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149-575: Columbia Park fell into disuse after the Athletics' move in 1909 to the larger Shibe Park , and was demolished in the 1910s. During their tenure at Columbia Park, the Athletics won the American League pennant twice. The first time was in 1902, before the institution of the modern World Series . Columbia Park was built in 1901 by the Philadelphia Athletics when the team was established, in

298-510: A no-win situation : They could not protect their own interests without seeming to interfere with the advancement of players to the majors. By 1948, the Dodgers, along with Veeck's Cleveland Indians , had integrated. The Negro leagues also "integrated" around the same time, as Eddie Klep pitched for the Cleveland Buckeyes during the 1946 season, becoming the first white American to play in

447-420: A black player." In some ways Blackball thrived under segregation , with the few black teams of the day playing not only each other but white teams as well. "Black teams earned the bulk of their income playing white independent 'semipro' clubs." Baseball featuring African American players became professionalized by the 1870s. The first known professional black baseball player was Bud Fowler , who appeared in

596-645: A church." Shibe was proud of the egalitarianism of the design; he said it was "for the masses as well as the classes." In April 1908, design in hand, the Shibes and the Steeles broke ground. With the resources of the Steele firm, construction was speedy, efficient and completed in time to open the 1909 season. The city was excited about its new ballpark – the Philadelphia Public Ledger called it "a palace for fans,

745-463: A complicated $ 3.375 million plan to buy the Athletics and move them to Kansas City. He owned Blues Stadium , home to the New York Yankees ' top minor-league affiliate, but intended to sell it to the city for upgrading to major league standards. Roy, Earle and Connie Mack, Sr. would get about $ 1.5 million, Johnson would pay off the remaining mortgage, and he would assume the $ 400,000–$ 800,000 debt to

894-552: A few more years before the operation collapsed entirely. In the meantime, the Macks tried to capitalize on the vestiges of affection in the city for their father, who turned 90 years old in December 1952. They opened a nostalgic Elephant Room, filled with memorabilia from the glory days, under the first base grandstand. They renamed the park Connie Mack Stadium in February 1953 for the opening of

1043-414: A great view of the proceedings within, thanks to the low outfield fences. While this changed for the people on Somerset in 1913 when Shibe added the left field bleacher section and blocked the view from that direction. It was still a clear shot in from 20th Street over the low, 12-foot wall in right. The view from the roofs, the bedroom bay windows, and even the porch roofs on 20th was as good as from some of

1192-626: A handful of games with a Chelsea, Massachusetts club in April 1878 and then pitched for the Lynn, Massachusetts team in the International Association . Moses Fleetwood Walker and his brother, Welday Wilberforce Walker , were the first two recognizably black players in the major leagues. They both played for the 1884 Toledo Blue Stockings in the American Association , which was considered

1341-635: A hard "b") known later as Connie Mack Stadium , was a ballpark located in Philadelphia . It was the home of the Philadelphia Athletics of the American League (AL) and the Philadelphia Phillies of the National League (NL). When it opened April 12, 1909, it became baseball's first steel-and-concrete stadium. In different eras it was home to "The $ 100,000 Infield" , "The Whiz Kids" , and "The 1964 Phold" . The venue's two home teams won both

1490-408: A hole in the head", he said. Its upkeep had deteriorated to the point that Carpenter estimated that modernizing the place would cost a million dollars, and even at that he believed it would be impossible to enlarge the seating capacity. He also recognized the growing parking problem, as well as the declining affluence of the neighborhood. He tried to pass on the purchase, reminding Johnson that he had

1639-561: A lack of a place to play. Leland bought the Giants in 1905 and merged it with his Unions (despite the fact that not a single Giant player ended up on the roster), and named them the Leland Giants . The Philadelphia Giants , owned by Walter Schlichter , a white businessman, rose to prominence in 1903 when they lost to the Cuban X-Giants in their version of the "Colored Championship". Leading

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1788-522: A lease until 1957. Johnson responded by threatening to raise the "rent" to 20 cents a head, and to bill the Phillies for stadium upkeep the A's had always paid for. When Carpenter did not show signs of giving in, Johnson said he would call the entire deal off. Carpenter was now in a bind, since there was no other facility in the Delaware Valley that was suitable even for temporary use. Reluctantly, he bought

1937-680: A major league at the time. Then in 1886 second baseman Frank Grant joined the Buffalo Bisons of the International League , the strongest minor league, and hit .340, third highest in the league. Several other black American players joined the International League the following season, including pitchers George Stovey and Robert Higgins, but 1888 was the last season blacks were permitted in that or any other high minor league. The first nationally known black professional baseball team

2086-415: A new place to play. He searched for a site for his new park and found one on Lehigh Avenue between 20th and 21st Streets, five blocks west of Baker Bowl , straddling the neighborhoods known as Swampoodle and Goosetown. It was still primitive at the time, an area of "high clay bluffs, rain-washed gullies, quagmires, open fields, even ponds" where chickens pecked and pigs rooted. Although a grid of streets

2235-409: A way to make the park profitable. His first thought was to extend the length of his income season by adding a football team. In 1959, he sought to buy an American Football League franchise, but the negotiations failed. Additionally, the neighborhood experienced white flight , leading to perceptions of rising crime; the phrase "Watch your car, mister?" became a catch phrase to game attendees. Indeed,

2384-681: A year later. While Foster was out of the picture, the owners of the National League elected William C. Hueston as new league president. In 1927, Ed Bolden suffered a similar fate as Foster, by committing himself to a hospital because the pressure was too great. The Eastern League folded shortly after that, marking the end of the World Series between the NNL and the ECL. After the Eastern League folded following

2533-747: The All Cubans , the Cuban Stars (West) , the Cuban Stars (East) , and the New York Cubans . Some of them included white Cuban players, and some were Negro league players. The few players on the white minor league teams were constantly dodging verbal and physical abuse from both competitors and fans. The Compromise of 1877 removed the few remaining obstacles from the South enacting Jim Crow laws , allowing legal discrimination against blacks. On July 14, 1887, Cap Anson 's Chicago White Stockings were scheduled to play

2682-685: The Chicago American Giants to appeal to a larger fan base. During the same year, J. L. Wilkinson started the All Nations traveling team. The All Nations team would eventually become one of the best-known and popular teams of the Negro leagues, the Kansas City Monarchs . On April 6, 1917, the United States entered World War I. Manpower needed by the defense plants and industry accelerated

2831-661: The Longines clock perched above it. The board's superficial resemblance to the similarly adorned board in Yankee Stadium gave rise to the urban legend that the board was acquired second-hand from the Yankees. However, the boards differed in many details, and the Yankee Stadium board remained until 1959 when it was replaced, a few years after Connie Mack Stadium's new board had made its appearance. The big scoreboard extended well above

2980-709: The Middle States League was formed and it admitted two all-black teams to its otherwise all-white league, the Cuban Giants and their arch-rivals, the New York Gorhams . Despite the animosity between the two clubs, they managed to form a traveling team, the Colored All Americans. This enabled them to make money barnstorming while fulfilling their league obligations. In 1890, the Giants returned to their independent, barnstorming identity, and by 1892, they were

