The History of The Ballpark

Welcome to BallparkBand, a podcast dedicated to exploring the 30 ball parks of Major League Baseball. We're a pair of ballpark gurus who've been to every MLB stadium and now want to take you through what it's like to catch a game at each. On this show, each ballpark gets its own episode where we'll explore its history and then dive deep into the facts, figures, and fun anecdotes that make it unique. Follow us on social @BallparkBand for regular doses of ballpark trivia and visit ballparkbandarpodcast.com for more information. Welcome to BallparkBand, a podcast where we explore the 30 ball parks of Major League Baseball. My name is Travis Parker-Smith and with me, as he will be on every episode, is Kalen Larson. As you heard in the introduction, Kalen and I are ballpark gurus who love the uniqueness of each MLB stadium. Once upon a time, we set out in an old hippie bus to see them all in one summer, joined by a few of our best friends shout out to Kendall, Jack, and Ruben. And produce a podcast that was called BallparkBoys, which took you through what it was like to see a game in each stadium. Now we're bringing the show back and making it better, with more in-depth research, better production, and the opportunity to welcome more voices to speak about today's ball parks. Kalen, it is good to be back. It's great to be back, Travis. Yes, we are hoping that the rejuvenation here of our old series will unearth more reasons for baseball fans to get excited about visiting their park and other parks, learning more about the ball parks on their own. And while all the future episodes after this one will be dedicated to a single ballpark exploring the history, the facts and the different fun anecdotes that make each ballpark unique. This episode today is just taking a step back and talking about all ball parks. But that's not just all ball parks of today, instead all ball parks throughout the centuries, and I literally mean centuries of Major League Baseball. As you just alluded, there's a ton of history embedded in the stadiums that hold America's past time. And so for this first episode, we feel it important to set the stage for talking about the parks of today by talking about the history of the ballpark in general. So you, the listener, can better understand how each stadium fits into the greater picture of ballpark history. How did we go from playing in Cal Pastures all the way to modernist structures like loan depot park and globe life field. We've researched over a hundred parks throughout the years and have developed what I think is a fairly cohesive narrative that takes you from the good old union grounds to whatever the hell is probably about to be built in Las Vegas when the Oakland is inevitably moved there. And I'm on the edge of my seat for that one. Be sure to tune in to all future episodes as we dive deep into each ballpark of today's great game. So let's begin. How did we get to the parks that we know of today? How did we get to the 30 stadiums that we will unpack throughout this ballpark series? Well, you kind of have to start in the beginning, which is kind of boring. Baseball came about as a pseudo variation of cricket in the mid 1800s. The first iteration of the game being played in the illusion fields of Hoboken, New Jersey. Now there are many debatable origins of the actual beginning of baseball, but in the early 20th century, a historian group called the Mills commission was assembled specifically assembled to declare a true inventor of baseball. And this Mills commission decided upon Adler double day, who was a civil war general who did in fact assign some rules to this newish batten ball cricket esk sport in a cow pasture and Cooperstown New York, which fun fact that's why the baseball Hall of Fame is there. Now the attribution of double day being the true father of baseball has been widely discredited, but that's not really what we're going to dive into here. The important thing here is believe it or not, the cow pasture for in the mid 1800s. That's where this new sport baseball. There was a hyphen in it as it was soon to be called was played. Cow Pastures fields and kind of public perks wherever you had flat ground that you could run across safely, I suppose sometimes it wasn't even always flat. I think we were just playing a sport in a brand new field wherever we could find somewhere on the east coast. And as the sport got more and more popular, people began to show an interest in watching this batten ball game. So as the later part of the 19th century rolled around, venues to host these people soon became necessary by people. I mean, you essentially mean the first iteration of baseball fans. That's who they were. And the first real record that we have of an official baseball venue, quote, unquote is the union grounds. It's a park in Brooklyn, Brooklyn, New York, which was the first baseball field that we know of that was fully enclosed by offense. Wait, so that's how they identified the first official baseball field was it wasn't just an open field and cow pasture that admirer double day played in it was a fully enclosed fence. So shout out the union grounds, the first official baseball field. Yeah, I've played on if that is what it takes to be considered an official baseball field. I've played on plenty of not official baseball fields if my time. So here the union grounds people could gather and stand or maybe sit on wooden benches to watch the matches and there was some sort of a clubhouse erected for the teams. A few years