In 1880,
Troy was the 6th-largest city in New York state, with a bit less than 60,000 people. It was not even the largest city in the immediate area, with Albany 5 miles way and 50% bigger. However, it had an entry in the National League, the only city in the state other than Buffalo that could make that claim in 1880.
The Trojans lasted for four years in the NL, finishing as high as 4th place but never reaching .500 in a season. Five Hall of Famers played for the Trojans, including standouts like Roger Connor, Buck Ewing, and Dan Brouthers.
In their final season, the Trojans played at the Troy Ball Club Grounds, across the Hudson from Troy in West Troy (today's Watervliet). That's the model I've got for you today!
When William Hulbert died in 1882, his weird vendetta against the cities of New York and Philadelphia died with him and Troy and Worcester were expelled from the NL to make way for the two metropolises. These two teams met in Worcester to end their seasons and their tenures in the NL, drawing 6 paid attendees to their penultimate game, and 25 to their final game.
Google Drive link for Troy Ball Club Grounds
Lots of preamble today because there's not a lot to say about the model, exactly. It shows up on a Sanborn Map from 1885, which was why I decided to try it, but as I was doing the modeling I realized that the placement of the grandstand and the road meant a really short left field line if the grandstand was behind home plate and looking toward the outfield. So I decided to orient things so the grandstand was along the first base line. I honestly have no idea whether this is what they did, or if the map is wrong, or the road wasn't there or what, but I think it's as good a guess as any?
This completes the NL back to 1880, inclusive. I haven't found much for the remaining NL parks, and am putting them on the back burner for now. I think the next ones up for me are going to be
Wallace's Ridgewood Park (AA 1890) or one of three Union Association Parks (
Belair Lot,
Dartmouth Grounds,
Columbia Grounds in Altoona). I also did a retrofit of Silvam's Borchert Field to be more 1890s-ish, which I plan to post.
But I do think we are close to running out of any pictorial depictions to work from, whether map or sketch, for missing parks. Maybe there are some things we can dig up that aren't freely found on the internet, and maybe there are purely text descriptions we can work from, but I think we are already well past what I was imagining we'd be able to do when we started!