19th Century 3D Ballparks

[asrivkin]

A note before starting--after some offline advice from Garlon, I'll be setting the park factors to 1.00 for this and upcoming parks. I'll try and go back and do so for the previous few parks, with a new revision number.


Hi all,

Thanks again for the kind words and encouragement! And Pelican, I certainly encourage folks trying their hand at this!

Today I've got the storied original Sportsman's Park, home to the American Association's St. Louis Browns, owned by the (in)famous Chris van der Ahe. There is a ton of material out there about this team, which won four pennants in the MLB-level American Association 1885-1888 and one nascent "World Series".

This park site hosted baseball since the 1860s, and after the Browns left this park in 1893 for Robison Field (which was made years ago by silvam14!) they rebranded as the Cardinals. When the AL added a St. Louis team in 1902, they grabbed the now-vacant Browns name and put up a new park on the now-unused Sportsman's Park site, which was the ballpark some of you old-timers may have visited in-person back in the day.

Google Drive Link to Sportsman's Park 1882

I haven't play-tested this one yet, but rather than wait I figured I'd post it now. I don't see any reason this one should be tricky with the grid or walls or anything, and it looks OK in game. There are a couple of Easter eggs like the beer garden in right field, which was in play in real life. Here it's entirely in foul ground, but the grid is set so that the players can run through it--go ahead and change the grid if you don't want that. I'm reasonably happy with this one, it wasn't nearly as technically challenging as the Brooklyn or Boston parks I posted recently.

This is its circa 1882 appearance, and for those curious I'm using this site as guidance for lines on the field etc. The claim there is that the "players line" and "coaches line" were in place and stretched the length of the field, so I stuck them in. I also found photos with actual ads in the park from the right time, and since there were only two of them I added them in. The other Easter egg is the scoreboard, which probably is too far to ever be seen in-game. There's an 1883 photo of the team in front of it, which was probably taken at their home opener that year based on the teams involved, so I used Retrosheet to put in plausible scores on an adapted version of that scoreboard.

I've decided to try to get at least one park done for each franchise before starting a 2nd one for each franchise. At least at the moment I'm planning to do Philadelphia next, likely the "Philadelphia Base Ball Grounds", then probably Pittsburgh?

As ever, I hope you enjoy it!

[asrivkin]

Just a quick follow-up to show a view that includes the RF Beer Garden.

[Syd Thrift]

Appropos to nothing but the Von's grocery store chain is still owned by the von der Ahe family. I used to work in tech support for a cell phone company for businesses and I once got to talk to one of the von der Ahe family. I was like "hey, I don't know if you know but Chris von der Ahe has a bit of a, um, reputation in 19th century baseball" and apparently he has a bit of a reputation in the family as well...

[asrivkin]

Hi all,

The newest addition is the Huntingdon Street Grounds, aka the Philadelphia Baseball Grounds. The Phillies moved there in 1887, and didn't leave the site until 1938. In-between, the grounds succumbed to fire and experienced other disasters. The subsequent incarnations of this park have been created by silvam14 and can be found in his thread. Since everything was built and rebuilt on the same site, information about this park is usually given a cursory discussion as a lead-in to longer Baker Bowl articles.

Google Drive link to Huntingdon Street Grounds

I thought I was done with towers and turrets after Boston and Brooklyn, but I was evidently wrong. The towers here are not quite as tall as they were in real life according to the info I've seen, but they're still plenty tall. Photo evidence is scarce for this park, and what I've seen is game action. Nice for flavor, but nothing pointing at the pavilion/grandstand. There are a few sketches, which I include below. The park had a quarter-mile bicycle track on the perimeter of the field, which I stuck in, it also apparently had a scoreboard, which I didn't. :\ Maybe I'll get it in a version 2... This one is also a bit busier than previous ones--I used some of the "stadium textures" that other modders have come up with rather than one of the regular default woods, plus put in 360 degrees of city background. The big building out behind the 1b line isn't historical (the view is from a spot close to but not at the ballpark site anyhow), but you probably won't be using that camera view much, anyhow.

Next up should be one of the Pittsburgh parks, though an alternate path of doing Baltimore, Louisville, and Cincinnati's League Park II has also occurred to me and would complete the NL through the entire 60' 6" pitching mound era...

[zappa1]

Just played Huntingdon and it's very cool. Like it very much. I use more camaras that I've added.

[kcstengelsr]

Love the 360 background idea. Without a 360 background one usually is limited with where he can place custom cameras without odd things showing from time to time.

Good work!

[dfswans]

Asrivkin, I was delighted to log in tonight and see that you've got a great start here. I've been learning how to build 3D models and have spent a good number of hours over the winter trying to make a dent in the 19th century ballparks. By no means would I like to hijack this project, but if you'd be open to a divide and conquer strategy or even collaborating on some models, I would be honored. Luckily, there hasn't been much duplication of efforts so far. I've got a good start on Jefferson Street Grounds, Recreation Park, Union Grounds (Brooklyn), Eclipse Park (I and II), Union Park, Congress Street Grounds, and Kennard Street Park. Shame on me for not paying attention to the message boards this winter. Anyway, again if you decide to just keep plugging along I am grateful for the work you're putting in. If you'd like to split the workload, I'd be excited about that too!

