19th Century 3D Ballparks

[asrivkin]

Hi all,

Today's park is Kansas City's Association Park, home of the Kansas City Cowboys of 1886-1888. The Cowboys were in three different leagues in the three years they were here, with major-league seasons in the NL (1886) and American Association (1888) sandwiching a minor-league season in 1887.

I took what info I could from SABR's articles on KC ballpark sites and baseball in KC in the 1880s specifically, and interested folks can check out other articles on KC baseball history in a SABR collection.

Google Drive link to Kansas City Association Park

Not a whole lot of info out there to work from, but I think this has the flavor of the place for our purposes. There was general agreement that this was a terrible ballpark, and descriptions talked about it being about 10-15 feet below the surrounding grid (some sources saying it was a former pond) with dirt surrounding the pit from roadwork. There also was apparently no grass on the field. There is one sketch from the period, which I took as suggestive rather than gospel. The background is taken from near the real site of the park.

This was _not_ the KC ballpark I intended to work on, I may tackle that one (Exposition Park) next, but first I'll do a summary post with where I think we are on this.

[asrivkin]

OK, here's where I think we stand, this is similar to what Garlon posted the other month but in a different format:

The National League is complete for 1880-1881, 1883, and 1887-1899.
There are only four missing parks used in the NL for more than one season:

• Louisville Base Ball Park (1876-1877)
• Grand Avenue Park (St. Louis, 1876-1877)
• Olympic Park I (Buffalo, 1884-1885)
• Union Grounds (St. Louis, 1885-1886)

The American Association is complete for 1882 and 1885-1888. Only one missing park was used for more than one season: Columbus' Recreation Park I (1883-1884). There are six missing parks needed to complete 1889-1891 for the AA, I seem to think that there's enough info out there to do a reasonable job on at least five of them:

• Exposition Park (KC, 1889)
• Wallace's Ridgewood Park (Brooklyn, 1890)
• Star Park (Syracuse, 1890)
• Pendleton Park (Cincinnati, 1891)
• Forepaugh Park (Phildelphia, 1891)

Forepaugh Park is also one of only two missing Players' League parks, though I haven't found anything at all on the other one (Cleveland's Brotherhood Park), which I think would have to be generic or fictional or maybe just adopt the existing Cleveland NL park from that period.

1884 is something of a mess with the Union Association and teams coming and going, and might be the best setting for a generic park. I've had a couple of DM exchanges with micropterus58, who's had some good ideas about how that might be designed.

As far as the National Association, dswans is the MVP. There is one judgement call to be made--the Jefferson St. Grounds in Philadelphia was the home park for the NA Philadelphia Athletics from 1871-1875 as well as the NA Philadelphia White Stockings from 1873-1875. The version we have is from about 10 years later, and a case could be made that the park had a less-grand grandstand in the 1870s. The case could also easily be made that what we have already is perfectly fine. Other than that there's only one missing NA park used for more than one year--the National Association Grounds used by Forest City (Cleveland).

There's not a ton of info out there about the missing parks, but there is some and Jamesdyl17 has added some things to this thread I've never seen before. So, never say never.

Here's what I'm going to prioritize for my own research and modeling coming up, not necessarily in order. This is not me calling dibs on anything listed or not, but if someone wants to try their hand at one of these please let me know and I won't duplicate effort:

--KC Exposition Park (would finish AA 1889)
--St. Louis Grand Avenue Park (would contribute to finishing the NL 1876-1877 and the NA 1875)
--Louisville Base Ball Park (would contribute to finishing the NL 1876-1877)
--St. Louis Union Grounds (would finish the NL 1886, contribute to finishing it in 1885, and also contribute to the UA)
--The missing 1890-1891 AA parks
--A generic 1884-era park

I expect these will take me a while, but hopefully progress will be steady and we'll be able to tick some more of these off by the time OOTP27 is available! And we can think about stand-in parks as Garlon suggested, as well.

[Garlon]

asrivkin, do we need Olympic Park I or is the Olympic Buffalo Park you already made good enough?

https://forums.ootpdevelopments.com/...2&postcount=10


Is Olympic Park I at the same site as the version you already made? I already downloaded that version you made and put it into the file as the model. I can always update it, but maybe this is good enough.

[bctrackboi11]

I'll take on Pendleton. I'm from Cincinnati so I've got a personal connection.

[asrivkin]

Originally Posted by bctrackboi11

I'll take on Pendleton. I'm from Cincinnati so I've got a personal connection.

Awesome. I've found a bit about it and happy to send what I have, but it wasn't hard to find so you probably already found it.

[asrivkin]

Originally Posted by Garlon

asrivkin, do we need Olympic Park I or is the Olympic Buffalo Park you already made good enough?

https://forums.ootpdevelopments.com/...2&postcount=10


Is Olympic Park I at the same site as the version you already made? I already downloaded that version you made and put it into the file as the model. I can always update it, but maybe this is good enough.

Different site, several blocks away. I did a little poking around last night and there's more info about it in Green Cathedrals than I'd remembered, plus I found a couple of newspaper descriptions from when it opened. So I think I/we can do as reasonable a job with a new model as any of the remaining ones. I'm happy to add it to my to-do list.

[bctrackboi11]

Originally Posted by asrivkin

Awesome. I've found a bit about it and happy to send what I have, but it wasn't hard to find so you probably already found it.

Making some progress...

[bctrackboi11]

East End Park in Cincinnati is available over on my thread.

[asrivkin]

Originally Posted by bctrackboi11

East End Park in Cincinnati is available over on my thread.

Looks great!

[asrivkin]

Happy Saturday!

After Garlon's question last week, I figured I'd just go ahead and make Olympic Park I. This was used by the National League's Buffalo Bisons for their final two years (1884-1885), and was home park for four hall-of-famers in those years.

