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Union Base-Ball Grounds was a baseball park located in Chicago. The park was "very visibly downtown", its small block bounded on the west by Michigan Avenue, on the north by Randolph Street, and on the east by railroad tracks and the lake shore, which was then much closer than it is today. The site is now part of Millennium Park.
Union Base-Ball Grounds was also called White-Stocking Park, as it was the home field of the Chicago White Stockings of the National Association in 1871, after spending the 1870 season as an independent professional club playing home games variously at Dexter Park race course and Ogden Park. [1] The Great Chicago Fire of October 8 destroyed Union Base-Ball Grounds and all of the club's possessions. After fulfilling its 1871 obligations by playing on the road, the club did not field a team for the next two seasons, and the ballpark was not rebuilt. [2]
In 1878, the White Stockings returned to the 1871 site and to a new park that is usually called Lake-Shore Park, Lake Front Park, or simply Lake Park, which was actually the name for the entire waterfront area (not just the ballpark) until being renamed Grant Park in 1901. [3] At the new park, the outfield area was especially close in right field. The right field fence was less than 200 feet away, so anyone hitting the ball over that fence was awarded only a ground rule double. Batters would aim for the fence, and during their years at the park, the Chicago club regularly led the league in doubles. In what would be their final season on the lakefront, the White Stockings decided to make the entire outfield fence home run territory. Thus, the team slumped in the number of doubles while boosting their home runs from typically a dozen or two to 142, easily outdistancing second place Buffalo, which had 39 for the season. The entire league's home run totals were up, thanks to the change to the Chicago ground rules.
The team played at Lake-Shore Park through the 1884 season. After the season, the city reclaimed the land, and the White Stockings became a road team for the first couple of months of 1885 while awaiting construction of the first West Side Park. The lumber from the stands was disassembled and reconfigured as the new stands at West Side Park.[Chicago Tribune, March 15, 1885, p.11]
The first college football game in the Midwest was played at the park on May 30, 1879, when the University of Michigan met Racine College. Michigan won, 1-0, on a place-kick by David DeTarr.
The National Association of Professional Base Ball Players (NAPBBP), often known simply as the National Association (NA), was the first fully-professional sports league in baseball. The NA was founded in 1871 and continued through the 1875 season. It succeeded and incorporated several professional clubs from the previous National Association of Base Ball Players (NABBP) of 1857–1870, sometimes called "the amateur Association". In turn, several NA clubs created the succeeding National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, which joined with the American League of Professional Base Ball Clubs to form Major League Baseball (MLB) in 1903.
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.
South Side Park was the name used for three different baseball parks that formerly stood in Chicago, Illinois, at different times, and whose sites were all just a few blocks away from each other.
23rd Street Grounds, also known as State Street Grounds and 23rd Street Park, and sometimes spelled out as Twenty-third Street Grounds, was a ballpark in Chicago, in what is now the Chinatown district. In this ballpark, the Chicago White Stockings played baseball from 1874 to 1877, the first two years in the National Association and the latter two in the National League.
Jefferson Street Grounds was a baseball field located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was also known as Jefferson Park and Athletics Park. It was home to three different professional baseball teams, competing in three different leagues. Notably, it was the venue for the first game in National League history, played on April 22, 1876.
Union Grounds was a baseball park located in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, New York. The grounds opened in 1862, its inaugural match being played on May 15. It was the first baseball park enclosed entirely by a fence, thereby allowing proprietor William Cammeyer or his tenant to charge admission. This permitted paying customers to watch the games from benches in a stand while non-paying spectators could only watch from embankments outside the grounds.
West Side Park was the name used for two different baseball parks that formerly stood in Chicago, Illinois. They were both home fields of the team now known as the Chicago Cubs of the National League. Both parks hosted baseball championships. The latter of the two parks, where the franchise played for nearly a quarter century, was the home of the first two world champion Cubs teams, the team that posted the best winning percentage in Major League Baseball history and won the most games in National League history (1906), the only cross-town World Series in Chicago (1906), and the immortalized Tinker to Evers to Chance double-play combo. Both ballparks were what are now called "wooden" ballparks.