3129-510: The National Colored Base Ball League , was organized strictly as a minor league but failed in 1887 after only two weeks owing to low attendance. After several decades of mostly independent play by a variety of teams, the first Negro National League was formed in 1920 by Rube Foster . Ultimately, seven Negro major leagues existed at various times over the next thirty years. After integration of organized baseball began in

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3278-644: The Quinn-Ives Act banning discrimination in hiring. At the same time, NYC Mayor La Guardia formed the Mayor's Commission on Baseball to study integration of the major leagues. All this led to Rickey announcing the signing of Robinson much earlier than he would have liked. On October 23, 1945, Montreal Royals president Hector Racine announced that, "We are signing this boy." Early in 1946, Rickey signed four more black players, Campanella, Newcombe, John Wright and Roy Partlow , this time with much less fanfare. After

3427-504: The Washington Senators in front of a crowd of 10,524, with some fans standing on the outfield walls and the roofs of nearby houses. The Athletics lost 5–1, despite three hits by second baseman Nap Lajoie . Following their successful 1902 season, the Athletics built a narrow upper deck on the rooftop of the ballpark. The Phillies' Philadelphia Ball Park had suffered a fatal collapse of its left field bleachers in 1903. Prior to

3576-672: The 1905 season, the Athletics reinforced Columbia Park's seating and grandstands with heavy yellow pine joists which received the approval of the City of Philadelphia's Chief of the Bureau of Building Inspections. The Athletics won their second pennant in 1905, and faced the New York Giants in the 1905 World Series . The Giants won the series 4 games to 1. Games 1 and 3 were held at Columbia Park. Both were shutout victories for Giants future hall of famer Christy Mathewson . The Athletics reconstructed

3725-404: The 1913 open left field bleachers with a double-deck that extended from the foul pole to the center field corner. This construction covered the "terrace" except in the deepest part of center field which still had a slight upslope. Where the upper deck of the main stands abutted the upper deck of the bleachers, there was a slight overhang. Whether this ever affected play is unknown. They also extended

3874-649: The 1920s or 1930s, the term " Negro " came into use which led to references to "Negro" leagues or teams. The black World Series was referred to as the Colored World Series from 1924 to 1927, and the Negro World Series from 1942 to 1948. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People petitioned the public to recognize a capital "N" in negro as a matter of respect for black people. By 1930, essentially every major US outlet had adopted "Negro" as

4023-626: The 1922 season, and two more after the 1923 season. Foster replaced the defunct teams, sometimes promoting whole teams from the Negro Southern League into the NNL. Finally Foster and Bolden met and agreed to an annual World Series beginning in 1924 . Although this was a strong beginning to the Negro Leagues , throughout the 1920's the leagues were very unorganized, having teams play uneven numbers of games. Teams would skip official games for non-league matchups which would be more lucrative for

4172-602: The 1927 season, a new eastern league, the American Negro League , was formed to replace it. The makeup of the new ANL was nearly the same as the Eastern League, the exception being that the Homestead Grays joined in place of the now-defunct Brooklyn Royal Giants. The ANL lasted just one season. In the face of harder economic times, the Negro National League folded after the 1931 season. Some of its teams joined

4321-506: The 1950 "Whiz Kids" Phillies team brought the NL pennant to Philadelphia for the first time in 35 years. As the Phillies improved baseball life in Philadelphia, there was a decline in the fortunes of the A's – in the team, in the owner, and in the ballpark. Mack had alienated many fans in 1915, and again in 1932, when he sold off his pennant-winning teams for cash. His clashes with his neighbors over

4470-516: The 1950 season was a disaster. By May 26, they were 11–21, their season all but finished. On that date, Mack's sons Roy and Earle gently pushed their father into announcing that he would retire at the end of the season. The power vacuum in the wake of "Mr. Baseball's" exit only worsened the problems, however. Roy and Earle Mack, "undistinguished men living in the shadow of their father," were from Mack's first marriage; their half-brother Connie, Jr. – 20 years their junior – came from his second. As

4619-532: The 1953 season, hanging a new metal plate over the old SHIBE PARK inscription, which was "still written in stone" beneath. Many old-timers refused to acknowledge the change. The Macks' bad business decisions finally caught up with them in 1954. While Roy had hoped to keep the team, Earle wanted out, and the meager attendance figures were hard to argue with. The A's business plan required attendance of 550,000 to break even, but in 1954 they drew just 305,000. A "Save The A's" committee formed to help, publishing daily

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4768-491: The 1960 season, additional box seats in front of the original grandstand reduced the plate-to-screen distance by about 10 feet (3.0 m). With a couple of years of life left in the park, a curving inner fence across center field reduced the distance from 447 to 410. The final seating capacity of the ballpark, as recorded in the 1970 Sporting News Baseball Guide , was 33,608. Carpenter's reluctance about Connie Mack Stadium soon proved justified. He found it impossible to find

4917-423: The A's with hefty mortgage payments that could have been spent on improving the team and the park. They immediately resumed battling each other, and much of the brothers' discord made the newspapers. In one famous episode, Earle separated from his wife and moved into a small suite he kept at the ballpark; when Roy heard about it, he had the water shut off in the place. Despite undeniable deterioration, it would be

5066-444: The Athletics were on the road. The Giants were the first club to play night baseball in Philadelphia when they played under portable lights on June 4, 1902. The final game played at the park took place on October 3, 1908 ; the visiting Boston Americans defeated the Athletics 5–0 in the second game of a doubleheader. The lack of seating at Columbia Park was the main reason the Athletics left for Shibe Park. The sod from Columbia Park

5215-641: The Detroit Wolves were about to collapse, and instead of letting the team go, Posey kept pumping money into it. By June the Wolves had disintegrated and all the rest of the teams, except for the Grays, were beyond help, so Posey had to terminate the league. Across town from Posey, Gus Greenlee , a reputed gangster and numbers runner , had just purchased the Pittsburgh Crawfords . Greenlee's main interest in baseball

5364-482: The Eastern Colored League as an alternative to Foster's Negro National League, which started with six teams: Atlantic City Bacharach Giants, Baltimore Black Sox , Brooklyn Royal Giants, New York Cuban Stars, Hilldale, and New York Lincoln Giants . The National League was having trouble maintaining continuity among its franchises: three teams folded and had to be replaced after the 1921 season, two others after

5513-665: The Genuine Cuban Giants, the renamed Cuban Giants, the Columbia Giants , the Brooklyn Royal Giants , and so on. The early "Cuban" teams were all composed of African Americans rather than Cubans; the purpose was to increase their acceptance with white patrons, as Cuba was on very friendly terms with the United States during those years. Beginning in 1899 several Cuban baseball teams played in North America, including

