19th Century 3D Ballparks

[asrivkin]

OK, the post now has a link with a .prk file in it!

Originally Posted by zappa1

A heads up, though, I don't see a .prk file.

[zappa1]

Originally Posted by asrivkin

OK, the post now has a link with a .prk file in it!

Thank you. I saw that it was missing so I thought I would tell you. Love the beyond the outfield scene. And the top of the stands behind home plate kinda reminds me of and old radio.

[asrivkin]

Yes, thanks for letting me know so I could fix it!

And yes, I can see that resemblance...

[goroyals]

Wanted to pop in and say I have greatly enjoyed using all the parks in this thread. It has added an enormous amount of character and depth to my current 19c fictional league.

[asrivkin]

Just got this one done, so it's time for another post! This is Recreation Park in Philadelphia, first home of the Philadelphia Phillies!

Google Drive Link to Philadelphia Recreation Park

There's not a ton of information out there about this park--only one photo (which has a limited field of view), an appearance on only one map (that I could find), a tiny appearance in a period artist's birds-eye view of all of Philadelphia, and a much after-the-fact depiction by a researcher. Even so, reconciling even those last two required a bit of fiddling and in order to fit into the street grid in the map the park has to be less symmetrical than the depiction suggests it should be. I also had to change the backstop distance from the 79' sources claim to a more standard 60', along with various other dimensions. All together, though, I'm reasonably satisfied with this one in terms of look-and-feel. The thing I'm realizing as I write this, though, is that the filename is off by a year. My apologies for that mistake!

Posting this ballpark finishes the Phillies franchise!

[joefromchicago]

Originally Posted by asrivkin

I also had to change the backstop distance from the 79' sources claim to a more standard 60', along with various other dimensions.

Great work, as always! I would, however, suggest that the sources are probably accurate here. The 60' minimum distance to the backstop wasn't mandated until the 20th century (I don't have my sources in front of me, but I think it was in the early decades of the century). Prior to that, the backstop was often 90' or greater behind home plate. In part, that's because a lot of parks didn't have protective netting in front the stands, so park owners wanted as much distance as practicable between the batter and the fans. Also, in the nineteenth century, many fans were familiar with cricket, where the pitch is in the middle of a large field, and so they were used to seeing the batters from a long distance.

[asrivkin]

Originally Posted by joefromchicago

Great work, as always! I would, however, suggest that the sources are probably accurate here. The 60' minimum distance to the backstop wasn't mandated until the 20th century (I don't have my sources in front of me, but I think it was in the early decades of the century). Prior to that, the backstop was often 90' or greater behind home plate. In part, that's because a lot of parks didn't have protective netting in front the stands, so park owners wanted as much distance as practicable between the batter and the fans. Also, in the nineteenth century, many fans were familiar with cricket, where the pitch is in the middle of a large field, and so they were used to seeing the batters from a long distance.

Thank you!

And, yes--to be clear, I wasn't doubting any of the quoted sources, just describing how this model deviates from them to fit into the street grid I adopted! I also ran across references to CF distances that differed by 100', so I figured changing the backstop by 20' wasn't that big a change by comparison.

[zappa1]

This is gonna be great for me. I'm playing the 1884 season right now and the Quakers, (Phillies), are my team of control. Blondy Purcell, where oh where did you go? Thank you.

[textilemonster]

It's amazing how... unassuming? these old parks are. A few stands, a square fence, weird-shaped fields because they're built on grounds designed for something else.

[Garlon]

This is great work.

I am planning to make a custom mod for 1871-1900 that gradually brings in the 16 teams from 1901.

There are a few more ballparks that would really help.

Can we add these to the list?