later in 1868, some other New York men's sporting teams called ball clubs started coming to play at the union grounds, which transitively created an interest in building other venues for the sport. This grew and grew over the next decade leading us to the first identifiable phase of ballpark history. So before we dive into phase one here, I'm kind of picturing you know you just alluded to playing baseball and fields that are not fully enclosed think of like your local neighborhood huge. I don't know wreck sports field where there's like two baseball diamonds on either side of this field that's like 300 yards big and if you hit a home run it's just because you hit it in the left center power alley gap and the ball kept rolling. I like that idea of being the original origin of baseball and truly trying to figure out what would have happened if we kept fields like that because as you're going to find out here just a little bit. There were some early on fields that had some dimensions that were essentially untouchable but where home run was not something that went over the fence it was something that just went over the center fielders head and kept on going. Yeah, I think about this all the time too much probably we all well you and I and many of our listeners have experienced playing many others have experienced watching some level of baseball and where that's the case right there's. There's no fence to contain anything that gets past the outfielders and I am curious about how today's highest level of baseball would look you know at not just at the polo grounds as you know we'll talk about later really far fences but no fences where were the outfielders play what would it do to the run scoring environment. What types of players would become more valuable right so maybe that's a hypothetical we can dig into later when we start to talk about some ball parks and ball fields with interesting dimensions well they've been playing ball games official ball games and you know in the corn fields of Iowa recently maybe we should go back to our true roots and play a game in the open fields of whatever is now the union grounds which I believe is like warehouses in Brooklyn New York but maybe we could find some sort of open field and yeah. I bet you you would play the outfielders at like 450 feet just keep everything in front of you maybe a little closer but there's a little bring in brand new brand new meaning to playing deep let's just put it that way so before we get to these modern grounds that we've kind of referenced or modern players and playing styles we are going to start in what we consider to be phase one of ballpark history and that is the early days also subtitled the wooden park era. So this is exactly what it sounds like ball parks in this time frame think of the late 1800s were wooden structures that surrounded well parks outside of the union grounds some of the earliest records of ball fields we have include the south end grounds in Boston 1871 created the 23rd street grounds in Chicago 1874 Avenue grounds in Cincinnati 76 and the original iteration of the polo grounds in New York also in 1876 as the 1880s and 1890s rolled around the title of grounds soon gave way to park and we saw the creation of sportsman park in St. Louis recreation park in Pittsburgh national park in Washington and league park in Cleveland. Now the teams that played at these fields parks were the earliest iterations of a handful of ball clubs that are recognizable today including the Chicago white stockings the Boston red stockings the Cincinnati outlaw reds dope name the St. Louis Cardinals still the same and also still the same the Chicago Cubs. Now Chicago the city in particular was a mecca of ballpark building by the end of the 1880s alone the city had four official parks. The aforementioned 23rd Street Grounds, Lake Shore Park, Westside Park, and Southside Park. So the suffix, the names of these venues shifted between grounds and parks and occasionally fields. They were pretty united, though, by a few features. Nearly all had a small grandstand of some sort, normally located behind-home plate, or within the infield, which had wooden benches that could accommodate a couple thousand people. Some even dared to build a tiny upper level to accommodate more seated viewers. Nearly all others then expanded down the foul lines and around the outskirts of the outfield for standing room attendees. Meaning actual capacity was essentially unknown. Some, like Avenue Grounds and Cincinnati, say their capacity was 3,000, well others, like Exposition Park in Pittsburgh, say their capacity was 22,000. I wonder if this is kind of like the very strange list that lists the Oakland Coliseum as the largest capacity ballpark today, simply because the structure itself can hold like 68,000 people. But in all actuality, it's one of the smalls because the A's in their current ballpark never open up the purple. So I wonder if there was that much kind of discrepancy or really if Exposition Park in Pittsburgh just once had like 10,000 people show up and stand in like the outfield beyond the fence. And they're like, yeah, yeah, we're the biggest ballpark here of the of the early ones Cincinnati with their 3,000 capacity can can go blow off. Right. I'm envisioning more of like a concert vibe in which sure you can stand behind the sound booth or you know, behind dozens and dozens of rows of people. I mean, capacity for some of these, you know, in a park, for example, you could consider to be quite large, even if people standing in