Sportsman's Park was the name of several former
Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball league composed of 30 teams, divided equally between the National League (baseball), National League (NL) and the American League (AL), with 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada. MLB i ...
ballpark
A ballpark, or baseball park, is a type of sports venue where baseball is played. The playing field is divided into two field sections called the infield and the outfield. The infield is an area whose dimensions are rigidly defined in part ba ...
structures in
St. Louis, Missouri. All but one of these were located on the same piece of land, at the northwest corner of
Grand Boulevard and Dodier Street, on the north side of the city.
History
Sportsman's Park was the home field of both the
St. Louis Browns of the
American League
The American League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the American League (AL), is the younger of two sports leagues, leagues constituting Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada. It developed from the Western L ...
, and the
St. Louis Cardinals of the
National League from 1920 to 1953, when the Browns relocated to Baltimore and were rebranded as the
Orioles.
The physical street address was 2911 North Grand Boulevard. The ballpark (by then known as Busch Stadium, but still commonly called Sportsman's Park) was also the home to professional football: in , it hosted St. Louis' first NFL team, the
All-Stars, and later hosted the
St. Louis Cardinals of the
National Football League
The National Football League (NFL) is a Professional gridiron football, professional American football league in the United States. Composed of 32 teams, it is divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National ...
from
1960 (following the team's relocation from
Chicago
Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...
) until
1965
Events January–February
* January 14 – The First Minister of Northern Ireland and the Taoiseach of the Republic of Ireland meet for the first time in 43 years.
* January 20
** Lyndon B. Johnson is Second inauguration of Lynd ...
, with
Busch Memorial Stadium
Busch Memorial Stadium (Busch Stadium II) was a multi-purpose sports facility in St. Louis, Missouri, that operated for 40 years, from 1966 St. Louis Cardinals season, 1966 through 2005 St. Louis Cardinals season, 2005. Built as Civic Center Bu ...
opening its doors in 1966.
1881 structure
Baseball was played on the Sportsman's Park site as early as 1867. The tract was acquired in 1866 by August Solari, who began staging games there the following year. It was the home of the
St. Louis Brown Stockings in the
National Association and the
National League from 1875 to 1877.
It was originally called the Grand Avenue Ball Grounds: some sources say the field was renamed Sportsman's Park in
1876
Events
January
* January 1
** The Reichsbank opens in Berlin.
** The Bass Brewery Red Triangle becomes the world's first registered trademark symbol.
*January 27 – The Northampton Bank robbery occurs in Massachusetts.
February
* Febr ...
, although local papers were not using that name until 1881, and some local papers used the alternate name "Grand Avenue Park" until at least 1885. The first grandstand, one of three on the site, was built in
1881. At that time, the diamond and the grandstands were on the southeast corner of the block, for the convenience of fans arriving from Grand Avenue. The park was leased by the then-major
American Association entry, the St. Louis "Brown Stockings", or "Browns". The Browns were a very strong team in the mid-1880s, but their success waned.
When the National League absorbed the strongest of the old Association teams in
1892, the Browns were brought along. Soon they went looking for a new ballpark, finding a site just a few blocks northwest of the old one, and calling it New Sportsman's Park, which was later renamed
Robison Field. They also changed team colors from Brown to Cardinal Red, thus acquiring a new nickname, and leaving their previous team colors as well as the old ballpark site available.
After a fire at the Cardinals' ballpark on May 4, 1901, the club arranged to play some games at the original Sportsman's Park, which by then was being called "Athletic Park" and had only minimal seating. After a May 5 game, it was clear that the old park would no longer be a workable option: the team played on the road for a month while their own park was being rebuilt.
1902 and 1909 structures
When the American League
Milwaukee Brewers
The Milwaukee Brewers are an American professional baseball team based in Milwaukee. The Brewers compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (baseball), National League (NL) National League Central, Central Di ...
moved to St. Louis in
1902 and took the Browns name, they built a new version of Sportsman's Park. They initially placed the diamond and the main stand at the northwest corner of the block.
This Sportsman's Park saw football history made: it became both the practice field and home field for
Saint Louis University
Saint Louis University (SLU) is a private university, private Society of Jesus, Jesuit research university in St. Louis, Missouri, United States. Founded in 1818 by Louis William Valentine DuBourg, it is the oldest university west of the Missi ...
football teams, coached by the visionary
Eddie Cochems, father of the
forward pass
In several forms of football, a forward pass is the throwing of the ball in the direction in which the offensive team is trying to move, towards the defensive team's goal line. The legal and widespread use of the forward pass distinguishes grid ...
