Sportsman's Park

From SoSH

For the park known as Busch Stadium II, see Busch Memorial Stadium. For the current park, see New Busch Stadium.

Contents 1 Stadium History 2 Trivia 3 Field Dimensions 4 Wall Height 5 External Links

Stadium History

Sportsman's Park was the name of several structures built in the same place in St. Louis, initially built in 1881 and renovated in 1902 and 1909. It originally hosted the St. Louis Brown Stockings and was called Grand Avenue Ball Grounds. It was renamed Sportsman's Park in 1876. The fist grandstand of three on the site was built in 1881. At that time, an American Association team named the Brown Stockings owned the park. The National League absorbed the American Association in 1892, and the Browns team changed their color to Cardinal Red and moved to a different park ("New Sportsman's Park," later known as Robison Field), leaving their name, colors, and ballpark available.

The original Milwaukee Brewers of the American League moved to St. Louis in 1902 and adopted the "Browns" nickname along with Sportsman's Park. The diamond was moved to the northwest corner and later to its final home in the southwest corner in 1909. The Cardinals returned in the 1920s as tenants of the Browns after abandoning the mostly-wooden Robison Field. The stadium's seating was expanded to 30,000 after the 1922 season when the Browns nearly won the AL Pennant and team owner Philip Ball predicted there would be a World Series in the park by 1926. There was: the Cardinals defeated the Yankees. Before that Series, St. Louis was primarily a "Browns town," but the Cardinals became the more popular team afterward. Eventually, the Browns played in a World Series in 1944 against the Cardinals, losing 4 games to 2 and essentially spelling their doom as the dominant team in town.

In the mid-1950s, it became clear that St. Louis could not support both teams. Initially, Browns owner Bill Veeck hoped to drive the Cardinals out of town and could have been successful when Cardinals owner Fred Saigh was convicted of tax evasion. Saigh, however, sold the team to Anheuser-Busch, outmatching any resources Veeck had for his Browns. Veeck sold the park to the Cardinals, which he might have had to do anyway since the park needed renovations and the Cardinals could afford it while the Browns could not, and took the team to Baltimore after the 1953 season.

August Busch Jr. initially intended to name the park "Budweiser Stadium" after the brand of beer his company made, but Commissioner Ford C. Frick vetoed the name over public relations concerns (despite the fact that most teams made significant amounts of money off beer sales). Frick could not stop Busch from naming the park after himself, however, and so the stadium was renamed Busch Stadium. Most fans called it Sportsman's Park, anyway, and that is the name by which it is most commonly referred today.

The Cardinals left Sportsman's Park for Busch Memorial Stadium (Busch Stadium II) after the 1966 season, finally leaving the site without a baseball team after more than a century. The site now holds the Herbert Hoover Boys and Girls Club, with the field still intact and still in use for multiple sports.

Trivia

• Site of the 1940, 1948, and 1957 MLB All-Star Games.
• The site was particularly kind to left-handed hitters; Stan Musial enjoyed great success playing all of his career home games at Sportsman's Park, while Babe Ruth had two three-homer World Series games at the park.

Field Dimensions

Left Field	Left Center	Center Field	Right Center	Right Field
351.1'	379'	422'	354'	309.5'

Wall Height

Left Field	Center Field	Right Field
11.5’		36.67’

External Links

• Sportsman's Park - Wikipedia
• Sportsman's Park - Ballparks.com