5662-523: The Giants' home games for almost a month and threatened to become a huge embarrassment for the league. On March 2, 1920, the Negro Southern League was founded in Atlanta, Georgia. In 1921, the Negro Southern League joined Foster's National Association of Colored Professional Base Ball Clubs . As a dues-paying member of the association, it received the same protection from raiding parties as any team in

5811-634: The Gorhams, Bud Fowler caught on with a team out of Findlay, Ohio . While his team was playing in Adrian, Michigan , Fowler was persuaded by two white local businessmen, L. W. Hoch and Rolla Taylor to help them start a team financed by the Page Woven Wire Fence Company, the Page Fence Giants . The Page Fence Giants went on to become a powerhouse team that had no home field. Barnstorming through

5960-608: The Jamaica Monitor Club, Albany Bachelors , Philadelphia Excelsiors and Chicago Uniques started playing each other and any other team that would play against them. By the end of the 1860s, the black baseball mecca was Philadelphia , which had an African-American population of 22,000. Two former cricket players, James H. Francis and Francis Wood, formed the Pythian Base Ball Club . They played in Camden, New Jersey , at

6109-563: The Leland Giants' name. Leland took the players and started a new team named the Chicago Giants, while Foster took the Leland Giants and started to encroach on Nat Strong's territory. As early as 1910, Foster started talking about reviving the concept of an all-black league. The one thing he was insistent upon was that black teams should be owned by black men. This put him in direct competition with Strong. After 1910, Foster renamed his team

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6258-479: The Leland Giants, he demanded that he be put in charge of not only the on-field activities but the bookings as well. Foster immediately turned the Giants into the team to beat. He indoctrinated them to take the extra base, to play hit and run on nearly every pitch, and to rattle the opposing pitcher by taking them deep into the count. He studied the mechanics of his pitchers and could spot the smallest flaw, turning his average pitchers into learned craftsmen. Foster also

6407-578: The Midwest, they would play all comers. Their success became the prototype for black baseball for years to come. After the 1898 season, the Page Fence Giants were forced to fold because of finances. Alvin H. Garrett , a black businessman in Chicago, and John W. Patterson , the left fielder for the Page Fence Giants, reformed the team under the name the Columbia Giants . In 1901, the Giants folded because of

6556-502: The National League's Phillies had been trying to escape their dilapidated home, Baker Bowl , and move to Shibe Park as tenants of the A's. However, it took them until mid-season 1938 to get out of their lease and move the five blocks west on Lehigh to Shibe Park. The Phillies' arrangement with Connie Mack was simple: they would pay rent of ten cents a head for every fan that came through the gates, and would hire and pay their own stadium staff on game days. While moving to Shibe likely saved

6705-578: The Negro National League. Foster then admitted John Connors' Atlantic City Bacharach Giants as an associate member to move further into Nat Strong 's territory. Connors, wanting to return the favor of helping him against Strong, raided Ed Bolden 's Hilldale Daisies team. Bolden saw little choice but to team up with Foster's nemesis, Nat Strong. Within days of calling a truce with Strong, Bolden made an about-face and signed up as an associate member of Foster's Negro National League. On December 16, 1922, Bolden once again shifted sides and, with Strong, formed

6854-468: The Negro leagues. These moves came despite strong opposition from the owners; Rickey was the only one of the 16 owners to support integrating the sport in January 1947. Chandler's decision to overrule them may have been a factor in his ouster in 1951 in favor of Ford C. Frick . Some proposals were floated to bring the Negro leagues into "organized baseball" as developmental leagues for black players, but that

7003-497: The Newark Giants of the International League, which had Fleet Walker and George Stovey on its roster. After Anson marched his team onto the field in military style as was his custom, he declared that his team would not play unless Walker and Stovey were barred from the field. Newark capitulated, and later that same day, league owners voted to refuse future contracts to blacks, citing the "hazards" imposed by such athletes. In 1888,

7152-573: The Opening Day ceremonies for the 1957 season. Commissioner Ford Frick , AL president Will Harridge and Leo Durocher all attended, as did many former A's players; the ceremony was emceed by sportscaster Bill Campbell . Shortly after, the Philadelphia City Council removed Reyburn's name from the park and replaced it with Mack's. The statue was later moved to Veterans Stadium in 1971, and ultimately to Citizens Bank Park in 2004 . For

7301-418: The Phillies from extinction, having two teams play in the park complicated scheduling enormously. The extra income from the Phillies was offset by the crowded baseball schedule tying up the park for nearly all of the summer, so it affected the A's bottom line very little. The Phillies' first game at Shibe Park was a split doubleheader against Boston on July 4, and they finished the season last, 24½ games behind

7450-601: The Phillies' Philadelphia Ball Park built in 1887 and rebuilt in 1894 with non-union labor, the Athletics employed exclusively union labor in Columbia Park's 1901 construction. This drew the praise of Philadelphia's union leaders who declared in April 1901, "[we] welcome [the Athletics] amongst us as brother unionists, and promise them our support and assistance, and bespeak for them the hearty goodwill, favor and patronage of all self-respecting citizens of Philadelphia. The stadium

7599-424: The accepted term for black people. By about 1970, the term "Negro" had fallen into disfavor, but by then the Negro leagues were mere historic artifacts. Because black people were not being accepted into the major and minor baseball leagues due to racism which established the color line , they formed their own teams and had made professional teams by the 1880s. The first known baseball game between two black teams

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7748-453: The ballpark at a time when cashflow was uncertain, and they leased park concessions to an outside food service corporation. The brothers had simultaneously acquired huge debt and lost their best income sources. They managed to buy out Junior, the second Mrs. Mack and the remaining Shibes late in 1950. However, they then made one of the worst of several bad business decisions by mortgaging the team and pledging Shibe Park as collateral, saddling

7897-532: The block. "It seemed as if all of Philadelphia was there", wrote the Public Ledger . Mayor John E. Reyburn called the new facility a "pride to the city" and threw out the first ball. The A's beat the Boston Red Sox that day, 8–1. The Athletics and their new stadium were a hit: the A's won pennants – and brought World Series to town – in 1910 and 1911, and by 1913, when they would win another, Shibe initiated

8046-402: The city would be closing the facility. Without the hospital, the area's stigma would eventually dissipate, but at the time, the land was still a bargain. Shibe quietly assembled title to his square block of land early in 1907, picking up parcels "through a complicated series of acquisitions, preventing price inflation by masking his intentions," even using straw buyers to keep his name out of

8195-548: The city's first skyscraper , the Witherspoon Building at Walnut and Juniper Streets. The Steele 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

8344-405: The city, carried the day: the A's won the case and the light towers went up in time for the 1939 season. The first night game in the AL was at Shibe Park on May 16, 1939: the Indians beat the A's, 8–3. In 1941, Mack installed a new, larger scoreboard in deep right-center field, replacing the small board that had been in the same general area, and about the same time an imposing sign went up on

8493-484: The color line. His list was eventually narrowed down to three: Roy Campanella , Don Newcombe and Jackie Robinson . On August 28, 1945, Jackie Robinson met with Rickey in Brooklyn, where Rickey gave Robinson a "test" by berating him and shouting racial epithets that Robinson would hear from day one in the white game. Having passed the test, Robinson signed the contract which stipulated that from then on, Robinson had no "written or moral obligations" to any other club. By