. Although the first legal forward pass was thrown by Saint Louis'
Bradbury Robinson in a road game at
Carroll College in September 1906, Sportsman's Park was the scene of memorable displays of what Cochems called his "air attack" that season. These included a 39–0 thrashing of
Iowa
Iowa ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the upper Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west; Wisconsin to the northeast, Ill ...
before a crowd of 12,000 and a 34–2 trouncing of
Kansas
Kansas ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to the west. Kansas is named a ...
witnessed by some 7,000. Robinson launched an amazingly long pass in the game against the Jayhawks, which was variously reported to have traveled 48, 67 or 87 yards in the air.
College Football Hall of Fame coach
David M. Nelson called the pass extraordinary, "considering the size, shape and weight" of the fat, rugby-style ball used at that time. Sports historian John Sayle Watterson
agreed. In his book, ''College Football: History, Spectacle, Controversy'', Watterson described Robinson's long pass as "truly a breathtaking achievement". St. Louis finished with an 11–0 record in 1906, outscoring its opponents 407–11.
In
1909, the Browns moved the diamond to its final location, at the southwest corner, in the shadow of a new steel and concrete grandstand, the third such stadium in the major leagues, and the second in the American League (after
Shibe Park).
The previous wooden grandstand was retained as left-field bleachers for a while, but was soon replaced with permanent bleachers. The Cardinals came back to their original home in mid-1920, as tenants of the Browns, after abandoning the outdated and mostly-wooden Robison Field.
After nearly winning the American League pennant in
1922, Browns owner
Phil Ball confidently predicted that there would be a World Series in Sportsman's Park by 1926: in anticipation, he increased the capacity of his ballpark from 18,000 to 30,000. There ''was''
a World Series in Sportsman's Park in 1926—but it was the Cardinals, not the Browns, who took part in it, with the Cardinals upsetting the Yankees in a memorable seventh game.
Although the Browns had been the stronger team in the city for the first quarter of the century, they had never been quite good enough to win a pennant: after the previously weak Cardinals had moved in, the two teams' situations had started to reverse, both on and off the field. The Cardinals' 1926 World Series victory more or less permanently tipped the balance in their favor, and from then on, the Cardinals were clearly St. Louis' favorite team, though still tenants of the Browns. The
1944 World Series between the Cardinals and the Browns, won by the Cardinals by four games to two, was perhaps a good metaphor for the two clubs' respective situations: it remains the last World Series to be played entirely in one stadium as the home venue for both competing clubs, with the exception of the neutral-site play in the
2020 World Series.
In addition to its primary use as a baseball stadium, Sportsman's Park also hosted several soccer events. These included several in the
St. Louis Soccer League, and the
1948 National Challenge Cup when
St. Louis Simpkins-Ford defeated
Brookhattan for the national soccer championship.
In 1936, Browns owner Phil Ball died. His family sold the Browns to businessman
Donald Lee Barnes, but the Ball estate maintained ownership of Sportsman's Park until 1946, when it was sold to the Browns for an estimated price of over US$1 million.
1953 sale
By the early 1950s, it was clear that St. Louis could not support both teams.
Bill Veeck, owner of the Browns (who at one point lived with his family in an apartment under the park's stands),
fancied that he could drive the Cardinals out of town through his promotional skills. However, Veeck caught an unlucky break when the Cardinals' owner,
Fred Saigh, pleaded
no contest to
tax evasion
Tax evasion or tax fraud is an illegal attempt to defeat the imposition of taxes by individuals, corporations, trusts, and others. Tax evasion often entails the deliberate misrepresentation of the taxpayer's affairs to the tax authorities to red ...
. Faced with certain banishment from baseball, Saigh sold the Cardinals to
Anheuser-Busch in February
1953
Events
January
* January 6 – The Asian Socialist Conference opens in Rangoon, Burma.
* January 12 – Estonian émigrés found a Estonian government-in-exile, government-in-exile in Oslo.
* January 14
** Marshal Josip Broz Tito ...
.
Veeck soon realized that the Cardinals now had more resources at their disposal than he could ever hope to match. Reluctantly, he concluded he was finished in St. Louis, and had no other option but to move the Browns.
As a first step, he sold Sportsman's Park to the Cardinals for $800,000.
