19th Century 3D Ballparks - Page 13

asrivkin · 05-25-2025, 01:28 PM

By request, here's the home of the 1869 Cincnnati Red Stockings, Lincoln Park Grounds (aka Union Grounds). There's a bunch of the kind of information and imagery that I'd normally put in a post (and a lot more!) in this thread started by DrDoom, so I'll keep this relatively short.

Google Drive link to Lincoln Park Grounds

There are no period atlases showing the structures and only relatively rudimentary sketches of the grandstand that date to the relevant period, along with artist's depictions from the modern day. So, this is something of an amalgamation/best guess from those. The same can be said of the dimensions of the field. I took the background from a town nearby Cincinnati, so the topography isn't right, but hopefully it gives something of a flavor of the grassy/open area that (I think) the park was placed in. Period reports do talk about people bringing red handkerchiefs etc. to wave around, so I tried to lean a bit into red paint and flags.

Since this was a request, there could be a version 2 depending on how satisfied they are, and perhaps more versions depending on how adept I am at accommodating them.

I expect to be in a bit of a travel lull and my simulation is nearing the end of its season, so I might be able to get a few more parks done in relatively short order. I'd expect Messer Street to be the next one I tackle, unless something else grabs me first...

DrDoom · 05-25-2025, 10:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by asrivkin

By request, here's the home of the 1869 Cincnnati Red Stockings, Lincoln Park Grounds (aka Union Grounds). There's a bunch of the kind of information and imagery that I'd normally put in a post (and a lot more!) in this thread started by DrDoom, so I'll keep this relatively short.

Google Drive link to Lincoln Park Grounds

There are no period atlases showing the structures and only relatively rudimentary sketches of the grandstand that date to the relevant period, along with artist's depictions from the modern day. So, this is something of an amalgamation/best guess from those. The same can be said of the dimensions of the field. I took the background from a town nearby Cincinnati, so the topography isn't right, but hopefully it gives something of a flavor of the grassy/open area that (I think) the park was placed in. Period reports do talk about people bringing red handkerchiefs etc. to wave around, so I tried to lean a bit into red paint and flags.

Since this was a request, there could be a version 2 depending on how satisfied they are, and perhaps more versions depending on how adept I am at accommodating them.

I expect to be in a bit of a travel lull and my simulation is nearing the end of its season, so I might be able to get a few more parks done in relatively short order. I'd expect Messer Street to be the next one I tackle, unless something else grabs me first...

This is spectacular and, considering how little there is out there on the ballpark itself, I'd say you captured its essence quite nicely - i.e. I think anyone well versed in baseball history would see this and go "Oh, that is definitely Union Grounds in Cincinnati". Well done and thank you so much. On a side note, I have been slowly piecing together a semi-accurate panorama of the surrounding area at that time and, if I ever finish it, I'll send it your way, should you choose to update the park to use it.

asrivkin · 05-27-2025, 07:22 AM

I'm happy to update this if/when there's a new background! And certainly no pressure or rush on it. It's not going anywhere, and hopefully neither am I.

asrivkin · 05-28-2025, 11:34 PM

OK, quick note about the Messer Street Grounds. Thanks to all who've been adding info. I did some experimentation about a year ago and found that if the CF dimension isn't about 350 feet, the center fielder will be placed out past the wall (and then rush through the wall to make plays). So, while the quoted CF distance for Messer Street is 317 feet, I'm going to make it no less than 350 feet.

I'm also not honestly sure that it was 317 feet, though I absolutely see a whole bunch of citations of that number out there on the wild internet. The park doesn't show up on any of the period atlases I've found, but there is a depiction on a c. 1880 birds-eye-view-style "map" of Providence. I'm attaching a screenshot of a zoom of the park below.

There may be some (or lots of?) artistic license here, but it looks to me like the playing area is rectangular in front of the boxy grandstand. Nothing in there is to scale, presumably, but if the placements are kind of right I can imagine a very short left field line and a much longer right field line, maybe consistent with the foul line lengths that are out there. In any case, I'm going to try to see if I can reconcile the dimensions that were provided in other posts with this map, again with the proviso that the CF distance will be 350 feet.

Wish me luck.

asrivkin · 06-01-2025, 03:42 PM

OK, I just got this one done and there's no sense in sitting on it. Here's Messer Street Grounds, home to the only major-league baseball team that the Ocean State has ever (full-time) hosted, the National League's Providence Grays. Messer Street was home to the Grays for their entire tenure, from 1878-1885, including pennant winners in 1879 and 1884. The latter team is particularly famous for winning the first "World Series", with Old Hoss Radbourn setting the record for wins in a season in the process.