the back rows don't have a great view of the game itself. They were all like their own version of Williamsport where they have like, you know, 7,000 or whoever many seats are within the infield there and then just that hill in the outfield can just pack as many people as who want to show up. So shout out to the the old parks fields grounds of your. The infield was pretty much universal measuring 90 feet to the bases wasn't always perfect. There were definitely some differences in home to first and the other bases. But the outfields were pretty much a complete toss up. So for example, South End grounds in Boston, the original home of the Boston Braves was 250 feet to left 255 feet to right and 450 feet to center. That's like a freaking diamond right there. Just 450 foot shot to center. Hopefully you pulled the ball or pushed the ball because then you probably had a run. One or the other. I mean, this is starting to put to the test are question about if there were no fences where would the outfielders play right. And a park that put that even more to the test would be Chicago's Westside grounds, 560 feet to center. So yeah, if you hit it over the center fielders head, it's just this question of how far will roll or how far back the center fielder was playing like I wonder how many standard fly balls of today's game would just fall in for like a single or maybe even stretch to a double. I have no idea also like the idea that you just mentioned measuring 90 feet up the base path wasn't exactly perfect and that maybe maybe some of the local teams knew like hey. You can steal third because it's actually 85 feet here, you know, Pittsburgh's exhibition ground or the South end grounds, but the other team doesn't know that yet. So take advantage of the true home field advantage, which was different dimensions that extended beyond the the outfield 450 feet or 500 feet. So as the 19th century turned into the 20th century, these wooden parks began to meet their maker in the form of well natural disaster. According to record, nearly all of these venues were destroyed either by fires or floods or they were demolished and rebuilt to higher standards because of the fear of such of these events impacting them. I love this list. Let's go through a few of them here Lakeshark Park in Chicago destroyed by fire. Ponce Dilly own park cool name in Indianapolis burned in a fire league park in Cincinnati burn in a fire was then rebuilt as the palace of the fans dope name also burned in a fire. Exposition park Pittsburgh rebuilt because of fear of fire and association parking Kansas City sunk. It was built at a low area that was once upon and became wetter and wetter each year bringing a bigger and bigger stink earning the iron of players and fans and with the Kansas City times calling it quote the worst ballpark in the country. They essentially surrendered it to the elements in 1888 and rebuilt it higher up a little bit not on the swamp couple decades later to house the Kansas City monarchs. Well, I'm sorry to say, but this is calling to mind shades of the Coliseum here. Once again built below sea level and sinking and flooding and other problems of that nature tune into the Oakland Coliseum episode for some really fun sewage facts about the poor poor locker rooms of the poor poor Oakland athletics who maybe we'll have a new ballpark by then we'll see. Anyway, this fear of fire and flood sounds very biblical forced many developers to focus on finding ways to create more sustainable stadiums this combined with the revelations brought on by the second industrial revolution and the increase of steelwork around the world in general brought upon a new age of ballpark started influencing some concepts we even see today which brings us to phase two of ballpark history. Phase two is what many consider to be the glory days of ballpark architecture or as we like to say here at ballpark banter ballpark a texture. These stadiums used concrete steel and brick to create more sustainable houses for baseball which at this point had risen to be the most popular sport in the country. It was labeled America's pastime and the stadiums that were being built were seen as the cases for this beautiful game perhaps why this style became known as the jewel box. There were few identifying traits of these stadiums so first as you mentioned they used more sustainable materials to create a more enclosed space this meant that they could be more urban instead of being relegated to the big pastures and fields outside of the city. The second trait is that nearly all of them incorporated second deck for viewing so these upper levels were supported by large iron and concrete beams that stood in the lower deck. Does mean that some of the seats had obstructed views so we're talking gunna turn of the century here we in the wooden park area we're talking about 1860s to like the 1890s in the school or days the jewel box park era. We're talking more late 1800s into the early 1900s really first few decades of the 1900s but the first of these parks was the Baker bull in Philadelphia which was actually built in the late 1880s to house the Phillies. But while the Baker bull did use steel and brick many look to the next park in Philadelphia called Shib Park as the exemplary of the true jewel box park as it also used reinforced concrete and had that vintage double decker being. Supported look to it with an exterior that blended it into the rest of Philadelphia other jewel box parks of note they were created in this era again roughly that's the 1910s