Busch immediately renovated the stadium, which had not been well maintained in some time. Even with the rent from the Cardinals, the Browns had not been bringing in nearly enough revenue to bring the park up to code, with city officials even threatening to have the park condemned. Before the
start of the next season, the Browns relocated to
Baltimore
Baltimore is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland. With a population of 585,708 at the 2020 census and estimated at 568,271 in 2024, it is the 30th-most populous U.S. city. The Baltimore metropolitan area is the 20th-large ...
and were rebranded as the
Orioles.
The brewery originally wanted to
name
A name is a term used for identification by an external observer. They can identify a class or category of things, or a single thing, either uniquely, or within a given context. The entity identified by a name is called its referent. A person ...
the ballpark
Budweiser
Budweiser () is an American-style pale lager, a brand of Belgian company AB InBev. Introduced in 1876 by Carl Conrad & Co. of St. Louis, Missouri, Budweiser has become a large selling beer company in the United States. Budweiser is a filte ...
Stadium.
Commissioner
A commissioner (commonly abbreviated as Comm'r) is, in principle, a member of a commission or an individual who has been given a commission (official charge or authority to do something).
In practice, the title of commissioner has evolved to incl ...
Ford Frick
Ford Christopher Frick (December 19, 1894 – April 8, 1978) was an American sportswriter and baseball executive. After working as a teacher and as a sportswriter for the ''New York Journal-American, New York American'', he served as public rela ...
vetoed the name because of public relations concerns over naming a ballpark after a brand of
beer
Beer is an alcoholic beverage produced by the brewing and fermentation of starches from cereal grain—most commonly malted barley, although wheat, maize (corn), rice, and oats are also used. The grain is mashed to convert starch in the ...
. However, the commissioner could not stop Anheuser-Busch president
August Busch Jr. from renaming it after himself, so the park was renamed Busch Stadium. However, many fans still called it by the old name. The Anheuser-Busch "eagle" model that sat atop the left field scoreboard flapped its wings after a Cardinal home run.
The next year, Anheuser-Busch introduced a new economy lager branded as "
Busch Bavarian Beer", thus
gaming Frick's ruling and allowing the ballpark's name to be branded by what would eventually be Anheuser-Busch's second most popular beer brand.
Sportsman's Park / Busch Stadium was the site of a number of
World Series
The World Series is the annual championship series of Major League Baseball (MLB). It has been contested since between the champion teams of the American League (AL) and the National League (NL). The winning team, determined through a best- ...
contests, first way back in the mid-1880s, and then in the modern era. The
1964 Series was particularly memorable, the park's last, and featured brother against brother,
Ken Boyer of the Cardinals and
Clete Boyer of the Yankees. The Cardinals' triumph in seven games led to Yankees management replacing
Yogi Berra with the Cardinals' ex-manager
Johnny Keane (he had resigned after winning the Series), an arrangement which lasted only to early 1966. Both Series managers were St. Louis natives, but neither had ever played for the Cardinals. The stadium also hosted
Major League Baseball All-Star Game
The Major League Baseball All-Star Game, also known as the "Midsummer Classic", is an annual professional baseball game sanctioned by Major League Baseball (MLB) and contested between the all-stars from the American League (AL) and National ...
s in
1940
A calendar from 1940 according to the Gregorian calendar, factoring in the dates of Easter and related holidays, cannot be used again until the year 5280.
Events
Below, events related to World War II have the "WWII" prefix.
January
*Janu ...
,
1948
Events January
* January 1
** The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) is inaugurated.
** The current Constitutions of Constitution of Italy, Italy and of Constitution of New Jersey, New Jersey (both later subject to amendment) ...
, and
1957
Events January
* January 1 – The Saarland joins West Germany.
* January 3 – Hamilton Watch Company introduces the first electric watch.
* January 5 – South African player Russell Endean becomes the first batsman to be Dismissal (cricke ...
.
Replacement
Despite Busch's extensive renovations, it soon became apparent that Sportsman's Park was at the end of its useful life.
Parking at the stadium was almost non-existent. Its concrete-and-steel incarnation had been built only a year after the
Model T was introduced, and the park had been designed in an era when fans took the trolley to games, meaning it was ill-suited to automobile access. Additionally, the neighborhood around the park had an increase in crime and dereliction starting in the late 1940s. In 1964, a Cardinals fan making his way to the home opener was shot and killed during an armed robbery.
[
Sportsman's Park/Busch Stadium was replaced early in the ]1966
Events January
* January 1 – In a coup, Colonel Jean-Bédel Bokassa takes over as military ruler of the Central African Republic, ousting President David Dacko.
