Hi all,
With encouragement from Garlon and Silvam, I'm going to start a new project--making 3D ballparks for some 19th century teams. I've got two of them done already and will post them shortly, but I figured I'd use this thread starter to set expectations and ground rules, if only for myself.
Scope: Garlon identified missing ballparks for the still-existing franchises who played in the 1800s. I've copied his list at the bottom of this post and will try to remember to edit this post from time to time to point to the relevant links. At the moment, I'm also hoping to make a few other parks that might be of general interest, like the Providence Grays' home park in 1884 and the Orioles' park from the 1890s. Unlike my other thread, which is pretty open-ended, I do imagine this thread reaching an end--I'm not going to try to make something for the Wilmington Quicksteps, for instance.
Verisimilitude and Historicity: I really enjoy the research aspect of ballpark making, which is probably why I've ended up making all the 1910s-1920s ones that I have. There's a lot less available for most of the parks below, but I expect to be able to do at least something for all of them (famous last words).
Having said that, there are things that will 100% be ahistorical. The most obvious one is that the distance to the mound changed during this period, and there is no way to make the game show anything other than 60' 6". However, I'll try to do things like make the mound into a box or a strip or whatever was contemporary. If necessary, I'll also be increasing the dimensions of ballparks so that all the outfielders are on the field rather than starting a play out in the street. After some experiments and measurements, though, I don't think it'll be a problem as often as I'd feared.
Finally, while I usually put in place- and period-appropriate advertisements in my other ballparks I'm going to leave these parks free of ads on the walls.
Pace:: As I noted, I've already got two of these done. My pace on doing parks is pretty uneven--if I've got the time and the gumption and the research done, I can get something done in a couple of days. If any or all of those things are missing, it can be a while. I'm reluctant to give a timeframe, but I suspect I can get all of these done in calendar 2024.
Other: I'm happy to take comments, and to prioritize getting something of particular interest done earlier. I'm happy to have other folks do any (or many!) of the parks below, just let me know what you might want to tackle so I won't worry about it. I'm also happy to provide the Sketchup files to interested parties who want to alter/improve what I post.
Also, a warning if needed--I could be a more detail-oriented guy. I also will sometimes just forget to put in dugouts (though other times I'll omit them if there's no evidence they existed), or run out of patience setting up the grid and not put in as many fence posts as I might. Thank you for your support and patience.
28 Jan 2024 note: Beginning with Sportsman's Park 1882, the park factors will be set to 1.00. Other factors can be added from era_ballparks or other sources as desired. At this writing the first three parks posted (Cincinnati League Park I, Eastern Park, South End Grounds 1888) have different, ahistorical and non-neutral park factors that can be set to 1.00 by users as desired/needed. Depending on personal bandwidth, I may try to reissue these three parks with different park factors if needed.
Garlon's Original List:
Cubs
23rd_street_grounds_1876-1877
lake_front_park_1878-1882 (combined with Lake Front Park 1883-1884)
lake_front_park_1883-1884
west_side_park_1885-1890
south_side_park_1891-1893
Braves
south_end_grounds_1876-1887
south_end_grounds_1888-1894
Cardinals
sportsmans_park_1882-1892
Pirates
exposition_park_1882-1884
recreation_park_1885-1890 [by dfswans]
Reds
bank_street_grounds_1882-1883
league_park_1884-1893
League Park II 1894-1900
Giants
polo_grounds_1883-1888 (We have Polo Grounds 1889-1890, 1890-1910.).
[in progress]
polo_grounds_1889-1890
Phillies
recreation_park_1883_1886
philadelphia_baseball_grounds_1887-1894
Dodgers
washington_park_1884-1889
washington_park_1890 (Suggest using Washington Park 1884-1889.)
eastern_park_1891-1897
Garlon's List of Additional Parks for InteGREATed Mod:
Union Baseball Grounds (Chicago White Stockings 1871-1875): Use Lake Front Park 1871, use 23rd Street Park 1872-1875
Avenue Grounds (Cincinnati Reds 1876-1879): avenue_grounds
Capitoline Grounds (Brooklyn Atlantics 1871-1872): capitoline_grounds
National League Park I (Cleveland Blues 1887-1888) : national_league_park
National League Park II (Cleveland Blues 1889-1890): national_league_park_ii
Oakdale Park (Philadelphia Athletics 1882) Only 1 season, so not essential.: oakdale_park
Newington Park (Baltimore Orioles 1882) Only 1 season, so not essential.: newington_park
Oriole Park (Baltimore Orioles 1883-1888): oriole_park
Oriole Park II (Baltimore Orioles 1889-1891)
Additional Parks by dfswans
Jefferson Street Grounds, Philadelphia (AA, 1883-1890)
Union Grounds, Brooklyn (various NA, NL, and amateur teams 1862-1882)
Eclipse Park I, Louisville (AA and NL, 1882-1892)
Eclipse Park II, Louisville (NL1893-1899)
Union Park, Baltimore (post-fire NL 1895-1899)
Congress Street Grounds, Boston (PL 1890, AA 1891, some NL games in 1894)
Kennard Street Park, Cleveland (NL, 1879-1884)
Hartford Ball Club Grounds, Hartford (NA and NL, 1874-1876)
Additional Parks by asrivkin
Recreation Park, Detroit (NL, 1881-1888)
The first eight parks by asrivkin (that's me) did not include daytime/nighttime/diagram images. On 17 March 2024
I added a post showing where these missing files and new versions of these parks can be downloaded, and I'll also point to new versions below. For version control purposes, the new files will have "complete" in their zip file names.