Crosley Field: Floodwater, Floodlights, and the Hill in Left Field

The Reds had been playing ball at the corner of Findlay Street and Western Avenue since 1884, but the structure that stood there kept changing. The Palace of the Fans, a Neoclassical oddity with Corinthian columns and opera-style boxes, opened in 1902 and lasted nine seasons before decay and fire forced its demolition. Between the 1911 and 1912 seasons, architect Harry Hake Sr. replaced it with a steel-and-concrete ballpark built for $225,000. They called it Redland Field.

On April 11, 1912, a crowd of 26,336 packed the new park to watch the Reds beat the Chicago Cubs 10-6. The date put Redland Field's opening in the same week as Fenway Park and Navin Field in Detroit, three steel-and-concrete ballparks born within days of each other.

The park kept the name Redland Field for 22 years. In February 1934, Powel Crosley Jr., who had built his fortune manufacturing radios and automobiles, purchased the bankrupt Reds from Sidney Weil and saved the franchise from leaving Cincinnati. He renamed the ballpark after himself. By the following spring, he and general manager Larry MacPhail had installed something no major league park had ever seen.

The Lights Come On

On the evening of May 24, 1935, President Franklin Roosevelt pressed a telegraph key in the White House. An electric pulse traveled 500 miles over copper wire to a signal lamp near first base. When MacPhail saw the lamp glow, he flipped a switch, and 632 floodlights blazed to life above the stadium.

The Reds beat the Philadelphia Phillies 2-1 before 20,422 fans. Fireworks, marching bands, and the rat-a-tat of four American Legion drum corps preceded the first pitch. Night baseball had arrived in the major leagues. Other owners dismissed the idea as a gimmick. Wrigley Field would not install lights for another 53 years. Within a decade, most other parks had followed Crosley's lead.

The Terrace

Crosley Field's most distinctive feature required no engineering. The street behind left and center field sat roughly four feet higher than the playing surface, and when the ballpark was built, the architects left the natural grade intact rather than constructing a taller wall. The result was a grass-covered incline, about 20 feet wide, rising from the flat outfield to the base of the concrete wall. Players called it the terrace.

For Reds outfielders, the terrace was home turf. They learned to run uphill, plant their feet on the slope, and time their leaps against the wall. For visiting left fielders, it was a trap. A ball over your head on the terrace meant climbing while sprinting, and no one climbed fast enough to make a play at the wall.

The terrace left a lasting impression on Tal Smith, who worked in the Reds' front office in the late 1950s. When Smith later oversaw ballpark construction for the Houston Astros, he pushed for a 30-degree incline in center field at what became Minute Maid Park.

October and Scandal

Redland Field hosted its first World Series in 1919, the best-of-nine affair that became synonymous with the Black Sox scandal. On October 1, 30,511 fans watched Eddie Cicotte take the mound for the favored White Sox. Cicotte's second pitch hit leadoff batter Morrie Rath in the back, a prearranged signal that the fix was in. The Reds won that opener 9-1 and took the Series five games to three. Cincinnati had its first championship, though the revelations that followed tainted the achievement for decades.

The Reds returned to the World Series in 1939, but the Yankees swept them in four. They came back in 1940 and faced the Detroit Tigers in a seven-game series. On October 8, Paul Derringer and the Reds won Game 7 at Crosley Field, 2-1, on Jimmy Ripple's RBI double and Billy Myers's sacrifice fly in the seventh inning. It remains the only time the Reds have clinched a World Series at home.

Flood, No-Hitters, and Big Klu

In late January 1937, the Ohio River crested at record levels, driving 100,000 Cincinnati residents from their homes. Crosley Field sat low enough in the West End to take the worst of it. Floodwater submerged home plate under 21 feet of river water, swallowing the lower grandstand entirely. Reds pitchers Lee Grissom and Gene Schott paddled a skiff across the playing field for a photograph that ran in The Sporting News on February 4, an image that captured both the scale of the disaster and a stubborn local humor about it.

Sixteen months later, on June 11, 1938, Johnny Vander Meer pitched a no-hitter against the Boston Bees at Crosley Field, winning 3-0. Four days later, on June 15, he threw another no-hitter against the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field, winning 6-0 in Brooklyn's first-ever night game. No pitcher before or since has thrown consecutive no-hitters in the major leagues.

Through the 1950s, Ted Kluszewski turned Crosley's tight dimensions into a personal launching pad. The barrel-chested first baseman, who cut the sleeves off his uniform to free his massive arms, hit 49 home runs in 1954 and slugged .642. The slugging mark remains a franchise record; George Foster broke the home run record with 52 in 1977. Frank Robinson arrived in 1956, hit 38 home runs as a rookie to tie the major league record, and won National League Rookie of the Year. In 1961 he led the Reds to their first pennant since 1940, hitting .323 with 37 home runs and 124 RBIs to claim the NL MVP award.

The Last Game

By the 1960s, Crosley Field was showing its age. The neighborhood had declined, parking was scarce, and the wooden grandstand sections raised fire concerns. The city built Riverfront Stadium on the waterfront, and the Reds scheduled their move for late June 1970.

On the evening of June 24, 1970, 28,027 fans filled Crosley Field to watch the Reds play the San Francisco Giants. The visitors brought Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, and Bobby Bonds. The Reds countered with the core of what would soon become the Big Red Machine: Pete Rose, Johnny Bench, Tony Perez, and Lee May. Trailing 4-3 in the eighth, Bench hit a solo home run off Juan Marichal to tie the game, and May followed with a go-ahead blast. Wayne Granger closed it out, 5-4. Lee May had the stadium's last hit and last home run. Bobby Bonds made the final out.

After the game, a helicopter lifted home plate from the infield and carried it to Riverfront Stadium. The ballpark sat empty for nearly two years. On April 19, 1972, two-year-old Pete Rose Jr. pulled a lever that sent a wrecking ball into the right field wall. Demolition followed.

Today the site is part of Cincinnati's West End, reshaped by the urban renewal projects of the 1970s. A stone pedestal and plaque near the corner of Findlay and Western, installed in 1998, mark where the ballpark stood. In the suburb of Blue Ash, a recreation complex includes a replica built to the park's final dimensions, complete with original seats and a reconstruction of the left field terrace. At Great American Ball Park, statues of Kluszewski, Robinson, Ernie Lombardi, and Joe Nuxhall stand on a terrace along Joe Nuxhall Way, angled to evoke the slope that once defined left field at Findlay and Western.