Sportsman's Park

:"For the race track outside Chicago known as Sportsman's Park, see Chicago Motor Speedway."Infobox Stadium
stadium_name = Sportsman's Park
nickname = Busch Stadium


location = Sullivan Ave. Dodier St. & N Grand Blvd.
St Louis, Missouri, USA
broke_ground = 1880
opened = May 21, 1881
renovated = 1902, 1909
expanded = 1922
closed = May 6, 1966
demolished = 1966
owner = St. Louis Browns (1902-1953)
St. Louis Cardinals (1953-1966)
operator = St. Louis Browns (1902-1953)
St. Louis Cardinals (1953-1966)
operator
surface = Grass
construction_cost = $300,000 USD
architect = Osborn Engineering
former_names = Grand Avenue Ball Grounds (1867-1880)*
*Previous ballpark located on this site
Busch Stadium (1953-1966)
tenants = St. Louis Brown Stockings (NA/NL) (1875-1877)
St. Louis Brown Stockings (AA) (1882-1893)
St. Louis Browns (AL) (1902-1953)
St. Louis Cardinals (NL) (1920-1966)
St. Louis All Stars (NFL) (1923)
St. Louis Cardinals (NFL) (1960-1965)
seating_capacity = 8,000 (1881)
18,000 (1902)
30,500 (1925)
dimensions = Left Field – 351 ft (106.9 m)
Left-Center – 379 ft (115.5 m)
Center Field – 426 ft (129.8 m)
Right-Center – 354 ft (107.8 m)
Right Field – 310 ft (94.4 m)
Backstop – 68 ft (20.7 m)

Sportsman's Park was the name of several former Major League Baseball ballpark structures in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. All but one of them resided on the same piece of land: the northwest corner of Grand Boulevard and Dodier Street on the north side of the city.

History

For 33 years, 1920–1953, Sportsman's Park 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. The physical street address was 2911 North Grand Boulevard. St. Louis is by far the smallest market ever to support two major-league teams in the same sport at the same time.

This ballpark (by then known as Busch Stadium, but still commonly called Sportsman's Park) was also the home of the St. Louis Cardinals of the National Football League for a few years after transferring from Chicago and before Busch Memorial Stadium opened its doors. In 1923 the stadium hosted St. Louis's first NFL team the St. Louis All Stars.

1881 structure

Baseball was played on the Sportsman's Park site as early as 1867. The tract was acquired in 1866 by August Solari, who began staging games there the following year. It was the home of the St. Louis Brown Stockings in the National Association and the National League from 1875 to 1877. Originally called the Grand Avenue Ball Grounds, in 1876 it was re-named Sportsman's Park. The first grandstand--one of three on the site--was built in 1881. At that time, the diamond and the grandstands were on the southeast corner of the block, for the convenience of fans arriving from Grand Avenue. 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, which was later renamed Robison Field. They also changed team colors from Brown to Cardinal Red, thus acquiring a new nickname, and leaving their previous team colors available, as well as the old ballpark site.

1902 and 1909 structures

When the American League Browns moved from Milwaukee in 1902, they built a new version of Sportsman's Park. They initially placed the diamond and the main stand at the northwest corner of the block. In 1909, the Browns moved the diamond to its final location, at the southwest corner, in the shadow of a new steel and concrete structure -- the third such structure in the major leagues. The previous wooden grandstand was retained as left-field bleachers for a while, but was soon replaced with permanent bleachers. The Cardinals came back to their original home in mid-1920, as tenants of the Browns, after abandoning the outdated, mostly-wooden Robison Field. After nearly winning the American League Pennant in 1922, Browns owner Philip Ball confidently predicted that there would be a World Series in Sportsman's Park by 1926. In anticipation, he increased the capacity of his ballpark from 18,000 to 30,000. There "was" a World Series in Sportsman's Park in 1926 -- the Cardinals upset the Yankees. St. Louis had been considered a "Browns' town" until then; after 1926 the Cardinals dominated St. Louis baseball, while still tenants of the Browns. 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 had moved in, the two teams' situations had started to reverse, both on and off the field. 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. By the early 1950s, it was clear that the city could not support both teams. Bill Veeck, by then owner of the Browns, fancied that he could drive the Cardinals out of town through his promotional skills. He caught an unlucky break when the Cardinals' owner, Fred Saigh, was convicted of tax evasion. Faced with certain banishment from baseball, he sold the Cardinals to Anheuser-Busch in 1953. Veeck soon realized that the Cardinals now had more resources at their disposal than he could hope to match, and decided to leave town. As a first step toward moving the Browns, he sold Sportsman's Park to the Cardinals. He would have probably had to sell the park anyway, as the Browns could not afford to make repairs necessary to bring the park up to code. Busch had the money, and the ballpark was soon renovated. Meanwhile, by 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 ironic stance given all baseball clubs' significant revenues from beer sales. However, the Commissioner could not stop Anheuser-Busch president August Busch, Jr. from renaming it after "himself", and so he did; however, many fans still called it by the old name. Although the ballpark's final name was Busch Stadium, it was known for most of its history as Sportsman's Park, and that is the term normally used to refer to it most often. 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. Sportsman's Park / Busch Stadium was replaced early in the 1966 season by Busch Memorial Stadium, during which time much was made of baseball having been played on the old site for more than a century. The 1966 stadium was in turn replaced by the new Busch Stadium in 2006. The Sportsman's Park site is now home to the Herbert Hoover Boys and Girls Club. While the grandstand was torn down in late 1966, the diamond was still intact at the time the structures were cleared. 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

Left-handed power hitters enjoyed hitting here. Stan Musial benefited from playing the home-team half of his entire career here. Other sluggers took advantage, notably Babe Ruth who hit 3 homers in a World Series game on two different occasions, both of them here, in 1926 and 1928. When facing the Browns during the regular season, Ruth also hit well here. On one occasion he drove one across Grand Boulevard that shattered the window of a car dealership. The owner had the glass replaced by the next day, just in time for Ruth to shatter it "again". On another occasion, Ruth launched one into his straightaway-center power zone that landed behind the center field bleachers, some 500 feet from home plate.

References

#"Green Cathedrals", by Philip J. Lowry
#"Ballparks of North America", by Michael Benson
#"St. Louis' Big League Ballparks", by Joan M. Thomas
#"The Year Babe Ruth Hit 104 Home Runs", by Bill Jenkinson
#Dimensions drawn from baseball annuals.

External links

* [http://terraserver.microsoft.com/image.aspx?T=4&S=11&Z=15&X=1854&Y=10706&W=2&qs=%7cst+louis%7cmo%7c USGS aerial showing site of both Sportsman's Park and Robison Field, if you know where to look]
* [http://maps.google.com/maps?q=2911+N+Grand+Blvd,+St+Louis,+MO+63107&spn=0.006534,0.010407&t=k&hl=en Aerial Photo of Sportsman's Park at Google Maps]
*Whmc stl photodb|keywords=sportsman+park|title=Sportsman's Park
* [http://photosbybmw.com/Sport_Park_web_pages Photographs of Sportsman's Park taken in 1961 and 1962]