Google Maps link to Olympic Park 1884

Not a ton of info out there, and no depictions of any kind that I could find--no photos, no contemporary drawings, no later drawings. However, Green Cathedrals describes the shape and overall length of the grandstand and I found a newspaper clipping that says the walls were painted olive green and gives the size of the overall lot.

It is conceivable that this is the very first attempt to depict this ballpark, but I know I left some things out since they wouldn't be seen in-game--for instance, there's a description of a shed for carriages. I also cribbed a bunch (including the background) from the Riverside Park model. But this is unique and a reasonably non-fictional model!

[dfswans]

asrivkin,

These new parks are great. Look at all of this progress!

As promised, my next to come out will be Mansfield Club Grounds (with an assist from Torito_Mancha).

I am nearly finished, but also wanted to let you know I'm also about half finished with Grand Avenue Park, so I can take at least that one off your hands.

[asrivkin]

Great! I'm hoping to get St. Louis's Union Grounds posted in the next day or two, then (finally) get to KC's Exposition Park, then TBD but maybe Louisville depending on what I can find for it...

[dfswans]

That sounds good. I just realized I missed sharing another park I had built last year, National Association Grounds. I have the model and just need to get it into the game. Below is an update on where I'm at with priorities. I need to get better at focusing on one park at a time, but it gets tedious.

1. Mansfield Club Grounds -- will share in the next couple of days
2. Grand Avenue Park -- not far behind
3. National Association Grounds -- model complete; importing to OOTP
4. Jefferson Street Grounds (earlier version) -- need to move the diamond and make other changes
5. Union Park (pre-fire version) -- need to build grandstand and clean it up
6. Hamilton Park -- structure built, need to complete field
7. West Seventh Street Park -- just have a start

If anyone is desperate for a particular park to start a league or something, just let me know and I can reorder my priorities. I feel like I would be more productive if I stuck to one at a time, but when I'm researching I see something interesting and go off in another direction sometimes.

Once I'm done with these, assuming we're close to completion with everything I may go back and improve some of the parks. I am slowly learning more about managing file sizes and finding new tools and resources to improve my parks, so looking back at earlier work can be frustrating.

[asrivkin]

I am delighted to share with you the Union Grounds, home to the St. Louis Maroons of the Union Association (1884) and the National League (1885-1886). The Maroons dominated the Union Association during its only year of existence, but did rather poorly as an NL team and moved to Indianapolis in 1887. The grandstand was demolished in 1888.

Google Drive Link to St. Louis Union Grounds 1885

There's a SABR article about this park, and also a little info in Green Cathedrals about it. It's the latter that informed the very short backstop distance and the right field line distance, though I made the right field line distance longer than the claimed distance since it seemed to fit the street map better. I include a screenshot of the street map, though it doesn't show the field at all--it was made the year before the park, and I couldn't find anything from the years the field existed.

The SABR article gave the details about the scoreboard, the white color and the grandstand characteristics, though no dimensions. So, I'd call this historically informed, but we're shooting in the dark as far as details. The background, for those who care about this sort of thing, came from a likely-looking part of Rock Island, IL. I'll also note the odd choice to put a running track in the outfield. This is entirely based on the SABR article, which talks about the outfield being "encompassed" by a track. So, unless they used the word "encompassed" incorrectly, this would be more or less what the track would look like--I used a standard 200-m/indoor running track size, though with only ~2 lanes. If nothing else, it does give the field a bit of individuality...

For those keeping score at home, the latest parks complete the NL back to 1883, and we're one park away from pushing that back to 1880. I really think I'll do Exposition Park in KC next, then it may be a tossup between Forepaugh Park, and the Troy Base Ball Grounds (1882).

[dfswans]

Another beauty!

[dfswans]

Mansfield Club Grounds

As legend has it, the Middletown Mansfields couldn't convince the Boston Red Stockings to come to town for a few exhibition games in 1872. Boston suggested that Middletown should join a professional league if they want to play professional teams, and they did just that by paying a $10 fee to join the National Association.

The park itself was famously rough. Built in a rush for the 1871 campaign on a donated hilltop lot overlooking the city and the Connecticut River, it featured an 8‑foot fence around a 450' x 350' enclosure, uneven terrain, and minimal amenities. Contemporary accounts described rising ground from home to the outfield and enough hills and hollows to make clean fielding a challenge. Seating held about 800, likely in simple terrace bleachers flanking home plate. No over‑the‑fence home runs were recorded there until 1872, suggesting a straight outfield fence and foul lines that brought the side fencing into play.

Huge thanks to Torito_Mancha for digging up period sources and helping me piece together the details!

[asrivkin]

New week, new park!

Here's Exposition Park, home of the American Association's Kansas City Cowboys in 1889 (though that Wikipedia article also claims it was their home in 1888). It was built in 1888 and lasted until 1902, serving as the home of the Kansas City Blues minor league club outside of 1889. The park was on the grounds of 1886's Kansas City Exhibition, and sat kitty corner from the showpiece pavilion and next to a horse racing track.

Google Drive link to KC Exposition Park 1889

There's a Sanborn map from 1896 that includes the park and a mosaic of the Exposition area is available on Wikipedia. That map is basically the sum total of what I found to inform the model, but I think it was good enough. The background was taken from a spot next to the Saratoga horse track to try and get that vibe. I found a depiction of the main pavilion and stuck it where I think it would have been. Hopefully it's not too jarring juxtaposed with the actual photography that makes up the rest of the background.

This park completes the AA for 1889 and gives a complete run for the five seasons 1885-1889, along with 1882. Next I'm thinking of trying the Troy Ball Club Grounds from 1882 or Forepaugh Park, and it looks like Dfswans has some more great stuff coming!