Haight Street Grounds was one of

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

's earliest

baseball park A ballpark, or baseball park, is a type of sports venue where baseball is played. The playing field is divided into the infield, an area whose dimensions are rigidly defined, and the outfield, where dimensions can vary widely from place to pla ...

s; it was also used for

college football College football (french: Football universitaire) refers to gridiron football played by teams of student athletes. It was through college football play that American football rules first gained popularity in the United States. Unlike most ...

. It opened in 1887 and was demolished in 1895.

History

Haight Street Grounds was built for use by the

California League The California League is a Minor League Baseball league that operates in California. Having been classified at various levels throughout its existence, it operated at Class A-Advanced from 1990 until its demotion to Single-A following Major Leag ...

and was located on the east side of

Golden Gate Park Golden Gate Park, located in San Francisco, California, United States, is a large urban park consisting of of public grounds. It is administered by the San Francisco Recreation & Parks Department, which began in 1871 to oversee the development ...

, bounded by Stanyan, Waller, Shrader, and Frederick streets, across Stanyan from the eventual

Kezar Stadium Kezar Stadium is an outdoor athletics stadium in San Francisco, California, located adjacent to Kezar Pavilion in the southeastern corner of Golden Gate Park. It is the former home of the San Francisco 49ers and the Oakland Raiders (first AFL se ...

complex. The opening game on April 3, 1887, between the Haverlys and the Pioneers, was attended by 10,000 fans. In 1893, the California League folded, and, in March 1895, plans were announced to use the ballpark land for residential development. The final baseball game at the grounds was played on March 10, 1895. While built for baseball, Haight Street Grounds is noteworthy for being the birthplace of the Big Game, a now annual

game between

Stanford Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is considere ...

and

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

. It was the site of the first four Big Games, which were played on March 19, 1892; December 17, 1892; November 28, 1893; and November 29, 1894.Sheehan, Jack F. and Louis Honig.
The Games of California and Stanford: Nine Years of Intercollegiate Athletic Contests.
' San Francisco: Commercial Publishing Company, 1900.

Notes

External links

Most of the ballpark, on a Sanborn map, 1889

History

Notes

External links

References

Further reading