Ballpark: naming convention in era_ballparks file

1. Union Baseball Grounds (Chicago White Stockings 1871-1875): union_base_ball_grounds


2. Avenue Grounds (Cincinnati Reds 1876-1879): avenue_grounds


3. Capitoline Grounds (Brooklyn Atlantics 1871-1872): capitoline_grounds


4. National League Park (Cleveland Blues 1887-1888 and 1889-1890) Not sure if this is the same as League Park in Cleveland.: national_league_park_ii and national_league_park


5. Oakdale Park (Philadelphia Athletics 1882) Only 1 season, so not essential.: oakdale_park


6. Newington Park (Baltimore Orioles 1882) Only 1 season, so not essential.: newington_park


7. Oriole Park (Baltimore Orioles 1883-1890): oriole_park

[asrivkin]

Originally Posted by textilemonster

It's amazing how... unassuming? these old parks are. A few stands, a square fence, weird-shaped fields because they're built on grounds designed for something else.

Yeah, it's striking for sure, especially something like the original South End Grounds in Boston.The earliest of these parks were set up less than 25 years from the formation of baseball's first governing body and any attempts to codify a standard set of rules that didn't vary from club to club.

I try to imagine what people might say if pickleball became a major, major sport in 50 years and fans looked back at its humble beginnings like we're looking at these baseball parks...

[asrivkin]

Originally Posted by Garlon

This is great work.

I am planning to make a custom mod for 1871-1900 that gradually brings in the 16 teams from 1901.

There are a few more ballparks that would really help.

Can we add these to the list?

Thanks for the kind words and continued encouragement!

I'm happy to add some of these to the list as we're getting close to finishing the original one! My understanding is that at least one of these parks may already be underway by dfswans. I'm certainly happy to generally help out and collaborate on getting things done as appropriate and desired!

I'm in the midst of a spate of work travel (hi from Busan!) but hope to get back into this by mid-August...

[BaseballMan]

Have youvtried using one of those ai apps to maybe help give you some ideas for those early 19th century ballparks?
Maybe you could give it what info you can find and have it come with something in the style of parks of that era.

[zappa1]

Originally Posted by BaseballMan

Have youvtried using one of those ai apps to maybe help give you some ideas for those early 19th century ballparks?
Maybe you could give it what info you can find and have it come with something in the style of parks of that era.

It might be interesting just to see what it comes up with. I tried it one time with an old Philly Athletics ball girl from like the 1890's which I know that almost probably they never had at the time. I was totally surprised with what it came up with even though they never existed.

[zappa1]

Just a quick try I got this. I asked it for an old time ball field around 1875.

[BaseballMan]

Thats not bad.
What ai did you use?
I've tried some with copilot but im not sure where it saves it on my android phone. I did one of a in a pasture with wooden fencing and used some early ballpark names to model some ballparks.

I think the great ballpark modders we have here might be able to put in dimensions and other aspects and get something useful.
Might even be helpful for the ballpark construction kit.
I don't think the ai can do everything but i think it has the potential to be useful.

[zappa1]

Bing ai image generator. So, yes the copilot. I kept alternating the criteria a bit with each try to get different results. I was allowed 15 tries with 4 pics per try. I only saved the ones I liked. At first, even though I told it 1875, the first few were way too modern. I wasn't interested in the players on the field so much as I was interested in things like the stands and the fences. Those textures probably could be helpful. I thought it was pretty cool to mess around with today. I saved 21 of the 60 generated today. I don't know either where they get saved on an android phone. I downloaded to my PC. I might post what I saved in a separate thread as I don't want to bog up this thread with them all.

[zappa1]

I've put them in a zip file. Hope you can see them. Two zips.

_0ec3586c-c820-4b8b-a29b-289922f2ab4b.zip

_c802db94-6a98-4d57-b3d8-6516b57dc1ed.zip

[BaseballMan]

Those ai ballparks are awesome.
It looks like what it would be like if you attended a game in the 19th century.
The more detail it can be given the better it may get.
Of course the modders would have to do their magic but i think it might help.
Wonder if it could do anything for the early 20th century parks or even the modern ones.
Come to think of it how bout facegen, logos, ballcaps, uniforms, and ballpark advertisement signs?

[zappa1]

I have tried a baseball card, logo and a uniform. While the graphics are pretty good it has a notoriously very bad spelling problem. So far, that hasn't been fixed that I see. Not only spelled wrong but with weird letters also.