Bank Street Grounds

Last updated

The Bank Street Grounds is a former baseball park located in Cincinnati. The park was home to three major league baseball teams. The National League Cincinnati Stars club in 1880, the current Cincinnati Reds franchise from 1882 to 1883 and the Cincinnati Outlaw Reds of the Union Association in 1884. It succeeded the Avenue Grounds as the home site for professional ball in the Queen City.

Contents

National League

A new National League entry, the Cincinnati Stars, formed for the 1880 season, but the new franchise was short-lived. The club was expelled from the league for selling beer and renting out its ballpark on Sundays, violating its self-instituted "blue law", the club was disbanded.

American Association

A new Reds franchise was formed as an American Association club in 1882. This club is the same Reds team that exists today. The AA had no such rules against Sunday play or beer sales. Indeed, the American Association was known informally as "the beer and whiskey league".

According to Lee Allen, Cincinnati writer and eventual director of the Baseball Hall of Fame, the Worcester club had been especially instrumental in having the Reds expelled after 1880. In his 1948 book, The Cincinnati Reds, Allen took some satisfaction in pointing out that when the Reds re-formed in 1882, it was the same year that Worcester's days as a major league franchise, as well as its influence, came to an end.

The Reds won the inaugural season of the AA, and as such participated in a World Series, of sorts, with the NL champions, the Chicago White Stockings. The exhibition Series was informally arranged, and ended after two games with each team having won one. Both games were staged at the Bank Street Grounds, or "Bank-Street Grounds" as the local papers stylized it.

Union Association

In 1884, a former prominent member of the Reds front-office, a man named Justus Thorner, invested in the new Union Association club. He secured the Bank Street Grounds for his team, and the Reds had to look elsewhere. (Allen, p. 29-30). The Reds eventually settled on a site three blocks south, an asymmetrical lot bounded by McLean, York, Findlay and Western, opening the site that would eventually become Crosley Field, the home of the Reds until partway into the 1970 season.

Although the Union Association was dominated by the St. Louis Maroons, the Cincinnati Unions or "Outlaw Reds" had a strong club that could hold its own against the Maroons, and drew well at the gate, eroding the "real" Reds' fan base. However, the "Onion League" folded after just one season.

Back to the National League

Newspaper ad for a play being staged at the former Bank Street ballpark Bank Street Grounds Cincinnati 1886 Sep 14 Order of Cincinnatus.jpg
Newspaper ad for a play being staged at the former Bank Street ballpark

The Reds moved from the American Association to the National League for the 1890 season. A year later, some legal issues arose over the sale of the club to a new owner, and the rights to Cincinnati Park (as the ancestor to Crosley Field was then known) were part of that litigation. To hedge their bets, the new owners turned their attention to the Bank Street Grounds property and secured a lease on the lot.(Cincinnati Enquirer, March 19, 1891, p.2) Once the legal issues were settled, the Reds opted to stay at Findlay and Western.

In the fall of 1893, the Reds had decided to build a new grandstand. (Cincinnati Enquirer, November 3, 1893, p.2) On December 5, the Enquirer reported that the Reds had designed a new "League Park" to be built on the old Bank Street site. The Enquirer for December 19 had an architect's drawing of the new design, and reported that whether to build it at Findlay and Western or at Bank Street would be decided very soon. Ultimately the Reds again decided to stick with Findlay and Western, and Bank Street was done with professional baseball.

During the summers of 1886 through 1891, the property was used by the local chapter of the Order of Cincinnatus, who staged plays there.

Location

Bank Street vacant lot and Reds ballpark, 1900 artist's conception Reds ballpark and site of Union Assocation ballpark Cincinnati 1900.jpg
Bank Street vacant lot and Reds ballpark, 1900 artist's conception
Approximation of Bank Street Grounds layout Bank Street Grounds diagram.png
Approximation of Bank Street Grounds layout

The ballpark was located northwest of the intersection of Bank Street and McLean Avenue, just three blocks north on McLean from the future site of Crosley Field. Its location has typically been described as "the foot of Bank Street." Contemporary maps which include a rough diagram of the ballpark clarify its location and orientation: Bank Street (south, third base); houses and McLean Avenue transitioning to Spring Grove Avenue (southeast, home plate); Duck Street (southwest, left and center fields); McDermott Street (northwest, center and right fields); houses and Western Avenue (northeast, first base). Once the park was abandoned, Dolph Street was run through the property to extend to Bank, paralleling Western.

Many of the streets in that part of the city have since been renamed, rerouted, or eliminated. The original location can be inferred from the remaining streets. In current terms, the site is northwest of the point where Bank Street turns from an east-west street to a north-south street (the former McLean Avenue). The ballpark site is now occupied by a parking lot for the Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority ("SORTA") and CSX Transportation.

Related Research Articles

Cincinnati Reds Major League Baseball team in Cincinnati, Ohio

The Cincinnati Reds are an American professional baseball team based in Cincinnati. The Reds compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) Central division. They were a charter member of the American Association in 1881 and joined the NL in 1890.

Great American Ball Park Baseball park in Cincinnati, OH, USA

Great American Ball Park is a ball park in Cincinnati, Ohio, which is the home field of Major League Baseball's Cincinnati Reds. It opened in 2003, replacing Cinergy Field, their home field from 1970 to 2002. The park's name comes from Great American Insurance Group.

Riverfront Stadium

Riverfront Stadium, also known as Cinergy Field from 1996 to 2002, was a multi-purpose stadium in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States that was the home of the Cincinnati Reds of Major League Baseball from 1970 through 2002 and the Cincinnati Bengals of the National Football League from 1970 to 1999. Located on the Ohio River in downtown Cincinnati, the stadium was best known as the home of "The Big Red Machine", as the Reds were often called in the 1970s.