and 20s included sportsman park in St. Louis second Forbes field in Pittsburgh 1909 Kymisky park in Chicago 1910 the new iteration of the polo grounds in New York 1911 Cincinnati's crossly field in 1912 and New York's efforts field in 1913. So let's do a brief aside about the polo grounds. This park was renovated many times to increase capacity and to allow other sports to be played there. Its constant renovations made it this large oval structure which earned it the nickname of the bathtub but the polo grounds was the first ball park to be named a stadium. It was called brush stadium briefly but that lofty title is often yielded to the OG stadium also called the stadium and that would be Yankee stadium more info on that here in a second. But my favorite thing about the polo grounds 485 feet to dead center. I mean that goes back to what we're just talking about about the kind of the league home run still taking place in a professional ballpark in like the early to mid 1900s. 485 feet to dead center Google picture of the polo grounds folks and you will see exactly what we're talking about. Now you probably heard us mentioned some parks like sportsman park in St. Louis and polo grounds a few times because there were some earlier iterations of both of these. I think this was like the third or fourth iteration of the Polo grounds. but for most New Yorkers or baseball fans in general, this is the one that truly, truly stands out when they think about this, this vintage classic ballpark. I do want to give a quick shout out to another park of this era that doesn't often get a mention. That is Rick Woodfield. So the legendary Rick Woodfield home of the Birmingham Barons and then the black barons of the Southern Negro leagues, it was built in 1910 and the park is still standing today. The modern version of the barons, which is now the double a affiliate of the Chicago White socks play one game a year there, allowing the park to claim the title of the oldest ballpark in America. Up until the recording of this podcast, perhaps Rick Woodfield wasn't all that well known to the generic fan, but that's probably about to change. Premilby has announced that it's actually planning on playing a game at Rick Woodfield, much like they do at field of dreams. This is to honor the Negro League heritage of the park and its aged history. There's a good segue though, is the next thing I want to talk about is the longevity of these jewel box parks. Since these stadiums were the first to be built to last really a handful of them well did you probably notice that when I was reading that list of old parks just a couple minutes ago, I didn't mention a couple pretty key ones. Or indeed a pair of the classic jewel box parks are still standing today and not only that they are used as major league fields of course talking about Fenway Park built in 1912, which is the oldest MLB venue still in use, followed by Rigglyfield in 1914. Meanwhile, other legends of this era, including Tiger Stadium, which was built in 1912 as well, it originally opened as Navon Field, by the way, and stood until 2009. The other key jewel box park opened about a decade after these ones. We alluded to it just a minute ago. It is Yankee Stadium. Yankee Stadium was the first American venue to permanently hold the title of stadium. This comes from the ancient Greek stadium as a large venue for sporting entertainment and earns the ballpark the superlative nickname of simply the stadium. It was also built with a dirt track around the outfield that was initially intended to be used for track and field competitions, but wound up popularizing the concept of the warning track, which was yeah used in nearly every park from pretty much then on. Much to the delight of outfielders who were crashing into walls less frequently. Perhaps most notably Yankee Stadium was the first three tiered sports venue in the United States. These jewel box ballpark stood for decades as the quintessential venue for hosting America's pastime. Today, the retro classic style that dominates ballpark a texture attempts to emulate the charm, coziness and the urban nature of the stadiums. But between that, a much uglier utility focused phase said in. Oh, but before we get to the days of the drab concrete donuts or the multi purpose venues, the timeline of ballpark history actually takes a break from America goes overseas. That's right. After the United States spent 50 years tinkering with different types of venues to hold its pastimes, think of the fields to the wooden parks to the jewel box parks. The game of baseball was actually growing during this time beyond national borders. In Japan, particularly baseball had risen in popularity. Technically, baseball was introduced to Japan in the late 1800s, but it really took off in the 1920s and 30s with the creation of the first organized team there, the great Japan Tokyo baseball club. This team, Rufuside would eventually put up a great performance against the barnstorming Americans such as Baybrooth and Lou Gehrig in their 1934 tour of Japan. And as baseball continued to rise in popularity in Japan, there was of course a need for venues. But the country didn't have the traditional wooden park history that the United States did and therefore was not all that attached to building jewel box parks that were cute. Instead, they elected to go bigger and more functional. A handful of stadiums were created, but two that really showcased this aesthetic choice were Koshin Stadium 1924 in Nishinomia and Meiju Jingu Stadium 1926 in Tokyo. So