[dfswans]

A few screenshots of where I'm at as of tonight.

[asrivkin]

Originally Posted by dfswans

Asrivkin, I was delighted to log in tonight and see that you've got a great start here. I've been learning how to build 3D models and have spent a good number of hours over the winter trying to make a dent in the 19th century ballparks. By no means would I like to hijack this project, but if you'd be open to a divide and conquer strategy or even collaborating on some models, I would be honored. Luckily, there hasn't been much duplication of efforts so far. I've got a good start on Jefferson Street Grounds, Recreation Park, Union Grounds (Brooklyn), Eclipse Park (I and II), Union Park, Congress Street Grounds, and Kennard Street Park. Shame on me for not paying attention to the message boards this winter. Anyway, again if you decide to just keep plugging along I am grateful for the work you're putting in. If you'd like to split the workload, I'd be excited about that too!

Oh, those look amazing! I'm happy to divide and conquer, and/or collaborate if we have compatible software. I look forward to seeing these!

I'm working on Cincinnati's League Park II right now, I'll mark the ones in your post as in progress on the page 1 list. Just to be sure, the ones you're working on are:

Jefferson Street Grounds (Philadelphia 1864-1883)
Recreation Park (Pittsburgh 1885-1890 or Philadelphia 1883-1886?)
Union Grounds (Brooklyn 1862-1882)
Eclipse Park (I and II) (Louisville),
Union Park (Baltimore 1891-1894 or 1895-1899?),
Congress Street Grounds (1890-1891, a bit of 1894)
Kennard Street Park (Cleveland 1879-1894).

[dfswans]

Wonderful! I was working on an early version of Eastern Park but I will delete that one tonight because the one you built is great and I was only in the early stages. I'm just glad I didn't wait longer to find your thread!

Below is a complete and accurate list of 1800s ballparks I'm working on.

Jefferson Street Grounds (Philadelphia 1883-91?)
-As you probably already know, they moved the diamond all over the place and information is scarce. My model is based on the 27th and Jefferson Street field. I haven't had much luck in finding pre-1883 info but we can revisit.

Recreation Park (Pittsburgh 1885-1890)

Union Grounds (Brooklyn 1862-1882)

Eclipse Park (I and II) (Louisville)

Union Park (Baltimore 1895-1899)
I think OOTP treats as one park. I wasn't even aware of the split you mentioned below, but it sounds like the grandstand was rebuilt on the same site so I think I can use the later model to eventually create the earlier version.

Congress Street Grounds (1890-1891, a bit of 1894)

Kennard Street Park (Cleveland 1879-1894)

I will warn you I have not really figured out how to handle backgrounds. I try to fill the immediate exterior of the park with some decent looking 3D imagery, but the backdrops are not my strength. My models are formatted for SketchUp 2023 on PC. At some point I'll either figure it out or ask for help. If you want to send me some or all of your SketchUp files at some point, I could probably learn by just playing around in those and seeing how you handle it, because I've always been a fan of your backgrounds.

[asrivkin]

Ooh. I'm too much of a packrat (in real and virtual life) to delete anything!

I'm running Sketchup Make (so, 2017) on a Mac, so I think at best you can open my files but not the reverse. I'm happy to put them on Google Drive and let you get to them, and happy to help as I can! I also really struggle with backgrounds so I'm happy (if surprised!) that you like them. I've taken to taking screenshots in Google Earth Pro, ideally from the site of the former ballpark and looking in the right direction, and then removing the sky from them.

But yeah, the space between the ballpark walls and the background is always tough for me. The very first ballpark I did started out as a disaster as I tried to do the whole area near Terrapin Park (or at least what I imagined it might be) out to a half-mile radius, with lots of 3D Warehouse models stuck in. It probably was a gigabyte in the end and took hours to output the .obj file, and I started again from scratch. I think my design sense has improved since then.

[Garlon]

I am tentatively planning a 19th century mod that will take the original 16 franchises and bring them into the league in groups of 4 by tying their franchise ID to other historical teams so that it seems to make sense. This way you could start a league in 1871 and the league will automatically expand without having to deal with teams contracting.


1871-1875
Braves
Cubs
Dodgers
Giants

1876-1881
Reds
Cardinals
Phillies
Pirates

1882-1891
Athletics
Guardians
Tigers
Yankees

1892-1900
Orioles
White Sox
Red Sox
Twins

For the last group I can just roll them back from 1901 to 1892 along with their ballparks from 1901.


For the other 3 groups they go through these progressions and ballparks:

Green = Silvam

Blue = Asrivkin

Yellow = dfswans

[asrivkin]

Happy Sunday!