The American Association (AA) was a professional baseball league that existed for 10 seasons from 1882 to 1891. Together with the National League (NL), founded in 1876, the AA participated in an early version of the World Series seven times versus the champion of the NL in an interleague championship playoff tournament. At the end of its run, several AA franchises joined the NL. After 1891, the NL existed alone, with each season's champions being awarded the Temple Cup (1894–1897).

Crosley Field

Crosley Field was a Major League Baseball park in Cincinnati, Ohio. It was the home field of the National League's Cincinnati Reds from 1912 through June 24, 1970, and the original Cincinnati Bengals football team, members of the second (1937) and third American Football League (1940–41). It was not the original home of the current NFL franchise of the same name: the home of those Bengals in 1968 and 1969 was nearby Nippert Stadium, located on the campus of the University of Cincinnati. Crosley Field was on an asymmetrical block bounded by Findlay Street (south), Western Avenue, Dalton Avenue (east), York Street (north) and McLean Avenue (west) in the Queensgate section of the city. Crosley has the distinction of being the first major-league park with lights for playing night games.

Palace of the Fans

Palace of the Fans was a Major League baseball park located in Cincinnati, Ohio. It was the home of the Cincinnati Reds from 1902 through 1911. The ballpark was on an asymmetrical block bounded by Findlay Street (south), Western Avenue, York Street (north) and McLean Avenue (west).

South End Grounds

South End Grounds refers to any one of three baseball parks on one site in Boston, Massachusetts. They were home to the franchise that eventually became known as the Boston Braves, first in the National Association and later in the National League, from 1871 to 1914.

Avenue Grounds

Avenue Grounds was a baseball field located in Cincinnati, USA. Also known as Brighton Park and Cincinnati Baseball Park, the ground was home to the Cincinnati Reds baseball club from April 25, 1876, to August 27, 1879. The ballpark featured a grandstand that could seat up to 3,000 fans. It was approximately 2 miles (3.2 km) north of the Union Grounds, where the original professional team from the area, the Cincinnati Red Stockings played, and was approximately 4 miles (6.4 km) from the heart of the city, so horse-drawn streetcars and trains were a popular way to travel to the park. The ballpark had first opened in 1875, and would continue to be used for various types of amateur sports until at least the mid-1890s. The major league club of 1876–1879 played poorly, and actually dropped out of the league before the 1879 season ended. The club revived for 1880, and relocated to the Bank Street Grounds.

Nicollet Park

Nicollet Park was a baseball ground located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The ground was home to the minor league Minneapolis Millers of the Western League and later American Association from 1896 to 1955.

Kelly's Killers were a Major League baseball team that played in Cincinnati, Ohio during the 1891 baseball season. The team played in the American Association, which was a major league from 1882 to 1891.

The Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame and Museum is an entity established by Major League Baseball's Cincinnati Reds franchise that pays homage to the team's past through displays, photographs and multimedia. It was instituted in 1958 to recognize the career of former Cincinnati Reds players, managers and front-office executives. It is adjacent to Great American Ball Park on the banks of the Ohio River. Currently, the Hall of Fame section is home to 81 inductees. These inductees include players, managers & executives who were involved in Cincinnati's baseball legacy, which dates back to 1869, the year the original Cincinnati Red Stockings took the field. Inductions take place every other year.

League Park was a Major League baseball park located in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States. It was the home of the Cincinnati Reds from 1884 through 1901. The ballpark was on an asymmetrical block bounded by Findlay Street (south), Western Avenue, York Street (north) and McLean Avenue (west).

The Lincoln Park Grounds, commonly known as Union Grounds, was a former baseball park, part of Lincoln Park, located in Cincinnati, Ohio. The Grounds were built for the Union Cricket Club in 1856; they "were used for cricket and baseball in the summer and were flooded for skating in the winter." In 1865 Harry Wright became the professional of the Cincinnati Cricket Club, which also used the grounds, and the next year Aaron Champion, president of the new Cincinnati Base Ball Club, "approached Wright to propose a limited use of the grounds if the CBBC and Live Oaks club would put in $2000 each to revamp the Lincoln Park Grounds."

A year later the [Red Stockings] leased the grounds of the Union Cricket Club for its home tilts. Most club members referred to the field as the Union Grounds, although it also was known as the Union Cricket Club Grounds and the Lincoln Park Grounds, given the fact that the eight-acre, fenced grounds were located in a small park behind Lincoln Park in Cincinnati, near the Union Terminal. It was a twenty-minute ride by streetcar to the Union Grounds from the heart of downtown Cincinnati. Aaron Champion ordered that approximately $10,000 worth of improvements be made to the home grounds for the 1867 season, including grading and sodding of the field and building of a new clubhouse and stands.

Queensgate, Cincinnati

Queensgate is a neighborhood in Cincinnati, Ohio. It sits in the valley of Downtown Cincinnati and has been dominated by industrial and commercial warehouses for most of its history. Cincinnati's nickname of "Porkopolis" started here with hog slaughtering in the early 19th century.

East End Park (Cincinnati)

East End Park was a former major league baseball park located in the East End neighborhood of Cincinnati in the United States. The ballpark, which is also known to baseball historians as Pendleton Park, was home to the Cincinnati Reds of the American Association during the 1891 baseball season. The club was led by the flamboyant star, Mike "King" Kelly.

References

Preceded by
None
Home of the
Cincinnati Stars

1880
Succeeded by
Cincinnati Reds
Preceded by
Cincinnati Stars
Home of the
Cincinnati Reds

1881 - 1883
Succeeded by
Cincinnati Outlaw Reds

Coordinates: 39°07′13″N84°32′17″W / 39.120281°N 84.538187°W / 39.120281; -84.538187