these parks were primarily constructed out of concrete and built for capacity. Instead of relying on beamed overhangs, they had these wide sloping stadium seating that extended up and out of the outfield like you'd see at a football stadium and go like the big house and missing in or something. So just to give you an idea, Koshin Stadium originally built for college baseball tournaments could hold nearly 80,000 people. The Hiti 1000 people in the late 1920s early 1930s, my goodness. Yeah, it's amazing and so unique for its time. And another thing that was unique about these parks is that there was no uniqueness when it comes to their dimensions. Both the ball parks were built with nearly perfectly cementrical outfields at Meiju Jingu Stadium. It was 320 to left 320 to right 368 to the left center power alley 368 to the right center power alley and 394 to center essentially the Rogers Center of old. These ball parks were marvels of their time, both in the crowds they could hold and the utility of their style. Slowly Americans took notice and the Japanese stadiums began to influence the next era of ballpark texture. That would be the multi purpose venue. Do you dream of visiting every major league ballpark, know someone who does or maybe you need a new gift idea for a baseball addict in your life? Check out Touch 'em all. A book written by me Travis Parker Smith, host of this show, tracing the tale of 14-agers who drove a beat up old hippie bus to all 30 parks in one summer. This memoir is a fun, easy read that's perfect for this baseball season and it's the inspiration for this podcast. Order it online or preferably from your local bookstore and head to ballparkbandarpodgast.com to learn more. Now back to the show. All right, but before we truly dive deep into the gin ass trays of the multi purpose craze, couple of shout outs for some ball parks that popped up along the way. First to greenly field in Pittsburgh, which was built in 1931 and was one of the first stadiums to be black belt and black owned. It was small, roughly 7,000 in stated capacity and hosted the Pittsburgh Crawfers and Homestead grays for much of the depression era. Negro league teams often split venues with other white teams at the time and greenly field stood for a half decade as a sign of pride and established importance regularly drawing large crowds for home games. Fun fact Josh Gibson and satchel page were two notables who played here and a second park I want to shout at is Holcomb Park in Des Moines, which was actually the first ballpark to try out stadium lighting. It did so in 1930 and successfully influencing. Crosley field and Cincinnati, which hosted the first night major league game five years later because of this Holcomb Park actually has a plaque today. The ballpark is still standing where the plaque reads it is the stadium that saved baseball. Well, the addition of lights meant that there were now more hours in the day that other sports could be played, meaning the window to host them was getting wider and wider further other sports were getting more popular at the time, including namely well football. Meanwhile, American saw the large crowds gathered at the aforementioned stadiums in Japan and started to think that maybe this was the way to go. Create large venues that could host both baseball and football instead of separate venues for each why spend more money when you could kill two birds with one stone enter the multi purpose venue. These ball parks were not ball parks as much as they were stadiums built with modernist mantra of form follows function a K we don't care what the parks look like what we care is that they're big and their practical. They used essentially nothing but concrete and were often ugly round structures hence the nicknames of concrete donuts the toilet bowls or the giant ash trays they were ugly. Some of them are still standing we'll get to them here in a second are ugly. Another factor here, though, that I want to point out was that the car was becoming more popular and more standardized in American culture more people owned cars. This meant that the stadiums didn't have to be urban like the jewel box parks, which essentially fit into downtown plots of land, but instead could be built outside of the city where land was cheap more space was available and key here more parking lots could fill the surrounding areas for literal miles. The first multipurpose venue as we think of it today was Cleveland's municipal stadium it opened in 1931 to a baseball capacity of 78,000 people. And soon hosted the Cleveland Browns football team as well municipal stadium stood as the only venue built that a major league baseball team newly played and for an astounding 20 years even a little more than that until Milwaukee's County Stadium in 1953. So think about that two decades go by and we're hardly seeing any new structures. created to host baseball in the US. The reason for this is threefold. So first, the jewel box parks were, as we talked about, built to last. And people weren't clamoring for their recreation. Second, the Great Depression was sucking money from the pockets of potential fan goers. And so, attendances started to dip. And third, World War II, understandably, turn the eyes of investors away from building stadiums in ball parks to the global war that lasted for half a decade. It's very understandable, but at the same time, this two decade, even more 22 year span of no new stadiums. I guess we can't really call them ball parks if they're multi-purpose venues popping