8642-412: The concessionaires. Very little of Johnson's own cash would be involved: the deal depended on real estate and the eagerness of Kansas City town fathers to take on debt for a major league franchise. The problem with the deal was Connie Mack Stadium. The plan assumed a $ 1.5 million cash infusion from Bob Carpenter to buy the old ballpark, and he was unenthusiastic. "We need that ballpark as much as we need

8791-428: The creation of the American League . The site was a vacant lot on which manager and part-owner Connie Mack obtained a ten-year lease. It occupied the block bordered by 29th Street, Oxford Street, 30th Street, and Columbia Avenue (later renamed Cecil B. Moore Avenue, in honor of the civil rights leader ). The park was built by contractor James B. Foster, at a cost of $ 35,000, equal to $ 1,281,840 today. In contrast to

8940-408: The crowds at Shibe Park were so small that AL teams could not cover their travel expenses, leading owners to complain that receipts at Shibe Park were too small to justify the trip. Despite this, the A's managed to tally three straight winning seasons from 1947 to 1949. This led to hopes that the A's would give "The Grand Old Man of Baseball" the perfect 50th anniversary present – a pennant. However,

9089-422: The deal fell through. The team maintained special "Phillies Express" buses to shuttle fans from transportation hubs in Camden and 69th Street Transportation Center in Upper Darby Township , but the service never really caught on. Carpenter also investigated land tracts first in West Philadelphia, then in the Torresdale section of the city, as well as nearby suburban Cheltenham and farther-flung Camden, across

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9238-446: The dealings. He spent a total of $ 67,500 ($ 2.29 million in 2023 dollars) on seven land packages totaling 5.75 acres (2.33 ha), and in February 1908, he arranged to have two projected streets running through his block dropped from the city plan. For the design and its execution, Shibe hired William Steele and Sons. Their engineering staff had worked with the new technology of steel-reinforced concrete , and designed and built

9387-475: The diamond instead of facing the outfield. This resulted in the high corners that were a noticeable feature of the ballpark during its final two decades, the corners being just far enough away from the foul lines to accommodate the bullpens. They also added an "annunciator" on the upper deck beyond third base that flashed the at-bat number; ball-strike-out count; hit or error; and score. At the park's beginning, homeowners on both Somerset Street and 20th Street had

9536-513: The end of Negro National League. Just as Negro league baseball seemed to be at its lowest point and was about to fade into history, along came Cumberland Posey and his Homestead Grays. Posey, Charlie Walker, John Roesnik, George Rossiter, John Drew, Lloyd Thompson, and L.R. Williams got together in January 1932 and founded the East–West League . Eight cities were included in the new league: "Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Detroit, Baltimore, Cleveland, Newark, New York, and Washington, D.C.". By May 1932,

9685-401: The entrances. The souvenir program on Opening Day called it "a fetching combination of color." Gabled dormer windows on the upper deck's copper-trimmed green-slate mansard roof looked out over the streets below. Presiding over all were terra cotta busts of Shibe and Mack above the main entrances on Lehigh and 21st. The signature feature of the exterior design was the octangular tower on

9834-399: The family factions squared off to battle for control of the A's, Junior and his mother joined forces with remnants of the Shibe family, who still owned 40% of the stock, while Roy and Earle shelved their years of squabbles to present a united front against what they derisively called "the Shibe faction." To raise cash for the coming struggle, Roy and Earle made poor decisions. They re-mortgaged

9983-508: The first and last games at the stadium: the Athletics beat the Boston Red Sox 8–1 on opening day 1909, while the Phillies beat the Montreal Expos 2–1 on October 1, 1970, in the park's final contest. Shibe Park stood on the block bounded by Lehigh Avenue, 20th Street, Somerset Street and 21st Street. It was five blocks west, corner-to-corner, from the Baker Bowl , the Phillies' home from 1887 to 1938. The stadium hosted eight World Series and two MLB All-Star Games , in 1943 and 1952 , with

10132-500: The first of the expansions of seating capacity that would continue right on through the 1950s. He called again upon the Steele company and added a new unroofed bleacher section across left field, taking advantage of the site's rectangular, rather than square, shape, and also added roof structures to cover the open pavilions down the first base and third base lines. After Ben Shibe's death in 1922, sons Tom and Jack became president and vice president, respectively. and in 1925 they replaced

10281-443: The franchise and sold it for $ 190,000 and a $ 50,000 note to lumber baron William Cox , who paid off Mack and put money down on future rent. The flamboyant Cox poured money into the team in an effort to turn it around, but he also abraded fans, his own players, fellow owners, and Landis. The uproar did not last long; when Cox was found to be betting on Phillies games, Landis banned him for life on Nov. 23, 1943. The same day that Cox

10430-440: The gates hours before game time, turning the outsiders into a "howling mob of thousands" whose pressure forced open one of the gates. Hundreds poured in without paying admission, and an estimated 7,000 standing-room only spectators saw that first game ringing the outfield up to seven-deep, held back by a rope stretched between the left field seats and the right field bleacher. Another 6,000 more looked in from various rooftops around

10579-404: The high right-field fence cost them many home runs. It dogged them when they played the field, too: its rippling corrugations made caroms unpredictable, with some balls dropping straight down, others bounding all the way back to second base and some bouncing radically to one side or another, sometimes into the bullpen. It was "one of the hardest" walls to play in the majors. For several years,

10728-557: The highest career batting average at .372. During the formative years of black baseball, the term " colored " was the established usage when referring to African-Americans. References to black baseball prior to the 1930s are usually to "colored" leagues or teams, such as the Southern League of Colored Base Ballists (1886), the National Colored Base Ball League (1887) and the Eastern Colored League (1923), among others. By

10877-408: The hot dog vendors on the street, bought dogs for a nickel, and brought them back to sell for a dime. With so much money on the line, the business got organized and formalized very quickly. Homeowners were soon squeezed for bribes by city amusement tax collectors, and city police collected commissions for collaring and herding fans from the sidewalk into particular homes. By 1929, the extra income from

11026-610: The idea to duplicate the Major League Baseball All-Star Game , except, unlike the big league method in which the sportswriters chose the players, the fans voted for the participants. The first game, known as the East–West All-Star Game , was held September 10, 1933, at Comiskey Park in Chicago before a crowd of 20,000. With the Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the United States

11175-542: The inclusion of this clause, precedent was set that would raze the Negro leagues as a functional commercial enterprise. To throw off the press and keep his intentions hidden, Rickey got heavily involved in Gus Greenlee 's newest foray into black baseball, the United States League . Greenlee started the league in 1945 as a way to get back at the owners of the Negro National League teams for throwing him out. Rickey saw

