Crosley Field / Redland Field

[Lpeters199]

That was bulldozed under about 10-12 years ago.

Check on the Where's Crosley Now site. I read somewhere that the owner was gone for a while, and when he came back everything was gone.

[Reds41]

Check on the Where's Crosley Now site. I read somewhere that the owner was gone for a while, and when he came back everything was gone.

I know members of the family. Yes, he left the property and when he returned, it was bulldozed. Along with dozens and dozens of Crosley Field original seats.

[Pelt]

Cool little site at http://www.cincysportshistory.com had this little tidbit:

In 1900 the ballpark caught on fire, burning the recently built grand stands and part of the pavilion.The Reds considered moving to East End Park (located on the East side) where the Cincinnati Kelly's played in 1891. But decided to shift the diamond BACK to the way it was before 1894 and reuse the original grandstands..And build temporary grand stands. Interestedly enough, the OLD grandstands and bleachers were not harmed in the fire.

After a season in a half of playing in the charred ballpark, the Reds rebuilt permant new grand stands. The look of the new grand stands were far better then the previous ones built for League Park II. It's columns and pillars were inspired by classical architecture. And created a very lovely atmosphere. With the complettion of the new grandstand, the field was repositioned back to the way it was from 1894 - 1900.

The new grandstands were called the Palace of the Fans. And for some strange reason, baseball historians consider 1902 the end of League Park. And the beginning of a new park called Palace of the Fans. But during that time, Cincinnatians still refered to the gorunds as League Park. Similar to the way that some still refer to Cinergy Field as Riverfront Stadium. If anything, Palace of the Fans should have been called League Park III.

And here is that East End Park:





I wish there was a better shot of the outside of the main grandstands, as it looks somewhat architecturally detailed.

EDIT: I'm having a hard time finding any pics of Cincy League Park, a.k.a Legion Field, which was the precursor to the PoF, which was all on the same spot as Crosley.

[Pelt]

Speaking of the Palace of the Fans, cool pics at digitalballparks.com:







Cool model of it:

[Pelt]

Okay, I found this one pic of Cincy's League Park at http://www.thedeadballera.com



Although it doesn't say anything about the pic really. Still the first time I've seen it.

[Pelt]

Cool old 1914 map of Cincinnati. I put the red arrow at the spot where I think they are representing Redland/Crosley. The res was too bad to see the street names, but I'm pretty sure that's Western and Findlay.

[Pelt]

I know this isn't Crosley, but I thought that because the Reds almost called this home, this was cool to Cincy baseball history.

Cool tidbit of info at this site http://www.projectballpark.org/histo...pendleton.html and here is an extract from it:

"The Louisville Colonels and Kelly's Killers were arrested here on April 26, 1891. The Philadelphia Athletics and Kelly's Killers were arrested here on May 24, 1891. The Washington Statesmen and Kelly's Killers were arrested here on June 7, 1891. All for playing ball on Sunday. Wow. You think Kelly's Killers would have learned by June 7 or started playing at another "secret" field outside of Cincinnati."

More from wiki, which also had photos.





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

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

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

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

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

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

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

EDIT: That 1891 St Louis Browns team, is todays St Louis Cardinals.

[Pelt]

Cool pics of Crosley being sodded.

[Pelt]

The Beatles making their way to the stage at Crosley, 1966. Love the colors of the old ballpark.



I believe that after this show, the Beatles played another concert in St Louis later on in the day.

[Pelt]

Crosley is at the top. Not sure of the year that this pic was taken, but it's before the upper deck expansion and I can't really see any light towers.

[Gary Dunaier]

The Beatles making their way to the stage at Crosley, 1966. Love the colors of the old ballpark.

[ATTACH]48638[/ATTACH]

The people in the upper deck must have loved their view of the show.

[Pelt]

The people in the upper deck must have loved their view of the show.

Yeah, there is no way that they saw Ringo - just the top of the tent.

Here is another cool shot of the backstop. Interesting use of a straight angle in front of the curved grandstand.

[stlfan]

I came across this cool site of a Crosley model. The page is labeled as Mike Weaver's Scale Model of Crosley Field. Here is one shot of the model from the site.

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.crosley-field.com/images/weaver/pic005.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.crosley-field.com/crosleymodel.html&start=104&h=306&w=595&sz=34&tbnid=4vdVSGx3lQtPwM:&tbnh=69&tbnw=135&hl=en&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dcrosley%2Bfield%26start%3D100%26gbv%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN

[Pelt]

Here are a couple good finds of Cincy's League Park. This was the predecessor to the Palace of the Fans. Home plate was in the area of where the right field corner of Crosley field was - At the corner of Findlay and Western.



1884

[soup]

love this park. I wish I would have been around to see it