Hi all!
Here's
Oakdale Park, first home to the
Philadelphia Athletics of the American Association, and the park that just about completes the InteGREATed Mod ballparks. It was used by amateurs since the Civil War before it was spruced up for 1882, its single season of professional use. In 1883 the Athletics moved to
Jefferson St. Grounds, ably modeled by dfswans!
Google Drive link to Oakdale Park
As a natural consequence of starting with the parks with the most info, I'm finshing with the ones with some of the least info. Even
SABR's article on Early Philadelphia Baseball only grants it a scant mention, and a chance encounter on social media with a historian of 19th century Philadelphia baseball also showed that there's not much out there. There are a few mentions from contemporary newspapers on the Protoball website, including a description of a three-part grandstand of 200' length with a small pavilion on top for the press, and uncovered seating along the sides. Period maps show a pond in what's called Oakdale Park ("park" being used in the "Central Park" way here), so I stuck that next to the ballpark for fun. It's got the look and feel of the other parks from the period that we have more information for, which is probably all we can hope for at this point!
I'll have a few thoughts in the next post about what I'm hoping to do next here, though that hasn't changed much if you've read previous posts on similar topics...
Please enjoy and let me know of any problems!