Nielsoncp's Ballpark Concepts and 3D Models

[nielsoncp]

Originally Posted by jg2977

A couple more concept stadiums that might be interesting - In 1965 there was a dome stadium proposal for the Boston Red Sox. Also there were proposals in regards to building the New Yankee Stadium with a retractable roof.

http://www.stadiumpage.com/stpages/soxdome.html

http://riveraveblues.com/2011/02/whe...-a-roof-43093/

Thanks for the suggestions jg! They aren't on the list right now, but if I have a dry spell I'll take a look at them.

[nielsoncp]

Originally Posted by topherlee2

Can't to see more 'what-ifs' especially modern evolution on classic ballparks

Well, good news - we have another classic ballpark re-imagined. This time I decided to take a run at Tiger Stadium. I wanted to give it a Fenway/Wrigleyesque upgrade, including a Ballpark Village like addition:



Inside of the park it's pretty similar to the original. The field is similar in dimensions to where it was in the 1990s, minus building in bullpens in the outfield. Outside of the right field remodel (to be covered below), the biggest tweak is that I reduced the size of the upper deck and included some luxury boxes, because we know those would have been added in in any redo.

In right I decided to build it out a bit more. I scooted in the seats (keeping the overhang over the field) a bit and built out an office building. The wall in right has a hand-operated score board (thanks again to eriqjaffe for his original)



And a new, larger, color scoreboard gets installed above right field, along with the classic Tiger Stadium sign.



It was fun to dig into the history of the stadium, and to imagine what could have been if more effort would have gone into saving it. It's a cool piece of baseball history, and it's too bad that it's gone.

The playing field was pretty small, so it plays up for power hitters and down for everyone else.

Zip file can be found here

Park Factors

Stadium Picture

[apreston48]

Originally Posted by nielsoncp

Lastly for now, Shockhoe Bottom in Richmond also got a refresh. There were some smaller tweaks in the outfield, and extensive remodels outside of the park.

I also made two versions - one branded with the park name and one without.

Branded can be found here

Unbranded can be found here


Day

Night

I love this! Great work. I'm from Richmond and grew up watching the Richmond Braves, would you by chance have anything that would resemble the old/current Diamond?

[nielsoncp]

Originally Posted by apreston48

I love this! Great work. I'm from Richmond and grew up watching the Richmond Braves, would you by chance have anything that would resemble the old/current Diamond?

I haven't done it, and I probably won't for a while. I know eriqjaffe is working his way through the AA fields at the moment, so maybe he'll do it soon. Thanks for asking though!

[nielsoncp]

This one had a bit of finer work to it, and I'm kind of proud of it and will go on for a bit, so I'm going to do this one a bit different - park factors and links below, and then a more detailed summary.

Barney Dreyfuss, Pirates owner at the time the field was constructed, hated home run, so he built a massive park. That reflects itself in the park factors, with a bias towards lefthanded power because of the short porch in left.

Zip file can be found here

Park Factors

Day

Night



Ok, now that that's out of the way...

Forbes Field was a beautiful stadium located close to the Carnegie Library and what is now on the campus of U Pitt. I decided to tackle it, including creating a neighborhood around it:


The stadium originally didn't have bleachers in left, and an open shell around the outside. With the new, moveable 3d settings the surroundings are a lot more noticeable, so I decided to build out a more extensive neighborhood around the stadium:





I also decided to include a few of the finer details in this stadium, including a lot of work on the facade of the stadium. I also built in exit ramps for the first time, which was an adventure to figure out how to do.







Lastly, I decided to do a few updates to the stadium. to reflect what it could have looked like. I added a set of luxury boxes under the second level, evened out the grandstands, and took the batters eye from PNC Park and transported it to Forbes.



Overall I was pretty pleased with how this one turned out. I hope you all enjoy it!

[Bub13]

Originally Posted by apreston48

I love this! Great work. I'm from Richmond and grew up watching the Richmond Braves, would you by chance have anything that would resemble the old/current Diamond?

Same! Would love to see old Parker Field.

[nielsoncp]

Next up in the re-imagined classics series, we have Crosley Field in Cincinnati. Crosley and the surrounding West End neighborhood were "renewed" in the 1960s and 70s, having a highway run through the heart of the neighborhood. I imagined what it could have looked like if the stadium and the surrounding neighborhood were kept and turned into a commercial district, like the 3rd Ward here in Milwaukee.



I added a few features to the stadium, including a couple set of luxury boxes and an extension of the upper deck behind home plate - otherwise the stadium was relatively accurate for where it was in the late 60s. I also added a couple videoboards (including one replacing the old scoreboard in left center) and built a bullpen under the right field bleachers.