up in the United States is insane. Because during World War I, we were building ball parks every single year. I mean, I read through that list recently about all the traditional jewel box parks that were built in the like 1910s and 1920s. Something like 12, 13, 14 to actually go 20 years without any new stadiums for baseball. Opening is really nuts to think about. I should clarify, I guess, that I mean major league baseball because minor league baseball did see a stadium pop up in this time frame, didn't it? Yeah, I would say really the only ballpark of note built in this big time frame was a seal stadium in San Francisco. It was built in 1939 for the PCL team. It was a small park with a real concrete based modern influence that didn't look like anything else really being built at the time and kind of even today. When the 50s hit the multi-purpose era boomed suddenly over the next couple decades, it seemed there was a new multi-purpose venue popping up every year, including, but by no means limited to Milwaukee County Stadium Memorial Stadium of Baltimore. That's your Palette and Stadium of Minneapolis candlestick park in San Francisco, the LA Coliseum, of course, in Los Angeles RFK Stadium in DC, C.J. Stadium in New York City Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego Olympic Stadium in Montreal, Fulton County Stadium in Atlanta, the Oakland Coliseum. Needless to say, it was nearly impossible to tell any of these stadiums apart. As you mentioned earlier, they were all located on the outskirts of towns. If not even farther away, they were all surrounded by parking lots and none of them featured any identifiable or really unique cute attributes that we associate with like the jewel box parks. Mostly, but there are a couple to point out. So first in 1964, the city of Houston opened the Astrodome, which was the first dome stadium and paved the way for cities to explore playing year round sports in rain or extreme heat. So think of Seattle's Kingdom or Minnesota's Metro Dome. It was also the first stadium to use Astro turf. Well, it was it was indoors, which was huge because it removed the need for a ground screw to perfectly maintain fields that would be torn up for football. And further, the Astrodome was also the first stadium to incorporate a video scoreboard. Scoreboards had been introduced in like 1908, but were originally not popular in ball parks because the venues feared it would take away from people buying scorecards to keep their own score. Well, they of course wound up putting an electronic out balls strikes runs sign up at nearly all parks. The video board wasn't really much of a thing until 1964. And now of course it mostly dominates the American stadium experience today. I love I love that idea that people didn't want a scoreboard because they thought it would hurt like scorecard sales. I'm trying to think of what an equivalent of that would be today. It's like we don't want a video board because we think it'll hurt people watching like Instagram highlight reels of the team or something like that. I just think it's kind of outstanding, but a different time different expectation for sales. It's important to note that there were a handful of ball parks during the multi-purpose craze that resisted the plague as well. And that's the decades of, as you said, concrete donuts, Dodger Stadium and Kaufman Field were built. And to an extent, Candlestick Park and Angel Stadium, which both opened as a ballpark or baseball only venue, but were then quickly renovated into a multi-purpose venue. And then Angel Stadium was kind of weirdly stripped back to a baseball only venue. Again, tune into the Angel Stadium podcast to learn the specifics of that. But these parks that I just mentioned are what we consider to be more modernist in their architecture as they still incorporate a lot of concrete in their structure that was popular at the time frame, but focus their aesthetic on baseball and unique elements to the ballpark. Think of like the fountains in Kansas City and those weird tin metal roofs and Dodger Stadium and Chavez ravine. These ball parks still stand today, of course, and are considered to have, quote, aged beautifully out of the time of the giant ash tray. Yeah, you really just need like a little care and a little something to make a ballpark special, right? Like Kaufman, when you're in there, it's pretty. It's beautiful. And the fountains are play a big role in creating a sense of place, right? Like these big concrete multi-purpose that were all the same as each other, they didn't really create a sense of place. Yeah, yeah, I feel like it's always kind of a popular thing to say you could be placed in the middle of one of them. And as you know, if you removed any like big signs for the local team, it would be really hard for you to identify what stadium you were in. And I think it's fascinating to think that Kaufman Stadium, as you mentioned with its beautiful fountains and kind of unique modernists sloping design again tune into the Kaufman Stadium add for more on that was built amidst this craze of like circular fields like in Cleveland, Minnesota and domes and Seattle and Houston that all kind of looked the same. Right. And one more stadium I want to shout out here in this vein is our LinkedIn Stadium. So like Dodger Stadium and Kaufman, this was a modernist baseball only venue that is seen as one of MLB's forgotten ballpark today. It was built in 1965 as a minor league site, but then it hosted the Texas Rangers for 21 years after they relocated in 