SWC75
Bored Historian
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TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALL PARK
In 1905 John McGraw and his owner, John T. Brush, allowed the Giants to play in the World Series against Connie Mack’s Philadelphia Athletics. The Giants won in five games with Christy Mathewson throwing three shut-outs. It was the first of 89 annual World Series. Even World Wars couldn’t stop them, (it took a strike to do that).
The same You-Tube poster who did posts on the 1903 World Series has done similar series on the 1905 World Series:
Administratively the game was set for the next half century with 8 teams in each league. There would be one brief challenge to that in the next decade but other than that fans now had a chance to develop loyalties that that could last for generations. What the game needed was places to watch the game that would last for generations. For years, baseball stadiums had been made primarily of wood. They were hastily constructed and sometimes came down just as hastily. Either they had structural weaknesses or were vulnerable to fire, (St. Louis once had 6 stadium fires in a 10 year period) or the team just left for something bigger and better.
The first stadium built to be more permanent was the Baker Bowl, in Philadelphia, which was made of steel and brick. The Phillies played there from 1895-1938. That didn’t produce a building boom at the time. But by the end of the first decade of the new century, baseball owners, (who had also achieved a sense of stability) were ready to build the first generation of famous baseball parks.
First up were the Philadelphia Athletics, co-owned by Ben Shibe, a maker of baseballs and field manager Connie Mack. They built Shibe Park, the first baseball stadium made of steel reinforced concrete. Opening day was April 12, 1909. The “design for the Shibe façade was in the ornate French Renaissance style, including arches, vaultings, and Ionic pilasters. The grandstand walls were to be of red brick and terra cotta and featured elaborate decorative friezes with baseball motifs, while cartouches framed the Athletics' "A" logo at regular intervals above the entrances. “ The fans must have been in awe. So were the other owners.
Two days later the St. Louis Browns opened a new Sportman’s Park, the third park by that name on that site but the first steel and concrete one. The Cardinals had previously played in the first Sportsman’s Park but were now playing at Robison Field, (named after their owner, as so many of these places were), which became the last of the old wooden ballparks until the Cardinals became the tenants of the Browns in the new Sportsman’s Park in 1920. The Cardinals became the more famous and successful team but the stadium was still owned by the Browns until they left town after the 1953 season.
In Pittsburgh, Barney Dreyfuss opened Forbes Field, (this one named after the British officer who had named Fort Pitt after a British Prime Minister back in the French and Indian War days) on 6/30/09. It was a large, beautiful park located next to the University of Pittsburgh and Schenley Park In 1937, the University of Pittsburgh opened the 42 story, 535 foot Cathedral of learning that dominated the view over the left field grandstand:
http://www.forbesfieldforever.com/gallery/forbes3.gif
It’s from the observation deck of the Cathedral that this famous image was taken the moment Bill Mazeroski hit the home run that won the 1960 World Series
http://31.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lk2xq3Eh821qjqin2o1_1280.jpg
In Cleveland the Naps tore down old wooden League Park and opened a new concrete and steel League Park on 4/21/10. It would be called Dunn Field from 1916-27 after the team’s owner at that time. But Charley Comiskey topped that on July 1st when he opened “The Baseball Palace of the World”, which was called White Sox Park, in Chicago. He held off his ego for three years before renaming it Comiskey Park.
The two new stadiums of 1911 were the direct result of fires. First American League Park, (also known as “Boundary Field”) in Washington burned down on March 17, 1911 and then New York’s Polo Grounds on April 12. In Washington, “Day and night the chanting of the Negro laborers has been heard in the vicinity, like Aladdin’s palace, the structure rose as if by magic.” (This was the same park where years later, Redskins owner George Preston Marshall refused to employ black players) Somehow they got a semblance of a park ready for opening day, the very day that President William Howard Taft started the tradition of the chief executive throwing out the first ball of the season. The new stadium was called “Nationals Park”, because the Senators were often called that in the papers. In 1920, it was changed to Griffith Stadium, after, of course, the owner of the team, Clark Griffith.
In New York, the New York Highlanders were kind enough to let the Giants play games at Hilltop Park until a new Polo Grounds could be made ready. It opened on June 28th, not completed but usable nonetheless. Two years later the Giants returned the favor by allowing the Yankees to become their tenants, which they were for ten years until Yankee Stadium opened.