The park itself was pretty small, with big walls. Because of the limits of OOTP I didn't include the stadium's trademark sloped warning track, but it still plays relatively true. The high walls mean you'll have a high number of extra base hits and a small number of homers.

Zip file can be found here

Park Factors (taken as I was exiting, hence the strange coloration)

Day

Night

[Deft]

Love the neighborhood additions to your stadiums. Keep up the good work!

[Ty Cobb]

Absolutely love Tiger! I did take a liberty with the electronic display...edited the logo to include pix of Ernie Harwell, Sparky, Al Kaline, and George Kell. Made me feel just a bit closer to my youth.

[silvam14]

Originally Posted by nielsoncp

Next up in the re-imagined classics series, we have Crosley Field in Cincinnati. Crosley and the surrounding West End neighborhood were "renewed" in the 1960s and 70s, having a highway run through the heart of the neighborhood. I imagined what it could have looked like if the stadium and the surrounding neighborhood were kept and turned into a commercial district, like the 3rd Ward here in Milwaukee.



I added a few features to the stadium, including a couple set of luxury boxes and an extension of the upper deck behind home plate - otherwise the stadium was relatively accurate for where it was in the late 60s. I also added a couple videoboards (including one replacing the old scoreboard in left center) and built a bullpen under the right field bleachers.



The park itself was pretty small, with big walls. Because of the limits of OOTP I didn't include the stadium's trademark sloped warning track, but it still plays relatively true. The high walls mean you'll have a high number of extra base hits and a small number of homers.

Zip file can be found here

Park Factors (taken as I was exiting, hence the strange coloration)

Day

Night

Love the neighborhood. I was thinking of trying to recreate that for my Crosley stadiums.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Lawn Loaf]

Nielsen, you helped me out last year building a stadium and I lost my mojo to finish it up. It's about 80% finished, would love to see you put your top notch skill on the finishing touches and share with the community! Let me know.

[nielsoncp]

Originally Posted by silvam14

Love the neighborhood. I was thinking of trying to recreate that for my Crosley stadiums.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Yeah, I think part of the beauty of the older parks was how they fit into neighborhoods they were a part of. It's fun to build them out so it feels more like the actual stadium, but they can take a lot of time to create. So it's definitely a cost benefit analysis - and this one may have had too much of a cost. Welcome to Shibe Park.



I lived in North Philadelphia for two years (2008-2010, so I was there for the World Series) and knew the neighborhood Shibe Park was in, so it was really fun to spend some time re-creating a stadium set in an area I have been to. Fortunately there was a sketchup model for row homes, which made it easy to make most of the surrounding nieghborhood.

If you've ever seen any pictures of Shibe Park, you know that the front facade was one of the more beautiful ones that were built at the turn of the century:



As they built additions around it they didn't maintain the original facade, so I decided to do a "whatif" where the renovations include extending the facade around the whole of the park. It was, again, probably too much work, but it looked great in the model:



The original park was surrounded by a residential neighborhood. The houses on the right field side could see into the field (much like Wrigley) until the 1930s - at the height of the depression the Athletics built a wall to increase the number of paying customers. I would assume (if the Phillies, the second and last tenants) had stayed put, they would have eventually developed the surrounding area (like Wrigley, or like what Temple has been doing in North Philly) so I added a building in right that imitated the facade. Since there aren't any houses in right any more, I also decided to lower the wall and add some arches.



I decided to bring in some elements of Citizen's Bank Park, including the iron frames on the lights and the scoreboard (including a Rights to Ricky Sanchez shout out #ttp.)

I also brought in the LED Liberty Bell which lights up at night.

The stadium was pretty deep, with 430 to center, so you'll get a lot of doubles and not a lot of home runs. Ryan Howard (amongst others) would have had a very different career if they played here.

Zip file can be found here

Park Factors

Day

Night

[silvam14]

Originally Posted by nielsoncp

Yeah, I think part of the beauty of the older parks was how they fit into neighborhoods they were a part of. It's fun to build them out so it feels more like the actual stadium, but they can take a lot of time to create. So it's definitely a cost benefit analysis - and this one may have had too much of a cost. Welcome to Shibe Park.



I lived in North Philadelphia for two years (2008-2010, so I was there for the World Series) and knew the neighborhood Shibe Park was in, so it was really fun to spend some time re-creating a stadium set in an area I have been to. Fortunately there was a sketchup model for row homes, which made it easy to make most of the surrounding nieghborhood.

