Pendleton Park

Pendleton Park is a former baseball ground located in Cincinnati, Ohio. However, during the time when the ballpark was being used by major league baseball, newspapers referred to the park as East End Park more often than any other name. The name Pendleton Park came sometime after major league baseball vacated the facility.

The ballpark was home to the Cincinnati Kelly's Killers of the American Association during 1891. The club has also been referred to as the Cincinnati Porkers, Cincinnati Kelly's Hustlers, Cincinnati Kelly's Braves and even the Cincinnati Reds. Interestly enough, contemporary newspapers referred to the club as the Cincinnati Reds far more often then any other nickname that this franchise is historically known by. This peculiar situation gave the city of Cincinnati two major league baseball teams in the same year with the same nickname. The National League Reds, who played on the west side of Cincinnati and the Association Reds who played on the east side.

The location of the park was just off Eastern Avenue (now called Riverside Drive) in the Schmidt Recreation Complex between modern day Hulbert Street, Babby Alley, Watson Street and Ridgley Street. Ridgley street now dead ends at Babby Alley but it once extended the distance of the right field bleachers. Paul Kramer Field and C.L. Harrison Field are currently located where the park once stood. Just south of Hulbert is the Ohio River and many patrons attending Kelly's Killers games were dropped off by steamboat coming either from the city or from Coney Island. Pendleton Park was one of only a handful of major league parks to have access by way of a river.

At the time, the National League did not allow Sunday baseball games to be played. As a result the rival American Association capitalized on this by having their teams play Sunday games. However, the Cincinnati Association club had difficulty with this due to the fact that the city had the blue law in place which also disallowed Sunday games. Owners of the Cincinnati Kelly's Killers made repeated attempts at playing games on Sundays. Sometimes the Mayor of Cincinnati, Mayor John B. Mosby, would enforce the law and other times he would not. When the Mayor did enforce the law, the Kelly's Killers and their opponents found themselves in jail.

In one instance, before a game played on May 24th against the Philadelphia Athletics, the Chief of Police behaved like a Colonel in the US Army. Dressed in a full military uniform, Chief Dietsch had seventy-five of his police officers march back and forth on the baseball field prior to game time to try and intimidate the baseball club. He even went as far as to have seventy-five more police officers waiting at the station if the Kelly's Killers attempted to play. The players went ahead and attempted to play anyway. When the game entered the second half of the first inning, Chief Deitsch had enough and had his officers arrest all of the players. The next day the Cincinnati Commercial Gazette reported that "It would be commendable in Chief Deitsch if he would display as much zeal in closing saloons and shutting off a few of the crap games that he has shown in stopping Sunday base ball."

The Kelly's Killers didn't survive the full baseball season. They folded after an 8-0 loss to the St. Louis Browns on August 16th 1891. The final Kelly's Killers game at Pendleton Park was played on August 13th against the Boston Reds and the game resulted in a 1-7 Cincinnati loss.

After the short-lived experiment with major league baseball on the east side of Cincinnati failed, the grounds was acquired by the Cincinnati Gymnasium and Athletic Club, and became known as the "Cincinnati Gym Grounds". They built a swimming pool in the center field area.

External links

* [http://www.cincinnatikellyskillers.com Cincinnati Kelly's Killers]
* [http://www.scsr.org/Venues/EastEndPark/Home.htm East End Park]