Sportsman's Park
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Sportsman's Park was the name of a former Major League Baseball park in St. Louis, Missouri. For 33 years, 1920-1953, it was the home field of both the St. Louis Browns of the American League and the St. Louis Cardinals of the National League, after which the Browns departed to become the modern-day Baltimore Orioles. St. Louis is by far the smallest market ever to support two major-league teams in the same sport for a protracted period.
This ballpark (by then known as Busch Stadium) was also the home of the St. Louis Football Cardinals of the National Football League for a few years after transferring from Chicago and before Busch Memorial Stadium opened its doors.
The park was originally named the Grand Avenue Ball Grounds. It was acquired in 1866 by August Solari, who began staging games there in 1867. In 1876 it was re-named, Sportsman's Park. At that time, the diamond and the grandstands were on the southeast corner of the block, for the convenience of fans arriving on Grand. The park was owned by the then-major American Association entry, the St. Louis "Brown Stockings", or "Browns". The Browns were a very strong team in the mid-1880s, but their success waned over time. When the National League absorbed the strongest of the old Association teams in 1892, the Browns were brought along. Soon they went looking for a new ballpark, finding a site just a few blocks northwest of the old one, and calling it New Sportsman's Park. Somewhere between the Gay 90s and the Ragtime Era, the team changed owners, and "New Sportsman's Park" was renamed Robison Field. They also changed team colors from Brown to Cardinal Red, thus acquiring a new nickname, and leaving their previous team color available.
In the modern era, Sportsman's Park was initially owned by the newly-formed Browns of the American League, who began play in St. Louis in 1902 after moving from Milwaukee. They initially placed the diamond at the northwest corner of the block. Within the decade they had rebuilt the old facility in steel and concrete. The diamond was relocated to the southwest corner, where it stayed. The previous wooden grandstand was retained as left-field bleachers for awhile, but was soon replaced with permanent bleachers. The Cardinals came on board as tenant in mid-1920 after abandoning the outdated, mostly-wooden Robison Field.
Although the Browns had been the stronger team in the city for the first quarter of the century, they had never been quite good enough to win a pennant. After the previously weak Cardinals moved in, the two teams' situations started to reverse, both on and off the field. Eventually, so did the ownership of the ballpark. The 1944 World Series between the Cardinals and the Browns, won by the Cardinals 4 games to 2, was perhaps a good metaphor for the two clubs' respective situations.
The Busch family of brewery fame bought the Cardinals in the early 1950s, and soon acquired the venerable park from the cash-strapped Browns, renaming it Busch Stadium starting in 1953. The next year, the Browns were in Baltimore.
The brewery originally wanted to name the ballpark Budweiser Stadium. Ford Frick, the Commissioner of Baseball, vetoed the name because of public relations concerns over naming a ballpark after an alcoholic beverage - an arguably hypocritical attitude, given all baseball clubs' significant revenues from beer sales. However, the Commissioner could not stop August Busch from renaming it after himself, and so he did.
Sportsman's Park / Busch Stadium was the site of a number of World Series contests, first way back in the mid-1880s, and then in the modern era. The 1964 Series was particularly memorable, and was also the park's last Series. The Series featured brother against brother, Ken Boyer of the Cardinals versus Clete Boyer of the Yankees. The Cardinals' triumph in seven games led to Yankees management replacing Yogi Berra with the Cardinals' ex-manager Johnny Keane (he had resigned after winning the Series), an arrangement which lasted only to early 1966. The stadium also hosted Major League Baseball All-Star Games in 1940, 1948, and 1957.
The century-old Sportsman's Park / Busch Stadium was replaced early in the 1966 season by Busch Memorial Stadium, which was in turn replaced by Busch Stadium III in 2006. The Sportsman's Park site was remade into the Herbert Hoover Boys and Girls Club, with the stands removed and the diamond still intact at that time. The field is now being used for other sports.
Dimensions
For a small park, there were plenty of posted distance markers. Once the final major remodelling was done in 1926, these were the distances:- Left Field Line - 351 ft
- Medium Left Center - 358 ft
- True Left Center - 379 ft
- Deep Left Center - 400 ft
- Deep Left Center Field Corner - 426 ft, the distance usually given for center field
- Deep Right Center Field Corner - 422 ft, true center field
- Deep Right Center - 405 ft
- True Right Center - 354 ft
- Medium Right Center Field - 322 ft
- Right Field Line - 310 ft
- Backstop - 68 ft
Sources
- Green Cathedrals, by Philip J. Lowry
- Ballparks of North America, by Michael Benson
- St. Louis' Big League Ballparks, by Joan M. Thomas
- Dimensions drawn from baseball annuals.
External links
- [USGS aerial showing site of both Sportsman's Park and Robison Field, if you know where to look]
- [Aerial Photo of Sportsman's Park at Google Maps - Home Plate was located approximately where the tennis courts are now]
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