11324-433: The income but now suffering from the tough economy like everyone else, sent reps to the lines – such as they were – at the park box office to offer discount seats and poach customers from the ball club. This was the last straw for Jack Shibe. In the winter of 1934–35, he ordered the fence raised to 34 feet (10 m). While the higher fence was Jack Shibe's idea, it became generally known as "Connie Mack's Spite Fence." This

11473-465: The integration of the major leagues in 1947, marked by the appearance of Jackie Robinson with the Brooklyn Dodgers that April, interest in Negro league baseball waned. Black players who were regarded as prospects were signed by major league teams, often without regard for any contracts that might have been signed with Negro league clubs. Negro league owners who complained about this practice were in

11622-421: The land from south to north was reflected in a small "terrace" that ran across left and center field. The upper deck was built of wood mounted on steel girders, while the lower deck was built of concrete and steel. The only link with the Columbia Park was the transplanted sod, rolled out at the new venue. The 1909 seating capacity certainly was an upgrade from Columbia Park: 11,000 in the double deck and 12,000 in

11771-688: The landing of the Federal Street Ferry, because it was difficult to get permits for black baseball games in the city. Octavius Catto , the promoter of the Pythians, decided to apply for membership in the National Association of Base Ball Players , normally a matter of sending delegates to the annual convention; beyond that, a formality. At the end of the 1867 season, "the National Association of Baseball Players voted to exclude any club with

11920-567: The late 1940s, the quality of the Negro leagues slowly deteriorated; the Negro American League 's 1951 season is generally considered the last Negro league season, although the last professional club, the Indianapolis Clowns , operated as a humorous sideshow rather than competitively from the mid-1960s to the 1980s. In December 2020, Major League Baseball announced that based on recent decades of historical research, it classified

12069-467: The latter game holding the distinction of being the only All-Star contest shortened by rain (to five innings). In May 1939, it was the site of the first night game played in the American League. Phillies Hall-of-Fame centerfielder and longtime broadcaster Richie Ashburn remembered Shibe Park: "It looked like a ballpark. It smelled like a ballpark. It had a feeling and a heartbeat, a personality that

12218-692: The league, took a five percent cut of all gate receipts. On May 2, 1920, the Indianapolis ABCs beat Charles "Joe" Green's Chicago Giants (4–2) in the first game played in the inaugural season of the Negro National League, played at Washington Park in Indianapolis. However, because of the Chicago Race Riot of 1919 , the National Guard still occupied the Giants' home field, Schorling's Park (formerly South Side Park). This forced Foster to cancel all

12367-558: The league. The reserve clause would have tied the players to their clubs from season to season but the NCBBL failed. One month into the season, the Resolutes folded. A week later, only three teams were left. Because the original Cuban Giants were a popular and business success, many similarly named teams came into existence—including the Cuban X-Giants , a splinter and a powerhouse around 1900;

12516-501: The leagues and it may be used narrowly for the seven relatively successful leagues beginning in 1920 that are sometimes termed "Negro Major Leagues". In the late 19th century, the baseball color line developed, excluding African Americans from play in Major League Baseball and its affiliated minor leagues (collectively known as organized baseball ). The first professional baseball league consisting of all-black teams,

12665-614: The left and right bleachers prior to the 1906 season. The bleachers had previously run straight from the grandstand along 30th Street to Columbia Avenue. They were angled in such way that spectators at the Columbia Avenue end were unable to see the infield over fans in front of them. The club rebuilt the bleachers in a semi-circle, the seats reaching to the left field foul line and facing the infield and home plate, using heavy Florida yellow pine timber. The Philadelphia Phillies temporarily called Columbia Park home in 1903 while Baker Bowl

12814-431: The left field fence with the message: "Warning: Persons throwing bottles or other missiles will be arrested and prosecuted." A few years later, he would add a tunnel between the visitors' clubhouse and their dugout to avoid confrontations with belligerent hometown fans. After the war, the Macks wanted to expand the seating capacity again, in a park that was running out of room to expand into. In 1949, they proposed erecting

12963-418: The light, noise and traffic that night games would bring to the neighborhood, and objected specifically to the danger of home run balls hitting them as they sat on their porches and to the ability of fans in the upper decks to peer into their bedrooms at night. The matter went to court, and Mack hired a young Philadelphia lawyer to plead his case. The presentation of young Richardson Dilworth , future mayor of

13112-601: The migration of blacks from the South to the North. This meant a larger and more affluent fan base with more money to spend. By the end of the war in 1919, Foster was again ready to start a Negro baseball league. On February 13 and 14, 1920, talks were held in Kansas City, Missouri , that established the Negro National League and its governing body the National Association of Colored Professional Base Ball Clubs . The league

13261-627: The moribund Philadelphia Phillies and stock them with Negro league stars. However, when Landis got wind of his plans, he and National League president Ford Frick scuttled it in favor of another bid by William D. Cox . After Landis's death in 1944, Happy Chandler was named his successor. Chandler was open to integrating the game, even at the risk of losing his job as Commissioner. He later said in his biography that he could not, in good conscience, tell black players they could not play baseball with whites when they had fought for their country [although they had fought in segregated units]. In March 1945,

13410-415: The most beautiful and capacious baseball structure in the world." American League president Ban Johnson pronounced that "Shibe Park is the greatest place of its character in the world." In more recent times, baseball author David M. Jordan wrote that it was "a splendid forerunner of others like it ... Ben Shibe and the Steeles initiated 'the golden age of ballparks'." The original 1909 configuration

13559-716: The new league was the same as the old league Negro National League which had disbanded a year earlier in 1932. The members of the new league were the Pittsburgh Crawfords, the Columbus Blue Birds , the Indianapolis ABCs, the Baltimore Black Sox, the Brooklyn Royal Giants, Cole's American Giants (formerly the Chicago American Giants ), and the Nashville Elite Giants. Greenlee also came up with

13708-487: The old backstop screen, an experiment also conducted at Cincinnati's Crosley Field around that same time. After the death of Mr. Mack in February 1956, a Mack Memorial Committee raised funds and commissioned sculptor Harry Rosin to create a statue of "Mr. Baseball". On April 16, 1957, it was unveiled across Lehigh Avenue in Reyburn Park – named after the mayor who threw out the first ball at Shibe back in 1909 – as part of

13857-482: The only Negro league then left, the Negro Southern League. Only strong independent clubs were able to survive the hard economic turn that affected the country, such as the Kansas City Monarchs . During this time, strong clubs would build teams that had potential to beat the teams in the major leagues with new players and tactics that many have never seen before. On March 26, 1932, the Chicago Defender announced

14006-570: The only black team in the East still in operation on a full-time basis. Also in 1888, Frank Leland got some of Chicago's black businessmen to sponsor the black amateur Union Base Ball Club . Through Chicago's city government, Leland obtained a permit and lease to play at the South Side Park , a 5,000-seat facility. Eventually, his team went pro and became the Chicago Unions . After his stint with

14155-550: The opportunity as a way to convince people that he was interested in cleaning up blackball, not integrating it. In midsummer 1945, Rickey, almost ready with his Robinson plan, pulled out of the league. The league folded after the end of the 1946 season. Pressured by civil rights groups, the Fair Employment Practices Act was passed by the New York State Legislature in 1945. This followed the passing of

