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. [1] 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. [2]
The ball grounds was built on a large block bounded by Harrison Avenue, Rutledge Street, Lynch Street, and Marcy Avenue. (Marcy also bordered the Capitoline Grounds.) A writer for the Brooklyn Eagle described the field in 1862:
"The buildings occupied last winter are left standing, used pretty much for the same purposes as them.[sic] Near these a long wooden shed has been erected, capable of accommodating several hundred persons, and benches provided for the convenience of the fair sex... Several acres more have been added to the enclosure, which is fenced in with a board fence six or seven feet in height. On the southeast corner a large and commodious club house has been erected, containing accommodations for three clubs. The field is now almost a perfect level, covering at least some six acres of ground, all of which is well drained, rolled, and in a few weeks will be in splendid condition... Several flagstaffs have been put up, from which floated the banners of the clubs o'er shadowed by the nations' ensign." [1]
During its early years Union Grounds was the home field for several ballclubs, notably including the Eckford Club, 1862 and 1863 champions of the National Association of Base Ball Players. In 1868, the Mutual Club of New York moved in from Elysian Fields, Hoboken, New Jersey, long-time home of Manhattan clubs but never enclosed. The ballpark's entrance was on Rutledge Street, and a one-story building in right field, 350 feet away from home plate, was in play.
After formation of the first professional league, the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players, Union Grounds was home to the Mutual Club from 1871 to 1876 (the only year as a member of the new National League), Eckford of Brooklyn of the National Association in 1872, and the Atlantic Club of Brooklyn of the National Association from 1873 to 1875. It served as home field for the "Hartford of Brooklyn" team during the 1877 National League season. Some clubs also occasionally staged single games on the grounds, including a season-ending "home" game for the Chicago White Stockings in October 1871, whose own home grounds had been destroyed by the Great Chicago Fire. On July 26, 1878, the final major league game was played on the grounds, with Providence defeating Milwaukee 4-1. [3] The grounds continued to host barnstorming major league clubs, amateur clubs and independent clubs through the 1882 season. [4]
The park did not sit idle during the winter. Its field was flooded and served as the rink for an ice skating club. [5] An unusual feature of the park was the presence of a pagoda in center field. [4]
Union Grounds was demolished in July of 1883. [6] Heyward Street now runs through the site, and as of 2009 the Juan Morel Campos Secondary School stands to the north of Heyward Street and the Marcy Avenue Armory stands to the south of it, with no historical marker or any other indication of the land's significance to the history of baseball.
The Polo Grounds was the name of three stadiums in Upper Manhattan, New York City, used mainly for professional baseball and American football from 1880 through 1963. The original Polo Grounds, opened in 1876 and demolished in 1889, was built for the sport of polo. Bound on the south and north by 110th and 112th Streets and on the east and west by Fifth and Sixth (Lenox) Avenues, just north of Central Park, it was converted to a baseball stadium when leased by the New York Metropolitans in 1880. The fourth Polo Grounds is the one generally indicated when the Polo Grounds is referenced. That is, the third Polo Grounds, built in 1890, as renovated after a fire in 1911. It was located in Coogan's Hollow and was noted for its distinctive bathtub shape, very short distances to the left and right field walls, and an unusually deep center field.
Baker Bowl is the best-known popular name of a baseball park that formerly stood in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Its formal name, painted on its outer wall, was National League Park. It was also initially known as Philadelphia Park or Philadelphia Base Ball Grounds / Park.
Braves Field was a baseball park located in Boston, Massachusetts. Today the site is home to Nickerson Field on the campus of Boston University. The stadium was home of the Boston Braves of the National League from 1915 to 1952, prior to the Braves' move to Milwaukee in 1953. The stadium hosted the 1936 Major League Baseball All-Star Game and Braves home games during the 1948 World Series. The Boston Red Sox used Braves Field for their home games in the 1915 and 1916 World Series since the stadium had a larger seating capacity than Fenway Park. Braves Field was the site of Babe Ruth's final season, playing for the Braves in 1935. From 1929 to 1932, the Boston Red Sox played select regular season games periodically at Braves Field. On May 1, 1920, Braves Field hosted the longest major league baseball game in history – 26 innings, which eventually ended in a 1–1 tie.
Hilltop Park was the nickname of a baseball park that stood in the Washington Heights neighborhood of New York City. It was the home of the New York Yankees of Major League Baseball from 1903 to 1912, when they were known as the "Highlanders". It was also the temporary home of the New York Giants during a two-month period in 1911 while the Polo Grounds was being rebuilt after a fire.
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.
Washington Park was the name given to three Major League Baseball parks on two different sites in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, located at Third Street and Fourth Avenue. The two sites were diagonally opposite each other at that intersection.
Ridgewood Park, also known as Wallace's Ridgewood Park or the Wallace Grounds, and frequently confused with Grauer's Ridgewood Park, was a baseball ground in Ridgewood, Queens, New York. Both Wallace's and Grauer's are shown in Belcher Hyde's Map of Newtown in 1915. The baseball field was part of a larger entertainment area bounded Wyckoff Avenue, Covert Street, Halsey Street, and Irving Avenue. The baseball field was southwest of the Long Island Rail Road's Montauk Branch tracks. Eldert Street, although depicted on the map as running through the baseball grounds, was not cut through southwest of the railroad tracks and the road remains interrupted there today. Originally the park was in Queens County, before its incorporation into New York City in 1899. This facilitated Sunday baseball playing, including the charging of admission, beyond the reach of Sabbath enforcers from the then-city of Brooklyn.
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.
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.
Recreation Park was a baseball park in Philadelphia.
The National Association of Base Ball Players (NABBP) was the first organization governing American baseball.
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.
Elysian Fields in Hoboken, New Jersey is believed to be the site of the first organized baseball game, giving Hoboken a strong claim to be the birthplace of baseball.
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.
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).
Madison Avenue Grounds was a baseball ground located in Baltimore, Maryland. It was built by the Waverly Club as the first enclosed ballpark in Baltimore, with spectator seating and player clubhouses, and was the site of the first intercity game played in Baltimore on September 22, 1860; it was the site of a 47-7 defeat of the local Marylands by the undefeated Cincinnati Red Stockings in 1869, and it was used by the Washington Olympics for a professional game in 1871. On August 16, 1870, it was the site of an intercity game between black teams. It would continue to be used for games staged by black teams, in a time before there were any organized Negro Leagues.
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.
The Brooklyn Dodgers were a Major League baseball team, active primarily in the National League from 1884 until 1957, after which the club moved to Los Angeles, California, where it continues its history as the Los Angeles Dodgers. The team moved west at the same time as its longtime rival, the New York Giants, also in the National League, relocated to San Francisco in northern California as the San Francisco Giants. The team's name derived from the reputed skill of Brooklyn residents at evading the city's trolley streetcar network. The Dodgers played in two stadiums in South Brooklyn, each named Washington Park, and at Eastern Park in the neighborhood of Brownsville before moving to Ebbets Field in the neighborhood of Flatbush in 1913. The team is noted for signing Jackie Robinson in 1947 as the first black player in the modern major leagues.