The big news in 1912 was the sinking of the Titanic on April 15th. The big news in baseball was the three new ball parks that opened the season.
The Cincinnati Reds had been playing in something called “The Palace of the Fans”, which was full of ornate architecture, including Cornithian Columns and “Opera Boxes” that were the first luxury suites complete with waiters. It also had stalls for carriages under the grandstand. They were trying to draw the wealthy crowd to the ball park. But the Palace of the Fans didn’t have enough room for fans in it- only about 6,000. So it was torn down and replaced, on the same site by “Redland Field”, which would later be named Crosley Field after Powell Crosley who bought the franchise in the 1930’s.
In Boston, where the news of the Titanic hit hard due to the man Irish immigrants on board, Mayor John . “Honey Fitz” Fitzgerald, maternal grandfather of JFK, threw out the first ball at Fenway Park on April 20th. On the same day Navin Field in Detroit, built on the grounds of Charley Bennett’s old Field, opened. It was named after owner Frank Navin. The names changed to Briggs Stadium after Navin died in 1936 and Walter Briggs took over. It became Tiger Stadium in 1961.
Only one new park opened in 1913 but it was a memorable one. Charles Ebbetts, who had risen from the Dodger’s bookkeeper their owner, had purchased a lot called “pigtown” because of its former residents and built a baseball park which he, of course, named after himself. It became the iconic home of the beloved Brooklyn Dodgers, who, long before their great success were known as the “daffiness boys”. That could perhaps be anticipated on opening day when nobody could find the flag to be raised or the key to the bleachers. Ebbets had also forgotten to build a press box, a rather poor public relation move. But the “Cathedral of the Underdog” survived until 1957.
Another iconic ballpark was built in 1914 but you could tell by the name or the tenant. Charles Weeghman, who had made a fortune on early vending machines, couldn’t buy a major league club so he became one of the founders of the Federal League and put a team in Chicago called the “Whales”, (there are Whales in Chicago?). He built a ball park on the north side called Weeghman Park. When the Federal League disbanded in 1916, Weeghman was allowed to buy a majority interest in the Chicago Cubs and basically emerged that team with his Whales, (which allowed them to win the 1918 pennants, the only Cubs pennant between 1910 and 1929). The combined team played in Weeghman Park. But Weeghman suffered some financial setbacks and had to sell the team and the park to chewing gum magnate William Wrigley Jr., who then named the park after himself. It’s probably just as well because Weeghman was a major financial backer of the Klu Klux Clan. Besides, Weeghman Park just doesn’t have the same ring to it.
The final act in this ballpark building boom was Braves Field, which opened on August 18, 1915. Braves owner James Gaffney loved inside the park home runs. He thought hitting the ball over the fence was cheap, crude way to circle the bases. His new park went 402 feet down the left field line, the same to left center, 550 to deepest center, 402 in right center and 402 down the right field line. Ty Cobb paid a visit while in town to play the Red Sox and predicted “Nobody will ever hit a home run here!” meaning outside the park, of course. And no one did for ten years, until Giants catcher, Frank “Pancho” Snyder hit one 20 feet over the left field wall and 15 feet from the foul line. Gaffney’s insistence that his team play dead-ball era baseball in the live ball era condemned the once powerful franchise to the second division for decades afterwards.
But all these parks were originally built for the Dead Ball Era. They tended to have enormous distances to center field but also often very close journeys to right or left field became these were downtown ballparks built to conform to city blocks. When the Live Ball Era, (really the Babe Ruth Era- but more on that later) began, efforts were made to adapt these parks to the new, “longer” game. Large screens were put up to increase the height of short fences, especially in the Baker Bowl, Shibe Park, League Park, Ebbets Field and, most famously Fenway Park. These structures would be made of different materials at different points, (cement, tin, even chicken wire) and often have metal supports that were in play. The one in Ebbets field was concave. You never knew where the ball would bounce or how far. Huge scoreboards became a trend in the 30’s. The one in Ebbets extended 5 feet out onto the playing field.
