel.
Jesus, those corner outfield walls at Borchert are like a Little League field.
Was there actual beer in the beer barrel? That would have been one hell of a promotion: buy a center field ticket at County Stadium, receive all you can drink beer from the barrel.
No but Bernie Brewer used to slid down into a giant mug of beer but it was fake beer until the nanny dogooders demanded the brewers take the beer mug down b/c it promoted beer drinking to which my reply is....WE LIVE IN MILWAUKEE, OUR WHOLE CITY PROMOTES DRINKING BEER, WHAT DO YOU THINK WE ARE DOING HERE?
I can understand your sentiments, I lived near old Connie Mack Stadium (previously known as Shibe Park) in Philadelphia and watched it decay in the early 1970's, prior to being demolished. The stadium had a beautiful exterior, and was fairly large for it's era.
But, you have to consider the cost of maintaining the structure, and tax revenue lost in retaining old and inefficient structures (vs reconstruction on the site). It is tough to reuse those stadiums, their size and configuration doesn't really allow for much in terms of creative reuse.
I would have loved to be able to see Shibe Park, Crosley Field, Polo Grounds, Ebbets Field, Forbes Field, and old Cleveland Stadium.
On the other hand, nobody is missing the cookie cutter stadiums of the '60s that have been demolished.
Amen. I'm a St. Louisian and I will be the first to tell anyone that the old Busch Stadium (66-05) was a veritable dump, a landfill with an astroturf cape. The Cards may have won two World Series there, but the place was falling apart by the mid-70s. Hotter than hades in the lower levels. The new InBev/Busch Stadium is a beauty.
Interestingly, the Phillies' ballpark from 1887 to mid-1938, Philadelphia Park (later called and more commonly known today as Baker Bowl, which technically refers to the rebuilt 1895 structure that was used until mid-1938) was less than 1 mile from Shibe Park/Connie Mack Stadium in north Philadelphia. Shibe Park/Connie Mack Stadium was bounded by Lehigh Avenue (1st base line), 20th Street (right field), Somerset Street (left field), and 21st Street (3rd base line). Baker Bowl was bounded by Huntingdon Street (1st base line), Broad Street (right field), Lehigh Avenue (left field), and 15th Street (3rd base line). Stated another way, Baker Bowl was 6 blocks east and 1 block south of Shibe Park.
Expanding the above point further, most ballparks in Philadelphia's baseball history prior to Veterans Stadium were actually located relatively close to one another (within say 1 1/2 miles in a straight line) in north Philadelphia. Columbia Park (1901-1908), the original home park for the Philadelphia A's, was located at 30th and Oxford Streets, one block south of Columbia Avenue, from which it got its name. (Columbia Avenue has since been renamed Cecil B. Moore Avenue.) Recreation Park, the first home of the Phillies (1883-1886), was located at (I think) 24th Street, Columbia Avenue, and Ridge Avenue. Some other parks also used in early leagues from the 1870's to 1890's were also in the same general area (including Jefferson Park, located a mere 2 blocks from Recreation Park.)
Finally, in a general note related to the above, having significant, physical separation between teams in cities that had multiple major league teams, as has long been the case in Chicago, actually was the exception to the rule; most of the cities that had 2 or more MLB teams in the first half of the 20th century (New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, and St. Louis) had the teams' ballparks in close proximity to one another. In New York, Yankee Stadium and the Polo Grounds were less than a mile from each other, on opposite sides of the Harlem River. You could see one park from the other and vice-versa. In Boston, Fenway Park and Braves Field were only a little more than a mile apart; Braves Field was located on what is now part of the Boston University campus, and part of the stands at Braves Field are now part of Nickerson Field, the football/soccer stadium for Boston University. In St. Louis, before the Cardinals joined the Browns at Sportsman's Park in mid-1920, the Cardinals played at Robison Field (the last primarily wooden ballpark used in the majors), which was only a mile or so from Sportsman's Park. Even in Los Angeles in 1961, the first year the Angels existed, they played at LA Wrigley Field (which like the Wrigley Field in Chicago was named after William Wrigley) and the Dodgers played at the Los Angeles Coliseum; these two facilities were only about 1 1/2 miles apart. (Both the Dodgers and Angels moved to Dodger Stadium, aka Chavez Ravine, in 1962, and the Angels played there until Anaheim Stadium was opened in 1966.)
The Tiger Stadium structure may be gone, but the field has been restored and will be put to good use soon.
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