14304-401: The owner of the league's Portland (Oregon) Rosebuds franchise. The WCBA disbanded after only two months. Judge Kenesaw M. Landis , the first Commissioner of Major League Baseball , was an intractable opponent of integrating the white majors. During his quarter-century tenure, he blocked all attempts at integrating the game. A popular story has it that in 1943 , Bill Veeck planned to buy

14453-560: The park for $ 1.7 million in December, and formed the 21st and Lehigh Realty Company to run it. Nominally, the Phillies were Carpenter's tenants, paying him rent just as they had paid rent to the A's previously. In practice, however, Carpenter was transferring money from one pocket to the other. In early 1955, two trucks backed up to the stadium and packed the artifacts from the Elephant Room for removal to Kansas City. Carpenter encouraged Mr. Mack to continue using his opulent tower office in

14602-455: The park for the first time on April 5, 1901, with 600 fans in attendance. The first game at the ballpark was on April 8, 1901; the A's defeated Frank Moss' Professionals 8–1 in front of 1,000 fans on a cold and bleak day. Bill Bernhard started for the Athletics and his first pitch to Arlie Latham was a strike. The first official game in Columbia Park was held on April 26, 1901 , after the first two games were rained out. The Athletics played

14751-528: The park to the city for the nominal price of 50 cents, but Mayor James Tate balked at using city money to pay for major renovations. Eventually the city would build Veterans Stadium in South Philadelphia and the Phillies would leave Connie Mack Stadium. The final game at Connie Mack Stadium was played on October 1, 1970, with the Phillies defeating the Montreal Expos 2–1 in 10 innings. The occasion

14900-403: The parking problem became the very crux of the issue in the 1950s and 1960s: whereas most people had formerly come to the park on public transportation, after the war, the automobile became the standard mode of transport. There was a 500-car lot, later expanded to 850 cars, across 21st Street, but it was not nearly enough. Carpenter tried to buy the whole block in 1959 for a multi-level garage, but

15049-497: The pitcher-catcher battery was made up of the two most marketable icons in all of black baseball: Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson . In 1933, Greenlee, riding the popularity of his Crawfords, became the next man to start a Negro league. In February 1933, Greenlee and delegates from six other teams met at Greenlee's Crawford Grill to ratify the constitution of the National Organization of Professional Baseball Clubs . The name of

15198-538: The property to another New York consortium who, assuming the Phillies would be gone by 1967, began planning the demolition of the stadium and construction of a bowling alley and discount store on the site. Then in May 1964, Jerry Wolman , who had just bought the Philadelphia Eagles in February, brought the stadium ownership back to town, paying $ 757,000 for it as part of a larger real estate deal. Wolman's motivations for

15347-423: The purchase are in dispute – all the mortgage shuffling did not slow the decay out at the park – but he claimed he wanted to help the Phillies; the move also put him at the very center of the emerging fight over a new stadium in Philadelphia, which would likely affect his Eagles. Wolman, the city, and even Carpenter were all exploring plans to solve the town's stadium problem. The plan that came closest to fruition

15496-472: The river in New Jersey. But there were prohibitive problems with every one of those proposed sites. Carpenter finally gave up and in 1961 sold the stadium for $ 600,000 to a group of New York real estate investors, losing over a million dollars after his 7-year ownership; he secured a 3-year lease and an option to stay through 1967 while he pursued his Torresdale stadium plan. The New York buyers quickly flipped

15645-466: The rooftop bleachers actually caused real estate values to climb on the 2700 block of North 20th Street. As long as the A's were winning games and filling the park, the 20th Street entrepreneurs were annoying, but little more, to Mack and the Shibes, but that changed in the early 1930s. Starting in 1932, Mack's sell-off of his Second Dynasty stars, combined with general Great Depression hard times, sent attendance plummeting. 20th Streeters, accustomed to

15794-467: The rough bricks along the right field wall, and eventually the 331 sign was changed to read 329, although that change had no impact on the actual home run distance. In 1956, Bob Carpenter replaced the old 1941 scoreboard in right-center field with a new, much larger board, constructed for Connie Mack Stadium. A prominent feature of the new board was the Ballantine Beer advertisement across the top and

15943-541: The same time, Nat Strong , a white businessman, started using his ownership of baseball fields in the New York City area to become the leading promoter of blackball on the East coast. Just about any game played in New York, Strong would get a cut. Strong eventually used his leverage to almost put the Brooklyn Royal Giants out of business, and then he bought the club and turned it into a barnstorming team. When Foster joined

16092-483: The season but never played a game, the Cincinnati Browns and Washington Capital Citys . The league, led by Walter S. Brown of Pittsburgh , applied for and was granted official minor league status and thus "protection" under the major league-led National Agreement . This move prevented any team in organized baseball from signing any of the NCBBL players, which also locked the players to their particular teams within

16241-508: The seats inside the park. Pathé News , Universal Newsreel Fox Movietone News even set up cameras at 2739 North 20th as part of their World Series coverage. The numbers involved in this cottage industry were considerable. A rooftop bleacher could hold up to 80 people, with 18 more in the bay window of the front bedroom and more even on the porch roof. Viewers on the block could number up to several thousand for important games. Housewives served up refreshments for sale and children scurried to

16390-466: The seven "major Negro leagues" as additional major leagues, adding them to the six historical "major league" designations it made in 1969, thus recognizing statistics and approximately 3,400 players who played from 1920 to 1948. On May 28, 2024, Major League Baseball announced that it had integrated Negro league statistics into its records, which among other changes gives Josh Gibson the highest single-season major league batting average at .466 (1943) and

16539-447: The seventh place Brooklyn Dodgers and 43 games back overall. 21st and Lehigh was one of the gloomiest addresses in baseball in the late 1930s and early 1940s. At the time, both Philadelphia teams were in long stretches of futility. The Phillies had notched one winning season since 1918, while the A's had not had a winning season since 1933. Both teams finished last in their leagues in 1938, 1940, 1941, 1942 and 1945. Making things worse

16688-401: The southwest corner. The upper floors would accommodate the A's offices, those of Shibe's sons Jack and Tom, who ran the day-to-day business aspects of the team, and the domed cupola on the very top were to house Mack's office. On the ground floor was a main entrance lobby. Bobby Shantz , pitcher for the A's in their last years at Shibe, wrote that the corner tower entrance "looked almost like

16837-399: The spite fence, the night games and the 20th Street overhang sparked ill will between the team and its fan base. The Phillies began to outdraw the A's, who were in a vicious circle of bad teams and empty seats. There was also a precipitous decline in the boss himself. 1950 marked Mack's 50th year in Philadelphia and his 87th birthday, and for the better part of a decade it had been obvious he