Google Drive link to Messer Street Grounds (updated 3 June 2025)

This one was somewhat easier than I was expecting, given the discussion in this thread. As noted here and in discussions on the internet, the shape of the lot seems to have been square but with a cutout for a few houses that already existed, which accounts for the short left field line. The depiction I put in the last post suggests that there wasn't anything built out past the center field fence, and playing with the distances suggests that the distance to CF could have been more like 325-330 feet than 318. Regardless, even 330 feet is too shallow for OOTP, so I tweaked things so it was 350. I seet the dimensions in the Park Profile to be what's out there in most of the sources, though, so it doesn't match the model dimensions. I don't expect this to cause any problems. The park factors are also all set to 1, per usual practice for these 19th-century stadia.

For those curious, the background is from Fall River, so pretty close by but not actually Providence.

As usual, let me know if you have any feedback! I think this was the last unmodeled NL19th century ballpark that was used for a significant period of time (3 years plus, maybe even 2 years plus). I'll take a look at what's out there and most useful, it may be that I do a few West Coast/non-MLB parks for a bit...

zappa1 · 06-01-2025, 05:56 PM

No texture folder for this one?

asrivkin · 06-01-2025, 07:25 PM

Oh, ugh. I’m not in a place to check this at the moment, but I should be able to fix it tonight!

asrivkin · 06-01-2025, 08:54 PM

OK, I've fixed the link for Messer Street Grounds above--I had a different file with the same name, and I think that's where my confusion came in. Let me know if I screwed it up again!

zappa1 · 06-02-2025, 10:17 AM

Something is still wrong. When I try to load the park in OOTP25, after loading the park it freezes. I can't do ball locations or 3D to do camaras. Nothing.
In OOTP26, after loading the park, I can do ball locations, but when I go to 3D model there is a crazy flashing glitch and you can't do anything.

In both cases, I had to use Ctrl, Alt, Delete to bring up the task manager to exit the game.

asrivkin · 06-02-2025, 12:54 PM

Hmm. Sorry about that, but no idea what would do that--I'll give it a look tonight when I get home from work!

asrivkin · 06-02-2025, 05:51 PM

OK, I'm not sure what the trouble may be. It seems to be running OK, and I've just been playing an exhibition game in the park with no obvious issues.

I uploaded a freshly-compressed version of the park, let's see if this helps: Latest attempt at Messer Street Grounds. There's one very small change where I updated the mtl and texture folders, but it was working fine for me before then so I don't think that would be the problem? In any case, I got rid of the download link above. Before installing the new zip file I guess I'd nuke the site from orbit (or maybe just delete the old folder), since it's the only way to be sure.

zappa1 · 06-03-2025, 09:36 AM

It is good to go. It works no problem now. Maybe my download was corrupted. But any case it's good now. Thank you for another edition to the library.

asrivkin · 06-03-2025, 10:02 AM

Great, glad to hear it!

asrivkin · 06-25-2025, 10:32 AM

Hi, all.

I've been doing a bit of poking around to see what information is out there to make some more 19th-century ballparks that are at least somewhat historical. In addition to doing a little bit of cleanup/catchup so the thread opener lists all the finished parks in this thread.

There are something like a dozen cities that are currently unrepresented in this thread but had "major league" teams (NL, AA, PL, UA) in the 19th century. My goal is to come up with at least one ballpark for each of those cities. It's something of a stretch goal, but I do feel confident that I can get something for most of these cities that is at least somewhat historical.

At the moment, I'm planning to tackle the cities that had teams for several years in this span--Riverside Grounds in Buffalo is almost ready to post, and the first priority group will be (at least as of now) one park in Indianapolis, Columbus, Kansas City, and Worcester. After that, I do have some info for some of the other cities. I'll also try to make a more generic grounds for places with no info that I've found (like Richmond). I may also try to do Forepaugh Park in Philadelphia, which is one of the only Players League parks we're missing.

Thanks, more to come!

asrivkin · 06-25-2025, 08:41 PM

Here's Riverside Grounds (or Park), home of the National League's Buffalo Bisons for the first five of their seven years as an NL club: 1879-1883. The park was apparently nowhere near any rivers, and it's not clear why or how it got the name, for what it's worth.

Google Drive link to Riverside Grounds

There's only one photograph, and I didn't have any access to any atlases that included it, but there's some information out there about dimensions. As-is, the park was too small at the lines to be used, but I increased the width somewhat to lengthen the foul lines. The outfielders should be OK, but let me know if there's a problem I didn't find.

The background is from a nearby area in Buffalo, if not quite exactly the spot where the stadium was. Close, though!

BaseballMan · 06-28-2025, 07:17 AM

Oh, man, just in time for Buffalo's last season in my current sim.
But it will be there when I run my next sim.

