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    Shibe Park-Connie Mack Stadium
    Shibe Park-Connie Mack Stadium
    Shibe Park-Connie Mack Stadium
    Ebook215 pages57 minutes

    Shibe Park-Connie Mack Stadium

    By Rich Westcott

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    About this ebook

    No ballpark in Philadelphia was more revered than the one at Twenty-first Street and Lehigh Avenue. A must-have for fans of Philadelphia and baseball history!


    Originally called Shibe Park and later Connie Mack Stadium, America's first steel-and concrete stadium opened in 1909. When it closed in 1970, it had earned a special place in the hearts and minds of Philadelphia sports fans. Home of the Athletics for 46 years, the Phillies for 32 and a half seasons, and the Eagles for 18 years, it was also the site of many boxing matches, Negro League baseball games, and college and high school baseball and football games. Over the years, as the area developed, Shibe Park became known for its obstructed views, delicious hot dogs, Sunday curfews, absence of beer, and boobirds. Along with memorable teams and games, the ballpark played host to eight World Series and two All-Star Games.

    Join Rich Westcott, baseball writer, historian, author and president of the Philadelphia Sports Writers' Association, as he gathers archival photos capturing this legendary stadium's exciting history.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateApr 9, 2012
    ISBN9781439642535
    Shibe Park-Connie Mack Stadium
    Author

    Rich Westcott

    Rich Westcott is a baseball writer and historian and the author of 21 previous books. A leading expert on Philadelphia sports history, he has served on the staffs of newspapers and magazines for more than 40 years. He is president of the Philadelphia Sports Writers' Association and a member of three halls of fame.

    Read more from Rich Westcott

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    • 4/5
      Weighed down with multiple aerial shots and staged photos of players, some interior shots or blueprints would have been a nice addition.

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    Shibe Park-Connie Mack Stadium - Rich Westcott

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    INTRODUCTION

    Long before Shibe Park became one of the most storied venues in Philadelphia history, baseball had become the city’s most popular sport, with ballparks scattered throughout the area.

    Variations of baseball games were first known to have been played in Philadelphia in the early 1830s. As the 19th century progressed, an increasing number of teams appeared throughout the area, so that just prior to the start of the Civil War more than 100 club teams existed.

    In 1865, a team called the Athletics signed one of baseball’s first professional players, a lefthanded second baseman who was born in England named Al Reach. Paid $1,000 for the season, he later became the founder and first owner of the Phillies.

    By the late 1860s, African American teams, as well as additional club teams, had formed. In 1871, the Athletics became one of the original teams in the National Association of Professional Baseball Players and won the first championship of baseball’s first professional league. Five years later, another team called the Athletics became a charter member of the new National League. The first NL game, which pitted the Athletics and the Boston Red Caps, was played in 1876 in Philadelphia at Jefferson Park at Twenty-fifth and Jefferson Streets. Jefferson Park—or Athletic Park as it was sometimes called—was the city’s first fully enclosed ball field.

    By then, there were a number of other baseball parks, including Columbia Park at Fifteenth Street and Columbia Avenue, Oakdale Park at Eleventh and Cumberland Streets, Keystone Park at Broad and Moore Streets, and Forepaugh Park at Broad and Dauphin Streets. Over the years, the fields were used by a variety of Philadelphia professional teams. Sometimes, as many as three games, one from each league, were taking place—all within a few blocks of each other.

    When the Phillies were formed in 1883, they played at Recreation Park at Ridge and Columbia Avenues and Twenty-fourth and Twenty-fifth Streets. The ballpark had existed since 1860 and was the site of Philadelphia’s first recorded baseball game, a slugfest in which a team called Equity walloped one called the Pennsylvanias, 65-52.

    After four seasons there, the Phillies built a new park at Broad Street and Lehigh Avenue that was originally called Philadelphia Base Ball Park. Later, the name was changed to Baker Bowl. The Phillies, the fourth-oldest team in the major leagues, spent 51 and a half years at Baker Bowl before moving to Shibe Park in the middle of the 1938 season.

    Meanwhile, the American League had formed in 1901, and another team called the Athletics was one of the league’s original members. They played at another Columbia Park, this one located at Twenty-ninth Street and Columbia Avenue.

    Columbia Park was the home of pennant-winning Athletics teams in 1902 and 1905 and one World Series team in 1905. But with a meager capacity of just 9,500, it was not big enough to handle the crowds that followed the increasingly popular Athletics.

    A new ballpark was needed. Ben Shibe, who owned 50 percent of the Athletics stock (Connie Mack owned 25 percent), had the perfect spot. It was a vacant 250,120-square-foot lot at Twentyfirst Street and Lehigh Avenue in what was then a thinly populated section of the city near neighborhoods known as Swampoodle and Goosetown.

    Seven blocks up Lehigh Avenue from the Phillies’ Philadelphia Base Ball Park (or Huntingdon Grounds as it was also called), the land was neither close to center city nor in an area that had much activity. The most prominent landmark was the Philadelphia Hospital for Contagious Diseases, which stood across the street from the future ballpark and was noted for treating smallpox cases. Although isolated from much of the city’s 1.5 million people and 25 blocks from center city, the mostly undeveloped area was accessible by several trolley lines, a condition that, despite some reservations, convinced the Athletics owners the land was a worthwhile purchase.

    Through a complicated set of financial maneuvers, Shibe and his partners formed the Athletic Grounds Company and purchased the land in 1908 for $141,918.92. Soon, construction was underway. It took two months to grade the land with 40 workers and 50 teams of horses hauling in 15,000 wagonloads of dirt, much of it imported from Columbia Park. More than 500 tons of steel were poured into the structural sections of the ballpark, making it the first steel-and-concrete stadium in the country.

    The ballpark was built by the William Steele and Sons construction company at a cost to the Athletics of $315,248.69. Completed in less than one year, it had an ornate facade with a French Renaissance motif. The outside featured brick walls and arched windows bordered by thick columns. An imposing domed tower dominated the main entrance to the ballpark at Twenty-first Street and Lehigh Avenue. The capacity was 23,000, although another 1,000 could stand behind ropes on a banked terrace that ran across the outfield. A garage that could hold 200 cars stood beneath the stands along Lehigh Avenue.

    Upper and lower decks ran from third base to first base. The lower deck stretched down the foul lines to the outfield walls. There was no grandstand in the outfield. A 12-foot-high wall stretched from left field to right. It was 515 feet from home plate to center field, 378 feet down the left-field line, and 340 feet to the wall in right field.

    The ballpark was named Shibe Park after its primary owner, a one-time trolley-car driver and mechanic who had become owner of a sporting-goods manufacturing company that in 1883 had been credited with developing the cork-centered baseball.

    When it was opened in 1909, Shibe Park was regarded as the finest ballpark in the nation. The new facility was considered a showpiece, and people from far and wide flocked to

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