As noted early in this thread, the Reds spent decades at the same site rotating their diamond around and building and rebuilding seating as economics and disaster required. In 1894 they moved home plate from League Park I and made the old backstop into the right field corner, and built new stands. That's what folks call League Park II. In 1900 League Park II caught fire, destroying the 1894 grandstand but not the earlier one, so they moved home plate again to the League Park I orientation and played that way through the 1901 season, then in 1902 they rebuilt the grandstand that had burned down in 1900, now calling it "The Palace of the Fans", which ended up the name of the whole ballpark. Then in 1912 they tore the whole thing down and rebuilt it as Crosley Field. Clear as mud, yeah?

The trick is that the park in that 1900-1901 period doesn't have a clear name and it's admittedly something of a niche concern. As far as I can tell, the OOTP park we have is the 1900-1901 configuration (which makes perfect sense given a priority of getting all the 20th century parks covered!) but the 1894-1900 configuration isn't. So, that's what this park is--the 1894-1900 configuration of Cincinnati's League Park, with the 1894 grandstand.

Google Drive Link to Cincinnati League Park II.

I naively thought that making this one would be as simple as moving home plate and rotating the field from League Park I, but I hadn't thought through that the other model was centered on its home plate and that having the origin of the coordinate system in the right field corner would make things look very odd. I also had to change a bunch of other things, but I was fittingly able to reuse the League Park I stands as well as some other elements like the background images, and I tried to keep the other nearby buildings in more or less their same positions as I could. I think I'm one central turret short of a full deck (so to speak) according to one of the drawings, but not according to the other one.

Next up I'll try to tackle some of the parks on Garlon's newer list that are unspoken for, though I'll start by giving the Cubbies some love...

[txranger]

Amazing work here... Many thanks...

[oosl]

Originally Posted by txranger

Amazing work here... Many thanks...

Absolutely, no question.

[Garlon]

Interesting stuff about league park Asrivkin.

No pressure on trying to complete all of these. That lost I posted just added a bunch of new ballparks. For the mod I can always work around this by just having a different model load for those seasons where we do not have the real ballpark.

[asrivkin]

Originally Posted by Garlon

Interesting stuff about league park Asrivkin.

No pressure on trying to complete all of these. That lost I posted just added a bunch of new ballparks. For the mod I can always work around this by just having a different model load for those seasons where we do not have the real ballpark.

No worries, I'm feeling no pressure here!

[asrivkin]

OK, next up is Chicago's South Side Park (II). This was built for the Chicago entry in the Players' League in 1890, accounting for one of its alternate names ("Brotherhood Park"), and the then-Colts now-Cubs moved in after the Players' League. They did not stay long, however, as a desire to play Sunday ball while the World's Columbian Exposition (aka the World's Fair) was in town led them to build West Side Park. The site of this ballpark is now a parking lot for the White Sox' park.

Google Drive link to South Side Park 1891

There's not much info about this park at all. It doesn't show up on any contemporary atlases, there's very little in Green Cathedrals about it save the capacity and the wall height. There's one contemporary newspaper sketch of football action in the park, and one researcher who made a drawing of its layout relative to the street grid. On the other hand, that did give me some freedom to make things a bit more convenient to model and not have to know I was being ahistorical by doing so...

I think this park gets us back to 1891 for the eight present-day NL teams that existed back then!

[dfswans]

I'm kicking off the parks I volunteered to help with by sharing Congress Street Grounds in Boston. While not all that historically significant, the park was decent looking from an architectural standpoint. Add in the view of Boston Harbor and it's a neat park. It was home to the Boston Reds in 1890-91.

Google Drive link to Congress Street Grounds

Information is limited here so I did end up taking some liberties, but made the most educated decisions possible. For example, I had figures for the total size of the site but not exact dimensions. There is repeated commentary from newspaper articles of the time stating that home runs were routinely hit over the left field wall, but that it was nearly impossible to hit them elsewhere. Given that and a suggestion that the left field wall was less than 250 feet away from home, I fit my estimated playing field dimensions into the known overall site dimensions.

Just a note here that I have only been creating 3D models for a few months and this is the first park I'm brave enough to share, so I'm certainly open to any feedback. Games are running smoothly so far, but I haven't done a lot of testing yet.

[Syd Thrift]

Not to add work for you - well a little to add work, haha - but do we have good parks prior to the City Beautiful movement of the 1910s that brought in Shibe, Ebbets, Wrigley, and so on? I could be way off here but there are a few post-1900 parks that still aren't entirely filled in - Exhibition Stadium (or whatever we're calling it now) in Brooklyn, the Palace of the Fans in Cincinnati (great name for a park; too bad it only lasted for 9 years), Cleveland's home park, not to mention the "lost" stadia that the 1901 Milwaukee Cowboys and 1901-2 Baltimore Orioles played in.