Other parks had various quirks. The new Polo Grounds looked like a bathtub, if the drain is imagined as home plate. It was 505 feet to deepest center field but only 279 and 257 down the lines, a pull hitter’s paradise, (and there never was a pull hitter like Mel Ott who hit 323 of his 511 home runs there). There really were right and left field corners but they were 440 feet away, so far that open bullpens were placed there and were in play. Boston and Cincinnati were famous for using inclines instead of warning tracks at their outfield fences. The one in Cincinnati was apt to be muddy, (during a 1937 flood two Reds pitchers, urged on by photographers, rowed a boat over a submerged outfield fence). Babe Ruth in one of his last games, slipped on the incline and fell flat on his face, perhaps hastening his retirement. In Boston a minor leaguer named Smead Jolley was called up. His teammates gave him pointers on how to run up the incline to catch a ball. He did so but failed to get to the ball, which bounced back down the incline. Jolley chugged after it but fell down coming down the incline. When he got back to the dugout, he told his new teammates “Youse Guys taught me to run up the hill but you forgot to tell me how to run down it!”
But the biggest thing about the new stadiums is that they were big. Here is a chart showing the names and capacity of their predecessors and the initial and eventual capacity of the new stadium:
Boston
Red Sox: Hunting Avenue Grounds 9,000; Fenway Park 27, 000/37,500
Braves: South End Grounds 11,000; Braves Field 38,000/46,000
New York
Dodgers: Washington Park 18,800; Ebbets Field 18,000/35,000
Yankees: Hilltop Park 15,000; New Polo Grounds 16,000/56,000 and Yankee Stadium 58,000/ 71.700
Giants: Old Polo Grounds 16,000; New Polo Grounds 16,000/56,000
Philadelphia
Phillies: Baker Bowl 18,000/20,000
Athletics: Columbia Park 13,600; Shibe Park 20,000/33,500
Washington
Senators: American League Park 6,500: Griffith Stadium 32,000/35,000
Pittsburgh
Pirates: Exposition Park 16,000; Forbes Field 23,000/41,000
Detroit
Tigers: Bennett Field 14,000; Tiger Stadium 23,000/54,226
Cleveland
Indians: Old League Park 9,000; New league Park 21,000/22,500
Cincinnati
Reds: Palace of the Fans 6,000; Crosley Field 25,000/33,000
Chicago
Cubs: West Side Grounds 16,000; Wrigley Field 14,000/40,000
White Sox: South Side Park 15,000; Comiskey Park 28,800/ 52,000
St. Louis
Browns: Old Sportman’s Park 18,000; New Sportsman’s Park 17,600/34,500
Cardinals: Robson Field 21,000; New Sportsman’s Park 17,600/34,500
Baseball was becoming big-time- both as a sport and as a business.
The new stadiums served baseball fans for an average of 61 years, (counting Fenway and Wrigley, which are still going strong). If a father decided to take his young son to every ballpark in the majors in 1923 to see every team play a home game they would have seen the Red Sox in Fenway, the Braves in Braves Field, the Dodgers in Ebbets Field, the Giants in the Polo Grounds, the Yankees in Yankees Stadium, the Phillies in the Baker Bowl, the Athletics in Shibe Park, the Senators in Griffith Stadium, the Pirates in Forbes Field, the Tigers in Navin Field, the Indians in league Park, the Red sin Redland Field, the Cubs in Wrigley, the White Sox in Comiskey and the Cardinals and Browns in Sportsman’s Park . If the son had done the same thing with his son in 1952, the only changes they would have seen were that the Phillies were now sharing Shibe Park with the A’s, the Indians have moved over to Municipal Stadium and the parks in Detroit and Cincinnati had changed their names. If that fellow’s young son had done the same thing 29 years later, in 1981 with his son, they would have travelled to see 26 teams in 26 different ballparks, including 16 cities that had no major league teams in 1952. The only ballparks that would have been the same would have been Fenway, Yankee Stadium, (although many consider that a second Yankee Stadium after the extensive renovations of 1974-75), Tiger Stadium, Wrigley Field and Comiskey. And, if that kid had grown up to do the same thing with his son in 2010, only Fenway and Wrigley would be left. Baseball has never been so stable as it was in the 20’s, 30’s and 40’s. And the groundwork for that stability was laid in the first two decades of the century
Sources:
The Ballpark Book by Ron Smith
Diamonds by Michael Gershman
Green Cathedrals by Philip J. Lowry
Lost Ballparks by Lawrence S. Ritter
Take Me Out to the Ballpark by Lowell Reidenbaugh
And Internet sources, including Wikipedia and Baseballrefence.com
In 1905 John McGraw and his owner, John T. Brush, allowed the Giants to play in the World Series against Connie Mack’s Philadelphia Athletics. The Giants won in five games with Christy Mathewson throwing three shut-outs. It was the first of 89 annual World Series. Even World Wars couldn’t stop them, (it took a strike to do that).