16986-464: The square corner in center field and most of the remaining "terrace", reducing the distance to a still-formidable 447 feet (136 m). Distance markers also appeared on the walls for the first time. In addition to the foul poles (334 and 331) and the center field area (447), a 400 marker was posted just to the center field side of the scoreboard, and a 405 marker in the corresponding area of deep left center field. A few years later, wooden fencing covered

17135-467: The stadium that now bore his name, which he did almost daily until his death some 13 months later. When the stadium opened for the 1955 season, Carpenter's first, advertising billboards first appeared on the walls and roofs of the outfield: Foremost dairy, Goldenberg's Peanut Chews , Philco , Cadillac , Alpo , Coca-Cola and Martz Tours signs became familiar sights to stadiumgoers and to fans watching on television. A new straight-across fence covered

17284-447: The team by buying out Tom Shibe's share from his widow. The move made the Mack family the controlling partner in 1937, though various Shibe family members still had "considerable holdings" in the team. More renovation – and a round of controversy – came after the 1938 season when Mack sought to install light towers for night play, which local residents were against. They objected in general to

17433-535: The team had two official nicknames simultaneously, the Phillies and the Blue Jays. The new Blue Jays moniker was ultimately unpopular; it was officially dropped by the team in January 1950. However, an expansion team in Toronto picked it up for its inaugural 1977 season and would coincidentally go on to play the Phillies in the 1993 World Series . The Blue Jays recorded the city's first million-fan season in 1946, and

17582-422: The team's image and way of doing business. They wanted to shed the image of failure by changing the team's nickname. Before the 1944 season, the team held a fan contest soliciting a new team nickname. Management chose "Blue Jays," the fan submission of Elizabeth Crooks, who received a $ 100 war bond as compensation. Phillies management said that the Blue Jays name was as an official "additional nickname," meaning that

17731-566: The team. Players would jump from franchise to franchise, looking for the highest pay, causing imbalance within the leagues. 1925 saw the St. Louis Stars come of age in the Negro National League. They finished in second place during the second half of the year due in large part to their pitcher turned center fielder, Cool Papa Bell , and their shortstop, Willie Wells . A gas leak in his home nearly asphyxiated Rube Foster in 1926, and his increasingly erratic behavior led to him being committed to an asylum

17880-478: The top of the right field fence, topping out at 75 feet (23 m) including the clock. The entire board was in play except for the clock that topped the board: Balls that hit the clock were home runs. Dick Allen was the only player to ever hit a home run over the Ballantine Beer sign and scoreboard. The scoreboard was used through the final year at the ballpark. Also in 1956, a new Plexiglas barrier replaced

18029-443: The turnout needed to stay out of the red, but the turnstile count remained flat while the published number grew each day and the committee collapsed in the stretch run. Even Mayor Joe Clark hurt the effort: he admitted he was a Phillies fan. The A's finished 1954 last in the majors, sixty games out of first; their final game at Shibe drew only 1,715 fans. In early August, Chicago businessman Arnold Johnson stepped forward with

18178-403: The two pavilions, for a total of 23,000. Overflow crowds were accommodated by roping off the left field area in front of the wall. Some 500 tons of steel went into the construction. On Monday, April 12, 1909, the Opening Day proceedings walked a fine line between festival and chaos. More than 30,000 fans showed up and got in; another 15,000 showed up and were turned away. Nervous officials closed

18327-473: The ultimate spite fence : a new double-deck seating section in right field that would boost the park's capacity to 50,000. The problem was that the home plate-to-right field axis was the shorter dimension of the Shibe block rectangle, and since the new stand could not intrude into the play area, its fascia would have to be in the plane of the existing right field fence while its hindquarters would have to protrude out back, dangling some 15 feet (4.6 m) above

18476-405: The upper deck out over the pavilions. These expansions resulted in another 10,000 seats. In 1928, the brothers installed a mezzanine that added 750 pricey box seats and the following year they raised the original grandstand roof and installed a press box underneath it, along with 3,500 more seats. For the 1923 season, Connie Mack had moved the infield back an estimated 21 feet (6.4 m). This

18625-481: The way for the Cubans was a young pitcher by the name of Andrew "Rube" Foster . The following season, Schlichter, in the finest blackball tradition, hired Foster away from the Cubans and beat them in their 1904 rematch. Philadelphia remained on top of the blackball world until Foster left the team in 1907 to play and manage the Leland Giants (Frank Leland renamed his Chicago Union Giants the Leland Giants in 1905). Around

18774-428: The west sidewalk of North 20th Street and forming a covered arcade walkway. The $ 2.5-million proposal galvanized the 20th Street neighbors against the A's again, and this time the legal team could not overcome the zoning issues. The Macks did spend $ 300,000 on renovations in 1949 and managed to shoehorn 2,500 more box seats in; the old lower deck pavilion seating was reconstructed to turn the more distant seats toward

18923-490: The white majors created the Major League Committee on Baseball Integration . Its members included Joseph P. Rainey , Larry MacPhail and Branch Rickey . Because MacPhail, who was an outspoken critic of integration, kept stalling, the committee never met. Under the guise of starting an all-black league, Rickey sent scouts all around the United States, Mexico and Puerto Rico , looking for the perfect candidate to break

19072-564: The white majors were barely recognizable, while the Negro leagues reached their highest plateau. Millions of black Americans were working in war industries and, making good money, they packed league games in every city. Business was so good that promoter Abe Saperstein (famous for the Harlem Globetrotters ) started a new circuit, the Negro Midwest League , a minor league similar to the Negro Southern League. The Negro World Series

19221-465: Was a choice of speed over power, as moving the plate back increased left field and right field dimensions by 15 feet (4.6 m) each. Home runs dropped about 50% for the next three seasons. The Shibe brothers moved it back to its original position, resulting in field dimensions of 331 feet (101 m) to right field, 334 to left, and 468 to the square corner in center. In 1936, A's President Tom Shibe died, and Connie Mack succeeded in gaining control of

19370-439: Was a complicated 1964 package that called for a new stadium with parking for 7,000 cars to be built "on stilts" over the vast railroad yards near 30th Street Station . This plan had considerable backing from city politicians and businessmen, but it too eventually unraveled when federal urban renewal funds did not come through and extended wrangling between Wolman and everyone else involved brought it down. Wolman then tried to sell

19519-413: Was a double-deck grandstand in the southwest corner of the block, with open pavilion seating extending to the foul poles. The outfield was a large rectangle, surrounded by a 12-foot (3.7 m) brick wall that bordered the streets. The deepest part of center field was a square corner 515 feet (157 m) from home plate. It was 378 to the left field foul marker, and 340 to right field. The slight upslope of

19668-405: Was able to turn around the business end of the team as well, by demanding and getting 40 percent of the gate instead of the 10 percent that Frank Leland was getting. By the end of the 1909, Foster demanded that Leland step back from all baseball operations or he (Foster) would leave. When Leland would not give up complete control, Foster quit, and in a heated court battle, got to keep the rights to