If you've ever seen any pictures of Shibe Park, you know that the front facade was one of the more beautiful ones that were built at the turn of the century:



As they built additions around it they didn't maintain the original facade, so I decided to do a "whatif" where the renovations include extending the facade around the whole of the park. It was, again, probably too much work, but it looked great in the model:



The original park was surrounded by a residential neighborhood. The houses on the right field side could see into the field (much like Wrigley) until the 1930s - at the height of the depression the Athletics built a wall to increase the number of paying customers. I would assume (if the Phillies, the second and last tenants) had stayed put, they would have eventually developed the surrounding area (like Wrigley, or like what Temple has been doing in North Philly) so I added a building in right that imitated the facade. Since there aren't any houses in right any more, I also decided to lower the wall and add some arches.



I decided to bring in some elements of Citizen's Bank Park, including the iron frames on the lights and the scoreboard (including a Rights to Ricky Sanchez shout out #ttp.)

I also brought in the LED Liberty Bell which lights up at night.

The stadium was pretty deep, with 430 to center, so you'll get a lot of doubles and not a lot of home runs. Ryan Howard (amongst others) would have had a very different career if they played here.

Zip file can be found here

Park Factors

Day

Night

Wow! I created progressive field originally with a lot more detail on the light towers and such. It just took a lot more disk space than I would have believed so I had to reduce the poly counts. Curious to see the size of this bad boy


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[nielsoncp]

Originally Posted by silvam14

Wow! I created progressive field originally with a lot more detail on the light towers and such. It just took a lot more disk space than I would have believed so I had to reduce the poly counts. Curious to see the size of this bad boy


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Yeah, the dirty secret of those light posts is that I put the metal_truss texture in the middle of structure and then centered it, so it looks a lot more complex than it actually was. That and the Oriole Park upper brace are the metal structures I use on a lot of my stadiums - they make them look pretty realistic and save a ton of time.

[nielsoncp]

Next up in the jewel box series is League Park. The actual field is still in use as a public park, and the original box office is still in existence. Like a lot of these parks, they were built in a heavily residential neighborhood - I added some businesses to the south of the stadium.


I tried to retain the red brick structure on the outside, and bring some of those features into a new center field structure. I also put the bullpens down the right and left field lines.



It's probably best known for its very short (and very high) right field wall and very deep left field, so there will be a lot of doubles and triples and not a lot of home runs.

Zip file can be found here
Park Factors

Day

Night

[The Game]

Originally Posted by nielsoncp

Next up in the jewel box series is League Park. The actual field is still in use as a public park, and the original box office is still in existence. Like a lot of these parks, they were built in a heavily residential neighborhood - I added some businesses to the south of the stadium.


I tried to retain the red brick structure on the outside, and bring some of those features into a new center field structure. I also put the bullpens down the right and left field lines.



It's probably best known for its very short (and very high) right field wall and very deep left field, so there will be a lot of doubles and triples and not a lot of home runs.

Zip file can be found here
Park Factors

Day

Night

There a Twitter handle dedicated to League Park i follow, I think they would love this.


Any chance for any of the following:


Baker Bowl
Old Comiskey - any year
South Side Park 1901-1909
Palace of the Fans
LA Coliseum

[jokerhusky1129]

I'd love to see a new White Sox park

[jg2977]

Originally Posted by jokerhusky1129

I'd love to see a new White Sox park

Comiskey Park reimagined would be interesting

[nielsoncp]

Originally Posted by The Game

Any chance for any of the following:

Baker Bowl
Old Comiskey - any year
South Side Park 1901-1909
Palace of the Fans
LA Coliseum

Originally Posted by jg2977

Comiskey Park reimagined would be interesting

I've decided I'm working my way through the Jewel Boxes, so I'll bump Comiskey up the list. Thanks for the ideas folks!

[nielsoncp]

Sportsman's Park is one of the interesting ones that made the transition from wood to steel and iron. The original owner of the grounds, Christian Frederich Von Der Ahe, saw baseball as a loss leader for selling beer, and famously didn't cover the grandstands because he wanted his fans as hot as he could get them. The park went through several transformations until it was eventually torn down in the 60s and replaced by Busch Stadium II (as it had been renamed Busch Stadium by the Busch family.) As with most stadiums in this era, it was nestled into a surrounding community, which I brought into the model (perhaps too much?)



The stadium's most famous features were the trees in the batters eye and the big scoreboard in left. I upgraded that to a videoboard, with a neon stadium name below:



In right I did more work - moving the bullpens behind the fence and building a beer garden (or bier garten) in honor of Herr von der Ahe. I also added "hand operated" scoreboards and an Anheiser Busch A, a callback to the old eagle neon sign that used to be in left.



The park is pretty deep, particularly in left field. Again, this leads to pronounced batter splits and a lot of extra base hits. The runnin redbirds would've had a lot of fun here.

Zip File can be found here

Park Factors

Day

Night


And now, I'm going to enjoy a 17-something Cardinals loss.