1972. Yet the Rangers never made the playoff during that span and Arlington Stadium kind of just faded into obscurity. It's a long time. I do think that is like a forgotten venue of today's baseball stadiums or yesterday's baseball saves that actually reminds me of another kind of wild side, which is the history of cult stadium, which was built similar time brand. This one was built a couple years earlier in 1962 and its purpose was specifically just to temporarily house the Houston Astros while the Astrodome was being built. The team was called the Colt 45s when they played at Colt Stadium and then changed their name to the Astros two years later. So it lasted you said the Astrodome open in 1964 this lasted for two years and I could you not it was dismantled and moved to Mexico where it now actually has been a lot of fun. Where it now actually has somehow been split into two different stadiums. What's the Greek or the thought experiment about if you replace a boat board by board is the ship of the sea. The ship of the sea. Yeah, if you take the boards from the ship of the sea and create two different ships are they the ship of the seas or it's hard to say. So what you're suggesting is that Colt Stadium is baseball ship of feces. Yeah, in Mexico now there we go. Well, the multipurpose craze wrapped up in the late 1980s with the creation of Joe Robby Stadium, which here's your deep cut baseball trivia is now called Hard Rock Stadium, which is where the Miami Marlins would eventually play for a little while. A trap can a field and the Rogers Center in Toronto, which was the first park to actually have a fully retractable motorized roof, seeing as Olympic Stadium in Montreal never really figured it out. But most importantly, we now sit just about three decades later recording this podcast and there are only two of these aged ugly structures still in use in MLB. The Oakland Colosseum, which is probably about to not be in use anymore and travel can a field because in the early 1990s everything in ballpark texture started to change. So that brings us to phase four back to beautiful the retro parks and this story really starts in Baltimore. So in the early 90s, the city of Baltimore, and the city of Baltimore, face the dilemma that would soon become commonplace across sports cities in the United States, which is the town's multipurpose memorial stadium was starting to crumble a bit and needed some pretty serious upgrades if it was to survive in other couple decades. So we go deep into the politics and history of this story in our Camden yards episode and because it's so important to this history of all ballpark will probably reference it throughout this podcast, but in a nutshell, the city made a pretty shocking decision at the time they elected not to reinvest their money in memorial stadium, but instead to build a baseball only venue. They built Camden Yards, which was seen as so beautiful, many equated it as hearkening back to the glory days of the ballpark. Our phase two, if you will, the jewel box parks of old, some of which were still in use. Think Fenway, Riggly, Yankee Stadium and Tiger Stadium? It triggered a whole new ballpark craze that was built on honoring the classic parts of the past, appropriately titled the retro classic style. But it wasn't as simple as Baltimore just building a baseball only venue amidst the era of the giant asteris that made it so influential. Because what many don't realize is that Camden Yards actually wasn't the first baseball only venue built after the multi-purpose craze. Nope. The year before it opens, so this is 1991, the White Sox opened their new ballpark, guaranteed rate field, which was originally called New Commiske Park. So why does Camden get all the love when New Commiske was barely recognized? Well, I think it's because the the planners and the designers in Baltimore made one really key decision. I think that easily the biggest choice that was made was where to place their new park. And they placed it in a very urban part of town, and they incorporated the B&O warehouse into its design. So these decisions made the park feel cozy and a part of the city just like those jewel box parks of old Utah street, which is in right field is actually a street in Baltimore and it's part of the concourse. So it's hard to get much more in the city than that. On the other hand, New Commiske was built in the cookie cutter modernist style, much like Kaufman Stadium, which opened nearly three decades prior. So what Baltimore used brick and ironwork, Chicago used almost nothing but concrete. Well, Baltimore built in a crowded urban area, Chicago plopped its park in South Chicago and made a sea of low-rise parking lots and shopping complexes. Or guaranteed rate really just opened at the wrong time for now. It's seen as missing out on the retro classic craze that just started a year after. It has since been renovated and become more retro classic, but it still lacks some of that old cozy feel. Off look for guaranteed rate field. And a tough name, I'm sorry to say. I mean, I know you know that the highest bidder will likely get the naming rights, but guaranteed rate field kind of stands out to me as a doesn't roll off the tone. Isn't it snickdame the great and that split replaced us cellular field, which was the cell. There is a bit of a theme. Christmas. I got that point anyway. Truly after Camden was built, the next 19 ball parks to open were essentially inspired by its retro classic design. So that's 19 stadiums. All is them off in order of how when they