Category
Lost Ballparks
Profiles of vanished stadiums and the neighborhoods, fans, and memories they left behind.
The Astrodome and Baseball Under Glass
May 17, 2026
When the Astrodome opened in 1965, it was nicknamed the Eighth Wonder of the World. Then the grass died, AstroTurf was born, and the building became the most influential problem in stadium history.
Continue Reading
Candlestick Park and the Wind
May 17, 2026
Candlestick Park was built on a point of land jutting into San Francisco Bay, and the wind that came off the water defined everything about the place. It was supposed to be a monument. Instead, it became a cautionary tale about site selection.
Continue Reading
Cleveland Municipal Stadium and the Lake
May 17, 2026
Cleveland Municipal Stadium was built for 78,000 fans and regularly drew 5,000. The wind off Lake Erie made night games brutal. It was also the site of Ten Cent Beer Night.
Continue Reading
County Stadium, Milwaukee
May 17, 2026
County Stadium was built in 1953 to lure a major league team to Milwaukee. The parking lot became the best tailgating venue in baseball. The smell of grilling sausage was as much a part of the experience as the game.
Continue Reading
Griffith Stadium, Washington
May 17, 2026
Griffith Stadium hosted the Senators' only World Series championship in 1924 and the Homestead Grays' greatest home runs during the segregation era. It stood at the corner of Georgia Avenue and W Street from 1911 to 1965.
Continue Reading
The Kingdome and the Season That Saved Seattle
May 17, 2026
The Kingdome was ugly from the day it opened. Then the 1995 Mariners, down 13 games in August, came all the way back, and the building that everyone wanted to demolish saved baseball in Seattle.
Continue Reading
RFK Stadium and the Fans Who Stole the Final Game
May 17, 2026
On September 30, 1971, the Washington Senators led the Yankees 7-5 with two outs in the ninth. One out from a victory in their final game, several hundred fans stormed the field and stole everything they could carry.
Continue Reading
Veterans Stadium and the Jail in the Basement
May 17, 2026
Veterans Stadium installed a courtroom and holding cell in the basement, staffed by a municipal judge during games, to process fans arrested for fighting. The jail became the stadium's most famous feature.
Continue Reading
Comiskey Park and Eighty Years on 35th Street
May 4, 2026
Built on a city dump for $750,000 and christened the Baseball Palace of the World, Comiskey Park stood at 35th and Shields for eighty seasons, hosting the first All-Star Game, the Black Sox scandal, and Disco Demolition Night before the wrecking ball arrived in 1991.
Continue Reading
Floodwater, Floodlights, and the Hill in Left Field at Crosley
May 4, 2026
Crosley Field hosted the first night game in major league history, survived a flood that put 21 feet of water over home plate, and featured a left field terrace that no visiting outfielder ever fully trusted.
Continue Reading
Ebbets Field and the Soul of Brooklyn Baseball
May 4, 2026
Built on a garbage dump called Pigtown and demolished before its fiftieth birthday, Ebbets Field packed more history per square foot than any ballpark in America.
Continue Reading
Steel, Ivy, and Sixty-One Years at Forbes Field
May 4, 2026
Forbes Field stood in Pittsburgh's Oakland neighborhood for sixty-one years, hosted the only walk-off home run in a Game 7, and left behind a section of outfield wall that still marks its original location on the University of Pittsburgh campus.
Continue Reading
The Polo Grounds and the Ghosts of Coogan's Hollow
May 4, 2026
For more than half a century, the Polo Grounds sat in the shadow of Coogan's Bluff, its horseshoe shape producing some of the strangest and most famous plays in baseball history.
Continue Reading
The Concrete Cathedral at 21st and Lehigh
May 4, 2026
Baseball's first steel-and-concrete stadium opened on April 12, 1909, in a North Philadelphia neighborhood where chickens still pecked in empty lots, and stood for sixty-seven years through seven World Series, two tenants, a spite fence, a riot, and a fire.
Continue Reading
A Century of Baseball at Sportsman's Park
May 4, 2026
For ninety years, the northwest corner of Grand Boulevard and Dodier Street hosted professional baseball in St. Louis, and no other intersection in America held two major league tenants for as long or produced a World Series played entirely in one park.
Continue Reading
104 Years of Baseball at Michigan and Trumbull
May 4, 2026
From a wooden grandstand built on a former hay market in 1896 to Robert Fick's rooftop grand slam in 1999, the corner of Michigan and Trumbull hosted professional baseball longer than any other site in America.
Continue Reading