05-25-2025, 01:28 PM	#241
asrivkin Major Leagues Join Date: Aug 2020 Location: Maryland Posts: 314	Lincoln Park/Union Grounds, Cincinnati By request, here's the home of the 1869 Cincnnati Red Stockings, Lincoln Park Grounds (aka Union Grounds). There's a bunch of the kind of information and imagery that I'd normally put in a post (and a lot more!) in this thread started by DrDoom, so I'll keep this relatively short. Google Drive link to Lincoln Park Grounds There are no period atlases showing the structures and only relatively rudimentary sketches of the grandstand that date to the relevant period, along with artist's depictions from the modern day. So, this is something of an amalgamation/best guess from those. The same can be said of the dimensions of the field. I took the background from a town nearby Cincinnati, so the topography isn't right, but hopefully it gives something of a flavor of the grassy/open area that (I think) the park was placed in. Period reports do talk about people bringing red handkerchiefs etc. to wave around, so I tried to lean a bit into red paint and flags. Since this was a request, there could be a version 2 depending on how satisfied they are, and perhaps more versions depending on how adept I am at accommodating them. I expect to be in a bit of a travel lull and my simulation is nearing the end of its season, so I might be able to get a few more parks done in relatively short order. I'd expect Messer Street to be the next one I tackle, unless something else grabs me first... Attached Images Last edited by asrivkin; 05-25-2025 at 02:17 PM. Reason: correcting the link to DrDoom's thread

05-28-2025, 11:34 PM	#244
asrivkin Major Leagues Join Date: Aug 2020 Location: Maryland Posts: 314	OK, quick note about the Messer Street Grounds. Thanks to all who've been adding info. I did some experimentation about a year ago and found that if the CF dimension isn't about 350 feet, the center fielder will be placed out past the wall (and then rush through the wall to make plays). So, while the quoted CF distance for Messer Street is 317 feet, I'm going to make it no less than 350 feet. I'm also not honestly sure that it was 317 feet, though I absolutely see a whole bunch of citations of that number out there on the wild internet. The park doesn't show up on any of the period atlases I've found, but there is a depiction on a c. 1880 birds-eye-view-style "map" of Providence. I'm attaching a screenshot of a zoom of the park below. There may be some (or lots of?) artistic license here, but it looks to me like the playing area is rectangular in front of the boxy grandstand. Nothing in there is to scale, presumably, but if the placements are kind of right I can imagine a very short left field line and a much longer right field line, maybe consistent with the foul line lengths that are out there. In any case, I'm going to try to see if I can reconcile the dimensions that were provided in other posts with this map, again with the proviso that the CF distance will be 350 feet. Wish me luck. Attached Images

06-01-2025, 03:42 PM	#245
asrivkin Major Leagues Join Date: Aug 2020 Location: Maryland Posts: 314	Messer Street Grounds, Providence OK, I just got this one done and there's no sense in sitting on it. Here's Messer Street Grounds, home to the only major-league baseball team that the Ocean State has ever (full-time) hosted, the National League's Providence Grays. Messer Street was home to the Grays for their entire tenure, from 1878-1885, including pennant winners in 1879 and 1884. The latter team is particularly famous for winning the first "World Series", with Old Hoss Radbourn setting the record for wins in a season in the process. Google Drive link to Messer Street Grounds (updated 3 June 2025) This one was somewhat easier than I was expecting, given the discussion in this thread. As noted here and in discussions on the internet, the shape of the lot seems to have been square but with a cutout for a few houses that already existed, which accounts for the short left field line. The depiction I put in the last post suggests that there wasn't anything built out past the center field fence, and playing with the distances suggests that the distance to CF could have been more like 325-330 feet than 318. Regardless, even 330 feet is too shallow for OOTP, so I tweaked things so it was 350. I seet the dimensions in the Park Profile to be what's out there in most of the sources, though, so it doesn't match the model dimensions. I don't expect this to cause any problems. The park factors are also all set to 1, per usual practice for these 19th-century stadia. For those curious, the background is from Fall River, so pretty close by but not actually Providence. As usual, let me know if you have any feedback! I think this was the last unmodeled NL19th century ballpark that was used for a significant period of time (3 years plus, maybe even 2 years plus). I'll take a look at what's out there and most useful, it may be that I do a few West Coast/non-MLB parks for a bit... Attached Images Last edited by asrivkin; 06-03-2025 at 10:02 AM. Reason: inserted link to working version of ballpark

06-02-2025, 10:17 AM	#249
zappa1 Hall Of Famer Join Date: Apr 2012 Location: Pennsylvania Posts: 2,116	Something is still wrong. When I try to load the park in OOTP25, after loading the park it freezes. I can't do ball locations or 3D to do camaras. Nothing. In OOTP26, after loading the park, I can do ball locations, but when I go to 3D model there is a crazy flashing glitch and you can't do anything. In both cases, I had to use Ctrl, Alt, Delete to bring up the task manager to exit the game. Last edited by zappa1; 06-02-2025 at 02:49 PM.