* January 3 – 1966 Upper Voltan coup d'état: President Maurice Yaméogo i ...
season by Busch Memorial Stadium
Busch Memorial Stadium (Busch Stadium II) was a multi-purpose sports facility in St. Louis, Missouri, that operated for 40 years, from 1966 St. Louis Cardinals season, 1966 through 2005 St. Louis Cardinals season, 2005. Built as Civic Center Bu ...
, during which time much was made of baseball having been played on the old site for more than a century. A helicopter carried home plate to Busch Memorial Stadium after the final game at Sportsman's Park on May 8, 1966. The 1966 stadium was replaced forty years later by the new Busch Stadium in April 2006.
Donated by August Busch, the Sportsman's Park site became home to the Herbert Hoover
Herbert Clark Hoover (August 10, 1874 – October 20, 1964) was the 31st president of the United States, serving from 1929 to 1933. A wealthy mining engineer before his presidency, Hoover led the wartime Commission for Relief in Belgium and ...
Boys Club, which is now Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater St. Louis. While the grandstand was torn down , the diamond was still intact at the time the structures were cleared, and the field is now used for other sports.
Dimensions
For a small park, there were plenty of posted distance markers. The final major remodeling was done in 1926. Distance markers had appeared by the 1940s:
The following links provide images of the field's markers.
Photo of left field markers
Photo of center and right center field markers
Photo of right field markers
The diamond was conventionally aligned east-northeast (home plate to center field), and the elevation
The elevation of a geographic location (geography), ''location'' is its height above or below a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational equipotenti ...
of the field was approximately above sea level
Mean sea level (MSL, often shortened to sea level) is an mean, average surface level of one or more among Earth's coastal Body of water, bodies of water from which heights such as elevation may be measured. The global MSL is a type of vertical ...
.[
]
Layout
The left field and right field walls ran toward center, roughly perpendicular to the foul lines or at right angles to each other. The center field area was a short diagonal segment connecting the two longer walls. When distance markers were first posted, there was a 426 marker at the left corner of that segment, and a 422 marker at the right corner of it. There was another 422 marker a few feet to the left of the other one, and that marked "true" center field. For symmetry, a corresponding marker (425) was set a few feet to the right of the 426. The two corner markers were eventually painted over, leaving just the 425 and the true centerfield 422
Gallery
File:Sportsman's Park St Louis 1875.jpg, Artist's conception in 1875
File:Sportsman's Park St Louis 1902 04 23.jpg, Before opening day in 1902
File:Sportsman's Park St Louis 1909 Apr 11.jpg, New stands for 1909; previous main stand has become left field seating
File:Sportsmans Park St Louis 1909 Sanborn map.jpg, Sanborn map showing new stands.jpg
See also
* Soccer in St. Louis
References
Further reading
* ''Green Cathedrals'', by Philip J. Lowry
* ''Ballparks of North America'', by Michael Benson
* ''St. Louis' Big League Ballparks'', by Joan M. Thomas
* ''The Year Babe Ruth Hit 104 Home Runs'', by Bill Jenkinson
* Dimensions drawn from baseball annuals.
External links
* (also availabl
published via
Flickr
Flickr ( ) is an image hosting service, image and Online video platform, video hosting service, as well as an online community, founded in Canada and headquartered in the United States. It was created by Ludicorp in 2004 and was previously a co ...
)
KETC – Living St. Louis – Sportsman's Park
8:42 minutes of video, footage of Sportsman's Park in b&w and color and interviews assembled by local PBS station KETC
* Photos of Sportsman's Park: http://www.digitalballparks.com/National/Sportsmans.html
Library of Congress map collection, ''Pictorial St. Louis'', 1875, showing artist's conception of the ballpark
Discussion of team uniforms for 1884, with team photos showing the ballpark
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Busch Memorial Stadium (Busch Stadium II) was a multi-purpose sports facility in St. Louis, Missouri, that operated for 40 years, from 1966 St. Louis Cardinals season, 1966 through 2005 St. Louis Cardinals season, 2005. Built as Civic Center Bu ...
{{succession box
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{{succession box
, title = Host of the All-Star Game
An all-star game is an exhibition game that showcases the best players (the "stars") of a sports league. The exhibition is between two teams organized solely for the event, usually representing the league's teams based on region or division, bu ...
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The stadium opened in April 2009, replacing the Yankee S ...
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