Baseball

Hilltop Park, New York (1)

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The view outside the main entrance to Hilltop Park, at the corner of Broadway and 165th Street, on April 21, 1911. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Bain Collection.

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The same scene in 2014:

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The New York Yankees have long called the Bronx their home, but during the first park of their existence they were in the extreme northern part of Manhattan.  The team was moved from Baltimore to New York in 1903, and Hilltop Park (officially given the more bland name of American League Park – this was in the days before corporate sponsorship) was hastily built along Broadway, between 165th and 168th Streets, on high ground overlooking the Hudson River.  It was not a particularly glamorous park, but neither was the team that played there: in ten seasons, the Highlanders lost 100 games twice.  These have been the only two 100-loss seasons in the history of the Yankees franchise.  In this particular photo, it shows fans arriving for the home opener against the Washington Senators.  New York lost the game 1-0, and went on to have a .500 season, with a 76-76 record.  After the 1912 season, the Highlanders moved into Polo Grounds, renting from the Giants until 1923, when Yankee Stadium was completed.  Today, Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center is located on the site.

Hampden Park, Springfield, Mass

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Hampden Park in Springfield, Mass, during a football game, probably around 1905. Photo from Springfield: Present and Prospective, published in 1905.

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The approximate scene in 2014:

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First, a quick explanation: these two photos do not necessarily match up perfectly. They are both oriented in the same direction, but I don’t know whether this particular field was located here, or further south.  The baseball diamond is visible in contemporary maps; an 1899 city map shows it further south, while a 1910 map shows it at approximately the location of the present-day photo.  However, as I don’t know when the transition happened, I am left only to estimate when re-creating the 1905 photo.

In any case, Hampden Park (not to be confused with the major sports arena of the same name in Glasgow, Scotland) was used for a variety of athletic events for over a century.  First opened in the 1850s, the site, bounded by the Connecticut River, the railroad tracks, and Plainfield/West Street (North End Bridge), was originally used for horse and bicycle racing.  In 1861, it was used as the muster grounds for Civil War infantrymen, and later became a baseball field as well. It was here that in 1869, the Cincinnati Red Stockings, baseball’s first openly professional team, played against the Springfield Mutuals.  Cincinnati won 80-5 en route to a perfect 65-0 season.  A few years later, several National Association (the precursor to modern Major League Baseball) games were played here – first the short-lived Middletown Mansfields for a game in 1872, and later, for one game each year in 1873 and 1875, the Boston Red Stockings, now known as the Atlanta Braves, played at Hampden Park.

Later on, the park became home to a series of minor league baseball teams, with the location of the field changing several times.  Most recently, it was located in the northwest corner of the lot, closest to the North End Bridge. Built in 1922 as the creatively-named League Park, it was renovated and renamed Pynchon Park in 1940.  This field was home to minor league affiliates for the Cubs and later for the Giants; from 1950 through 1953, they were the Springfield Cubs, Chicago’s AAA affiliate. The last season of Springfield minor league baseball was in 1965, when the AA Springfield Giants played here; the next year, the team moved, and the park burned down.  The present-day photo above was taken from around the left-field corner of the park, with the former location of home plate being being behind me, around where the Pride gas station and convenience store now stands.

In the first photo above, the field is configured for a football game, likely an Ivy League college game.  From 1889 to 1894, the annual Harvard-Yale game was played here, as Springfield was a neutral site in between Cambridge and New Haven; after a particularly violent 1894 game, known as the “Hampden Park Blood Bath,” the game was suspended for two years, and the number of severe injuries called into question the future of the entire sport.  Later on, in 1905 and 1906, Hampden Park hosted the Brown-Dartmouth game, and it is possible that the 1905 game might be the one in the above photo.

Emerson Wight Playground, Springfield, Mass, June 27, 1916 (2)

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Another view of boys playing baseball at Emerson Wight Playground in Springfield, Mass. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, National Child Labor Committee Collection.

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The park in 2014:

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As was the previous photo, this was taken by Lewis W. Hine during his documentation of child labor conditions for the National Child Labor Relations Committee. Between the two scenes, 98 years apart, remarkably little has changed, down to the houses on Acushnet Avenue in the background, and it is possible that the two large trees near the center of the 2014 photo are also in the 1916 one – there are several saplings along the fence, two of which are in the exact same locations as the present-day trees.

Emerson Wight Playground, Springfield, Mass (1)

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The Emerson Wight Playground in Springfield, Mass, June 27, 1916. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, National Child Labor Committee Collection.

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The park in 2014:

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It’s kind of eerie – in 98 years, almost nothing has changed about this scene. The baseball field is still in the same spot, along with all five of the houses in the distance, and (I believe) even a couple of the trees that are small saplings in front of the fence in the 1916 photo.  The only difference is the young boys, who are almost certainly all dead by now. The photo was taken by Lewis W. Hine as part of his documentation for the National Child Labor Relations Committee, and likely many, if not all, of these boys were working full time in a factory or other industry in Springfield.

Lefty Grove at Fenway Park, Boston

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Lefty Grove warming up at Fenway Park in 1937. Photo courtesy of Boston Public Library, Leslie Jones Collection.

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The scene in 2006:

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In an earlier post, I looked at the present-day location of a photo of a Red Sox pitching legend, Cy Young.  Less than 30 years later, the Red Sox would have another stadium and a new ace pitcher, Lefty Grove.  Although he spent the majority of his career with the A’s, Grove remains the only pitcher to be inducted into the Hall of Fame wearing a Red Sox cap.

Today, Fenway Park hasn’t changed a great deal, although it now has lights, electronic scoreboards, and bullpens beyond the outfield fence.  The Green Monster now has seats atop it, and is no longer adorned with any racist ads.

Fenway Park, Boston (4)

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The exterior of Fenway Park in 1914. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Bain Collection.

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The same view in 2006:

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This is probably the only part of Fenway Park that is virtually unchanged since it opened nearly 102 years ago.  Several fires, a massive reconstruction in 1934, and a number of smaller changes along the way have left very little remaining from the original park.  However, the Yawkey Way facade (called Jersey Street in 1914) hasn’t changed much, aside from the addition of various championship banners that the team has won since they first made Fenway their home.