06-25-2025, 08:41 PM	#255
asrivkin Major Leagues Join Date: Aug 2020 Location: Maryland Posts: 314	Riverside Grounds, Buffalo Here's Riverside Grounds (or Park), home of the National League's Buffalo Bisons for the first five of their seven years as an NL club: 1879-1883. The park was apparently nowhere near any rivers, and it's not clear why or how it got the name, for what it's worth. Google Drive link to Riverside Grounds There's only one photograph, and I didn't have any access to any atlases that included it, but there's some information out there about dimensions. As-is, the park was too small at the lines to be used, but I increased the width somewhat to lengthen the foul lines. The outfielders should be OK, but let me know if there's a problem I didn't find. The background is from a nearby area in Buffalo, if not quite exactly the spot where the stadium was. Close, though! Attached Images

05-27-2025, 07:22 AM	#243
asrivkin Major Leagues Join Date: Aug 2020 Location: Maryland Posts: 314	I'm happy to update this if/when there's a new background! And certainly no pressure or rush on it. It's not going anywhere, and hopefully neither am I.

06-01-2025, 05:56 PM	#246
zappa1 Hall Of Famer Join Date: Apr 2012 Location: Pennsylvania Posts: 2,116	No texture folder for this one?

06-01-2025, 07:25 PM	#247
asrivkin Major Leagues Join Date: Aug 2020 Location: Maryland Posts: 314	Oh, ugh. I’m not in a place to check this at the moment, but I should be able to fix it tonight!

06-01-2025, 08:54 PM	#248
asrivkin Major Leagues Join Date: Aug 2020 Location: Maryland Posts: 314	OK, I've fixed the link for Messer Street Grounds above--I had a different file with the same name, and I think that's where my confusion came in. Let me know if I screwed it up again!

06-02-2025, 12:54 PM	#250
asrivkin Major Leagues Join Date: Aug 2020 Location: Maryland Posts: 314	Hmm. Sorry about that, but no idea what would do that--I'll give it a look tonight when I get home from work!

06-02-2025, 05:51 PM	#251
asrivkin Major Leagues Join Date: Aug 2020 Location: Maryland Posts: 314	OK, I'm not sure what the trouble may be. It seems to be running OK, and I've just been playing an exhibition game in the park with no obvious issues. I uploaded a freshly-compressed version of the park, let's see if this helps: Latest attempt at Messer Street Grounds. There's one very small change where I updated the mtl and texture folders, but it was working fine for me before then so I don't think that would be the problem? In any case, I got rid of the download link above. Before installing the new zip file I guess I'd nuke the site from orbit (or maybe just delete the old folder), since it's the only way to be sure.

06-03-2025, 09:36 AM	#252
zappa1 Hall Of Famer Join Date: Apr 2012 Location: Pennsylvania Posts: 2,116	It is good to go. It works no problem now. Maybe my download was corrupted. But any case it's good now. Thank you for another edition to the library.

06-03-2025, 10:02 AM	#253
asrivkin Major Leagues Join Date: Aug 2020 Location: Maryland Posts: 314	Great, glad to hear it!

06-25-2025, 10:32 AM	#254
asrivkin Major Leagues Join Date: Aug 2020 Location: Maryland Posts: 314	Hi, all. I've been doing a bit of poking around to see what information is out there to make some more 19th-century ballparks that are at least somewhat historical. In addition to doing a little bit of cleanup/catchup so the thread opener lists all the finished parks in this thread. There are something like a dozen cities that are currently unrepresented in this thread but had "major league" teams (NL, AA, PL, UA) in the 19th century. My goal is to come up with at least one ballpark for each of those cities. It's something of a stretch goal, but I do feel confident that I can get something for most of these cities that is at least somewhat historical. At the moment, I'm planning to tackle the cities that had teams for several years in this span--Riverside Grounds in Buffalo is almost ready to post, and the first priority group will be (at least as of now) one park in Indianapolis, Columbus, Kansas City, and Worcester. After that, I do have some info for some of the other cities. I'll also try to make a more generic grounds for places with no info that I've found (like Richmond). I may also try to do Forepaugh Park in Philadelphia, which is one of the only Players League parks we're missing. Thanks, more to come!

06-28-2025, 07:17 AM	#256
BaseballMan Hall Of Famer Join Date: Jan 2002 Posts: 6,493	Oh, man, just in time for Buffalo's last season in my current sim. But it will be there when I run my next sim.