The same You-Tube poster who did posts on the 1903 World Series has done similar series on the 1905 World Series:
Administratively the game was set for the next half century with 8 teams in each league. There would be one brief challenge to that in the next decade but other than that fans now had a chance to develop loyalties that that could last for generations. What the game needed was places to watch the game that would last for generations. For years, baseball stadiums had been made primarily of wood. They were hastily constructed and sometimes came down just as hastily. Either they had structural weaknesses or were vulnerable to fire, (St. Louis once had 6 stadium fires in a 10 year period) or the team just left for something bigger and better.
The first stadium built to be more permanent was the Baker Bowl, in Philadelphia, which was made of steel and brick. The Phillies played there from 1895-1938. That didn’t produce a building boom at the time. But by the end of the first decade of the new century, baseball owners, (who had also achieved a sense of stability) were ready to build the first generation of famous baseball parks.
First up were the Philadelphia Athletics, co-owned by Ben Shibe, a maker of baseballs and field manager Connie Mack. They built Shibe Park, the first baseball stadium made of steel reinforced concrete. Opening day was April 12, 1909. The “design for the Shibe façade was in the ornate French Renaissance style, including arches, vaultings, and Ionic pilasters. The grandstand walls were to be of red brick and terra cotta and featured elaborate decorative friezes with baseball motifs, while cartouches framed the Athletics' "A" logo at regular intervals above the entrances. “ The fans must have been in awe. So were the other owners.
Two days later the St. Louis Browns opened a new Sportman’s Park, the third park by that name on that site but the first steel and concrete one. The Cardinals had previously played in the first Sportsman’s Park but were now playing at Robison Field, (named after their owner, as so many of these places were), which became the last of the old wooden ballparks until the Cardinals became the tenants of the Browns in the new Sportsman’s Park in 1920. The Cardinals became the more famous and successful team but the stadium was still owned by the Browns until they left town after the 1953 season.
In Pittsburgh, Barney Dreyfuss opened Forbes Field, (this one named after the British officer who had named Fort Pitt after a British Prime Minister back in the French and Indian War days) on 6/30/09. It was a large, beautiful park located next to the University of Pittsburgh and Schenley Park In 1937, the University of Pittsburgh opened the 42 story, 535 foot Cathedral of learning that dominated the view over the left field grandstand:
http://www.forbesfieldforever.com/gallery/forbes3.gif
It’s from the observation deck of the Cathedral that this famous image was taken the moment Bill Mazeroski hit the home run that won the 1960 World Series
http://31.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lk2xq3Eh821qjqin2o1_1280.jpg
In Cleveland the Naps tore down old wooden League Park and opened a new concrete and steel League Park on 4/21/10. It would be called Dunn Field from 1916-27 after the team’s owner at that time. But Charley Comiskey topped that on July 1st when he opened “The Baseball Palace of the World”, which was called White Sox Park, in Chicago. He held off his ego for three years before renaming it Comiskey Park.
The two new stadiums of 1911 were the direct result of fires. First American League Park, (also known as “Boundary Field”) in Washington burned down on March 17, 1911 and then New York’s Polo Grounds on April 12. In Washington, “Day and night the chanting of the Negro laborers has been heard in the vicinity, like Aladdin’s palace, the structure rose as if by magic.” (This was the same park where years later, Redskins owner George Preston Marshall refused to employ black players) Somehow they got a semblance of a park ready for opening day, the very day that President William Howard Taft started the tradition of the chief executive throwing out the first ball of the season. The new stadium was called “Nationals Park”, because the Senators were often called that in the papers. In 1920, it was changed to Griffith Stadium, after, of course, the owner of the team, Clark Griffith.
In New York, the New York Highlanders were kind enough to let the Giants play games at Hilltop Park until a new Polo Grounds could be made ready. It opened on June 28th, not completed but usable nonetheless. Two years later the Giants returned the favor by allowing the Yankees to become their tenants, which they were for ten years until Yankee Stadium opened.