19817-474: Was all baseball." In the early years of the 20th century, the Philadelphia Athletics were so popular that team president Ben Shibe found his team regularly turning away customers from their cramped Columbia Park ballpark even though it was just a few years old. When as many as 28,000 showed up to fill the 9,500 wooden bleacher seats, Shibe and manager/part-owner Connie Mack decided the A's needed

19966-587: Was banned from baseball by Landis — Nov. 23, 1943 — Bob Carpenter Sr. , scion of the Delaware-based duPont family , bought the team with his son for an estimated $ 400,000. Carpenter Sr. gave the club presidency to his son, Bob, Jr. – a 28-year-old Delawarean whose mother was a DuPont and who was himself part-owner with Connie Mack of the Wilmington Blue Rocks minor league team. The genial young millionaire admitted at his first press conference that he

20115-508: Was because Mack had been operating head of the franchise since Ben Shibe's death. The fence not only limited the view from the street, but the unattractive corrugated metal structure curtailed much of the goodwill the team had had with its neighbors, goodwill that would never return. It also frustrated many Philadelphia players, both offensively and defensively. Among them, A's and Phillies outfielder Elmer Valo and Phillies right fielder Johnny Callison , both lefthanded batters, complained that

20264-778: Was founded in 1885 when three clubs, the Keystone Athletics of Philadelphia, the Orions of Philadelphia, and the Manhattans of Washington, D.C., merged to form the Cuban Giants . The success of the Cubans led to the creation of the first recognized "Negro league" in 1887—the National Colored Base Ball League . It was organized strictly as a minor league and founded with six teams: Baltimore Lord Baltimores , Boston Resolutes , Louisville Fall City , New York Gorhams , Philadelphia Pythians , and Pittsburgh Keystones . Two more joined before

20413-416: Was going senile. He would spend most games asleep in the dugout, leaving game strategy in the hands of his coaches. When he was awake, he often made strange calls that the players and coaches usually disregarded. He would also call for players from decades earlier to pinch-hit; in the 1940s it was not uncommon for him to yell " Baker !" or " Foxx !" – sluggers he had sold off decades before. Most ominously,

20562-600: Was held on November 15, 1859, in New York City. The Henson Base Ball Club of Jamaica, Queens , defeated the Unknowns of Weeksville, Brooklyn , 54 to 43. Immediately after the end of the American Civil War in 1865 and during the Reconstruction period that followed, a black baseball scene formed in the East and Mid-Atlantic states. Comprising mainly ex-soldiers and promoted by some well-known black officers, teams such as

20711-453: Was initially composed of eight teams: Chicago American Giants, Chicago Giants , Cuban Stars, Dayton Marcos , Detroit Stars , Indianapolis ABCs , Kansas City Monarchs, and St. Louis Giants . Foster was named league president and controlled every aspect of the league, including which players played on which teams, when and where teams played, and what equipment was used (all of which had to be purchased from Foster). Foster, as booking agent of

20860-470: Was marred by souvenir hunters literally dismantling the stadium even while the game was still in progress. A special post-game ceremony – including a helicopter removal of home plate and delivery of it at The Vet – was cancelled in the mayhem. Negro league baseball The Negro leagues were United States professional baseball leagues comprising teams of African Americans . The term may be used broadly to include professional black teams outside

21009-526: Was planned for the area, few actually existed. The area was already served by public transportation: trolleys ran up and down Broad Street and back and forth along Lehigh, and both the Pennsylvania and Reading railroads had major stations nearby. The area had "underachieved" thus far due to the presence of the city's Hospital for Contagious Diseases (the "smallpox hospital") a block west on Lehigh, but Shibe's privileged connections in town brought him word that

21158-514: Was repaired after a balcony collapse on August 8, 1903. The Phillies played sixteen games at Columbia Park in August and September 1903. The stadium also briefly served as the home of the Philadelphia Athletics football club , before the team folded in 1902. The Athletics leased the ballpark to the independent Negro league club the Philadelphia Giants . The Giants played at the ballpark while

21307-525: Was revived in 1942, this time pitting the winners of the eastern Negro National League and midwestern Negro American League . It continued through 1948 with the NNL winning four championships and the NAL three. In 1946, Saperstein partnered with Jesse Owens to form another Negro league, the West Coast Baseball Association (WCBA); Saperstein was league president and Owens was vice-president and

21456-506: Was short on experience, adding, "But I'm not worried. I think we can all have a good time." Carpenter slowly pulled the team out of its "dime store" way of doing business and invested heavily in the farm system, and hired marketing consultants. He upgraded his staff with professional administrators who modernized operations, while spending time in Mr. Mack's plush tower office listening to The Grand Old Man of Baseball. The Carpenters tried to polish

21605-469: Was small and originally had a seating capacity of only 9,500. This was increased to 13,600 by the addition of bleacher seating in the outfield. During some sold out games, unofficial additional seating could be found on top of the adjoining homes. There was only one dressing room, for the home team; visiting teams had to change at their hotels. Although the ballpark was in Philadelphia's Brewerytown section, beer sales were prohibited. The A's practiced at

21754-492: Was that Phillies owner Gerald Nugent was mired in debt to both Mack and the National League , and other NL owners were grumbling about the dismal receipts their Philly trips earned them. In 1943 Nugent agreed in principle to sell the Phillies to Bill Veeck , only to have that sale derailed by Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis 's objections to Veeck's plans to stock the Phillies with Negro league stars. The league took over

21903-633: Was thrust into World War II. Remembering World War I, black America vowed it would not be shut out of the beneficial effects of a major war effort: economic boom and social unification. Just like the major leagues, the Negro leagues saw many stars miss one or more seasons while fighting overseas. While many players were over 30 and considered "too old" for service, Monte Irvin , Larry Doby and Leon Day of Newark ; Ford Smith , Hank Thompson , Joe Greene , Willard Brown and Buck O'Neil of Kansas City ; Lyman Bostock of Birmingham ; and Lick Carlisle and Howard Easterling of Homestead all served. But

22052-469: Was to use it as a way to launder money from his numbers games. But, after learning about Posey's money-making machine in Homestead , he became obsessed with the sport and his Crawfords. On August 6, 1931, Satchel Paige made his first appearance as a Crawford. With Paige on his team, Greenlee took a huge risk by investing $ 100,000 in a new ballpark to be called Greenlee Field . On opening day, April 30, 1932,

22201-858: Was transplanted to Shibe Park after the 1908 season. After the Athletics left, the park was almost entirely abandoned. Columbia Park was eventually demolished in the 1910s to make way for new homes. 39°58′52″N 75°10′58″W  /  39.98111°N 75.18278°W  / 39.98111; -75.18278 Shibe Park (1925) Left Field – 334 ft Center Field Corner – 468 ft Right Field – 331 ft (1950) Left Field – 334 ft Deep Left Center – 420 ft Center Field – 447 ft Deep Right Center – 405 ft Right Field – 329 ft (1968) Left Field – 334 ft Deep Left Center – 387 ft Center Field – 410 ft Deep Right Center – 390 ft Right Field – 329 ft [REDACTED] Shibe Park , (pronounced "shy," ending with

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