were built using their current names. So we have Globe Life Park, which is now been vacated by the Rangers, Progressive Field, Coors Field, Turner Field, now vacated by the Braves, Chase Field, T-Mobile Park, Camarica Park, Minute Made Park, Oracle Park, American Family Field, PNC Park, Great American Ball Park, Citizens Bank Park, Petco Park, Bush Stadium, Nationals Park, City Field, New Yankee Stadium and Target Field. Now a few notes about that list that you just read. Some of these stadiums technically fall under a style that might be considered more as retro modern instead of retro classic. I know this sounds nitpicky, but parks like Chase Field, Nats Park, American Family Field and even Great American, incorporate heavy concrete and/or slightly more boxy suburban feel that makes them harken back more to Dodger Stadium and Kaufman Stadium than like Riggly or Fenway. But as I said, it's nitpicky. They're all retro either way, retro classic or retro modern. They're all gorgeous and they all fit into this phase four, if you will, of ballpark architecture. Is this a, on effectively wild, how can you not be pedantic about baseball? How can you not be nitpicky at all ballpark? We'll coin that one and use that throughout the episodes. A few key elements though that identify a retro classic or retro modern park. As previously stated, they have a heavy reliance on brick and ironwork, much like the jewel box parks did. Something new or however is that many of them use dark forest green seats in their stance. These seats are never the color of the team. No baseball team has forest green in their logo, but instead they are seen as a cozy neutral color that works well with any team's color. Compare this to say guaranteed rates original bright blue seats or the red seats of Angel Stadium. Some stadiums have chosen to go with different colors of course, but the majority of these retro parks of today have opted for this forest green. Meanwhile, many have also incorporated parts of the city into their architecture. Just as Camden did with the B&L warehouse, so too did Petco with the Western Metal Supply Company building or MinuteMade actually using the old Houston Union station as the entrance to its stadium. Please listen more to each ballpark's episode and you'll definitely catch a lot of these fun additions. So what comes next? The last park of the 19 retro parks that immediately followed Camden Yards as you just listed off was Target Field which opened in 2010. Only three major league ball parks have been constructed since then, and the first I think officially launched us into a new phase, maybe phase five of ballpark history, which is the contemporary parks the day of the neo-modern stadiums if you will. This is the age where ballpark designers are really making a choice to linger in this retro classic area that has defined the past three decades or to create something totally new and unique. The park I just mentioned, so the first one to open in this era was Lone Depot Park in Miami originally opened as Marlins Park. This stadium looks nothing like anything that has ever come before. It's not a jewel box park or a multipurpose venue. It's nowhere near even any of the retro classic retro modern parks. Nope, it's a huge white box with bright colors throughout neon green fences circling the ball field. It's very Miami and the next stadium that opened was truest park which replaced Turner Field in Atlanta. This one more straddles the line of the retro classic retro modern and holds on to that Camden influence, but still presents some more modern and different elements, including its location, which is pretty far outside of Atlanta departure from a key characteristic of those retro ball parks. And MLB's most recent park, which is Globe Life Field in Texas is also quite contemporary. It has a sheet metal roof, these big massive windows and like more of a suburban orientation. And you can be sure that if the A's indeed moved to Las Vegas, whatever ballpark that city builds is going to look nothing like anything that has come before. Now we come back there. So if that ball park is built, well, you bet we'll produce an episode diving deep into its history, its creation, probably a little bit about the shifting of the Oakland A's. Until then, we welcome you to join us on this journey through the current 30 ball parks of Major League Baseball. As previously stated, each episode on this ensuing podcast will be dedicated to one park. So there's going to be a Wrigley Field episode. There's going to be a Camden Yards episode. Our White Sox fans will get that guaranteed rate episode. You name it. Each will give you the history of the ballpark and then take you through the facts, figures and fun anecdotes that make each unique. Until then, we hope that you've enjoyed this walk through the timeline of ballpark history and that you're now ready to jump into each of today's beautiful baseball venues. That wraps it up for this episode of Ballpark Banner. If you're enjoying our show and want to support our work, you can buy us a hot dog at the next game we attend by heading to ballparkbannerpodcast.com. While you're there, be sure to check out the book Touch Amal by Travis Parker Smith to learn more about our story and the reason behind the order in which we explore these ball parks. Special thanks is always to Kendall Young, Jack Wilson and Rubin Palmer for their imperative role in the inspiration of this show and to all the fans out there who dream of catching a game in every nature-leaf ballpark.