The big news in 1912 was the sinking of the Titanic on April 15th. The big news in baseball was the three new ball parks that opened the season.
The Cincinnati Reds had been playing in something called “The Palace of the Fans”, which was full of ornate architecture, including Cornithian Columns and “Opera Boxes” that were the first luxury suites complete with waiters. It also had stalls for carriages under the grandstand. They were trying to draw the wealthy crowd to the ball park. But the Palace of the Fans didn’t have enough room for fans in it- only about 6,000. So it was torn down and replaced, on the same site by “Redland Field”, which would later be named Crosley Field after Powell Crosley who bought the franchise in the 1930’s.
In Boston, where the news of the Titanic hit hard due to the man Irish immigrants on board, Mayor John . “Honey Fitz” Fitzgerald, maternal grandfather of JFK, threw out the first ball at Fenway Park on April 20th. On the same day Navin Field in Detroit, built on the grounds of Charley Bennett’s old Field, opened. It was named after owner Frank Navin. The names changed to Briggs Stadium after Navin died in 1936 and Walter Briggs took over. It became Tiger Stadium in 1961.
Only one new park opened in 1913 but it was a memorable one. Charles Ebbetts, who had risen from the Dodger’s bookkeeper their owner, had purchased a lot called “pigtown” because of its former residents and built a baseball park which he, of course, named after himself. It became the iconic home of the beloved Brooklyn Dodgers, who, long before their great success were known as the “daffiness boys”. That could perhaps be anticipated on opening day when nobody could find the flag to be raised or the key to the bleachers. Ebbets had also forgotten to build a press box, a rather poor public relation move. But the “Cathedral of the Underdog” survived until 1957.
Another iconic ballpark was built in 1914 but you could tell by the name or the tenant. Charles Weeghman, who had made a fortune on early vending machines, couldn’t buy a major league club so he became one of the founders of the Federal League and put a team in Chicago called the “Whales”, (there are Whales in Chicago?). He built a ball park on the north side called Weeghman Park. When the Federal League disbanded in 1916, Weeghman was allowed to buy a majority interest in the Chicago Cubs and basically emerged that team with his Whales, (which allowed them to win the 1918 pennants, the only Cubs pennant between 1910 and 1929). The combined team played in Weeghman Park. But Weeghman suffered some financial setbacks and had to sell the team and the park to chewing gum magnate William Wrigley Jr., who then named the park after himself. It’s probably just as well because Weeghman was a major financial backer of the Klu Klux Clan. Besides, Weeghman Park just doesn’t have the same ring to it.
The final act in this ballpark building boom was Braves Field, which opened on August 18, 1915. Braves owner James Gaffney loved inside the park home runs. He thought hitting the ball over the fence was cheap, crude way to circle the bases. His new park went 402 feet down the left field line, the same to left center, 550 to deepest center, 402 in right center and 402 down the right field line. Ty Cobb paid a visit while in town to play the Red Sox and predicted “Nobody will ever hit a home run here!” meaning outside the park, of course. And no one did for ten years, until Giants catcher, Frank “Pancho” Snyder hit one 20 feet over the left field wall and 15 feet from the foul line. Gaffney’s insistence that his team play dead-ball era baseball in the live ball era condemned the once powerful franchise to the second division for decades afterwards.
But all these parks were originally built for the Dead Ball Era. They tended to have enormous distances to center field but also often very close journeys to right or left field became these were downtown ballparks built to conform to city blocks. When the Live Ball Era, (really the Babe Ruth Era- but more on that later) began, efforts were made to adapt these parks to the new, “longer” game. Large screens were put up to increase the height of short fences, especially in the Baker Bowl, Shibe Park, League Park, Ebbets Field and, most famously Fenway Park. These structures would be made of different materials at different points, (cement, tin, even chicken wire) and often have metal supports that were in play. The one in Ebbets field was concave. You never knew where the ball would bounce or how far. Huge scoreboards became a trend in the 30’s. The one in Ebbets extended 5 feet out onto the playing field.