The Mutual Base Ball Club of New York was a leading American baseball club almost throughout its 20-year history. It was established during 1857, the year of the first baseball convention, just too late to be a founding member of the National Association of Base Ball Players.
The Athletic Base Ball Club of Philadelphia was a prominent National Association, and later National League, professional baseball team that played in the second half of the 19th century.
The Capitoline Grounds, also known as Capitoline Skating Lake and Base Ball Ground, was a baseball park located in Brooklyn, New York from 1864 to 1880. It was built to rival nearby Union Grounds, also in Brooklyn. The park hosted local amateur teams in its early history, but later hosted professional and semi-professional games. The park's only season as the home field for an all-professional team occurred in 1872 when the Brooklyn Atlantics joined the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players. The park was flooded during the winter and used as an ice skating park. The grounds were used by local high schools and colleges as well, to play American football games, and ice rink football matches.
The Chicago Browns/Pittsburgh Stogies were a short-lived professional baseball team in the Union Association of 1884. They were to battle the Chicago White Stockings, of the National League, for the Chicago baseball market; however, the Browns lost that battle to the White Stockings. After a Baltimore mattress maker gave the club a degree of financial support, the Browns then tried to entice the White Stockings' Larry Corcoran, one of the 1880s top pitchers, to join the team. However, the club did not succeed in doing so. The Chicago Browns disbanded after a game on August 22, 1884. The club then moved to Pittsburgh and became the Stogies, which disbanded after a game played on September 18, 1884. Many of the club's players then joined the Baltimore Monumentals. Altogether, they won 41 games, lost 50, and tied 2, finishing sixth in the twelve-team league.
Eckford of Brooklyn, or simply Eckford, was an American baseball club from 1855 to 1872. When the Union Grounds opened on May 15, 1862 for baseball in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, it became the first enclosed baseball grounds in America. Three clubs called the field on the corner of Marcy Avenue and Rutledge Street home; however, the Eckford of Brooklyn were the most famous tenant. They played more games than any other club that year (7) and won the "national" championship, repeating the feat in 1863. During that two year period, the Eckfords won 22 straight matches which was the longest undefeated and untied streak to date. In the late 1860s, they were one of the pioneering professional clubs, although probably second to Mutual of New York at the home park. In its final season, Eckford entered the second championship of the National Association, the first professional baseball league in America, so it is considered a major league club by those who count the NA as a major league.
Dexter Park was a horse race track in Chicago built in the years following the Civil War. It was named for a gelding and trotter who had set world records for the mile and inspired the naming of several new towns including Dexter, Missouri and Dexter, Texas. The track's formal opening was held in July of 1867.
The Washington Nationals were the first important baseball club in the nation's capital. They played part of one season or parts of two seasons in the National Association, the first professional league, so they are considered a major league team by those who count the NA as a major league. Several baseball clubs in Washington have used the historic name Nationals.
James ("Jimmy") Leon Wood was an American second baseman and manager in early professional Major League Baseball (MLB) who hailed from Brooklyn, New York. He was the player-manager for four teams in the early National Association of Professional Base Ball Players (NAPBBP - 1871-1875 - later known simply as the National Association - the predecessor of the modern National League of Professional Baseball Clubs - later known simply as the National League, [founded 1876] of modern Major League Baseball, where he spent his entire base ball career in the 1860s into the 1870s.
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.
Charles Hodes was an American professional baseball player who played as a catcher, infielder, and outfielder in the National Association for three seasons from 1871 to 1874. A Brooklyn native, Hodes played one season each for the Chicago White Stockings, Troy Haymakers, and Brooklyn Atlantics. He had a career batting average of .231 in 63 total games before dying from tuberculosis in 1875.
Herald Park was a baseball park located in Houston, Texas and was the home of the Houston Buffaloes from 1888 until 1904. It also served as the spring training facility for the Louisville Colonels and the St. Louis Cardinals in the National League of Major League Baseball in 1895 and 1904 respectively.