Other parks had various quirks. The new Polo Grounds looked like a bathtub, if the drain is imagined as home plate. It was 505 feet to deepest center field but only 279 and 257 down the lines, a pull hitter’s paradise, (and there never was a pull hitter like Mel Ott who hit 323 of his 511 home runs there). There really were right and left field corners but they were 440 feet away, so far that open bullpens were placed there and were in play. Boston and Cincinnati were famous for using inclines instead of warning tracks at their outfield fences. The one in Cincinnati was apt to be muddy, (during a 1937 flood two Reds pitchers, urged on by photographers, rowed a boat over a submerged outfield fence). Babe Ruth in one of his last games, slipped on the incline and fell flat on his face, perhaps hastening his retirement. In Boston a minor leaguer named Smead Jolley was called up. His teammates gave him pointers on how to run up the incline to catch a ball. He did so but failed to get to the ball, which bounced back down the incline. Jolley chugged after it but fell down coming down the incline. When he got back to the dugout, he told his new teammates “Youse Guys taught me to run up the hill but you forgot to tell me how to run down it!”
But the biggest thing about the new stadiums is that they were big. Here is a chart showing the names and capacity of their predecessors and the initial and eventual capacity of the new stadium:
Boston
Red Sox: Hunting Avenue Grounds 9,000; Fenway Park 27, 000/37,500
Braves: South End Grounds 11,000; Braves Field 38,000/46,000
New York
Dodgers: Washington Park 18,800; Ebbets Field 18,000/35,000
Yankees: Hilltop Park 15,000; New Polo Grounds 16,000/56,000 and Yankee Stadium 58,000/ 71.700
Giants: Old Polo Grounds 16,000; New Polo Grounds 16,000/56,000
Philadelphia
Phillies: Baker Bowl 18,000/20,000
Athletics: Columbia Park 13,600; Shibe Park 20,000/33,500
Washington
Senators: American League Park 6,500: Griffith Stadium 32,000/35,000
Pittsburgh
Pirates: Exposition Park 16,000; Forbes Field 23,000/41,000
Detroit
Tigers: Bennett Field 14,000; Tiger Stadium 23,000/54,226
Cleveland
Indians: Old League Park 9,000; New league Park 21,000/22,500
Cincinnati
Reds: Palace of the Fans 6,000; Crosley Field 25,000/33,000
Chicago
Cubs: West Side Grounds 16,000; Wrigley Field 14,000/40,000
White Sox: South Side Park 15,000; Comiskey Park 28,800/ 52,000
St. Louis
Browns: Old Sportman’s Park 18,000; New Sportsman’s Park 17,600/34,500
Cardinals: Robson Field 21,000; New Sportsman’s Park 17,600/34,500
Baseball was becoming big-time- both as a sport and as a business.
The new stadiums served baseball fans for an average of 61 years, (counting Fenway and Wrigley, which are still going strong). If a father decided to take his young son to every ballpark in the majors in 1923 to see every team play a home game they would have seen the Red Sox in Fenway, the Braves in Braves Field, the Dodgers in Ebbets Field, the Giants in the Polo Grounds, the Yankees in Yankees Stadium, the Phillies in the Baker Bowl, the Athletics in Shibe Park, the Senators in Griffith Stadium, the Pirates in Forbes Field, the Tigers in Navin Field, the Indians in league Park, the Red sin Redland Field, the Cubs in Wrigley, the White Sox in Comiskey and the Cardinals and Browns in Sportsman’s Park . If the son had done the same thing with his son in 1952, the only changes they would have seen were that the Phillies were now sharing Shibe Park with the A’s, the Indians have moved over to Municipal Stadium and the parks in Detroit and Cincinnati had changed their names. If that fellow’s young son had done the same thing 29 years later, in 1981 with his son, they would have travelled to see 26 teams in 26 different ballparks, including 16 cities that had no major league teams in 1952. The only ballparks that would have been the same would have been Fenway, Yankee Stadium, (although many consider that a second Yankee Stadium after the extensive renovations of 1974-75), Tiger Stadium, Wrigley Field and Comiskey. And, if that kid had grown up to do the same thing with his son in 2010, only Fenway and Wrigley would be left. Baseball has never been so stable as it was in the 20’s, 30’s and 40’s. And the groundwork for that stability was laid in the first two decades of the century
Sources:
The Ballpark Book by Ron Smith
Diamonds by Michael Gershman
Green Cathedrals by Philip J. Lowry
Lost Ballparks by Lawrence S. Ritter
Take Me Out to the Ballpark by Lowell Reidenbaugh
And Internet sources, including Wikipedia and Baseballrefence.com
