The
Swampoodle Grounds, also known as Capitol Park (II), sat right in downtown Washington DC, about a half-mile from the Capitol Building at the site of the present-day Postal Museum next to Union Station. It was home to the entire history of the NL's first Washington Nationals franchise, who were awful from 1886-1889 and then folded. Connie Mack was the catcher for that team at the dawn of his long and illustrious career.
Google Drive link to Swampoodle Grounds
There were two main reasons I wanted to do this park--first, I've been trying to make a park from scratch for every US state and territory, and this was the only real DC option (for those keeping track at home, Oregon is the only state I'm missing at this point).
Second, there's a gorgeous colorized photo that sees the first-base/right field half of the diamond and out to the city beyond. There are pictures that cover the other parts of the field, but they're much worse. There are no pictures showing the stands at all, and contradictory evidence about whether there were even permanent seats or covered seats. So, the stands are pretty rudimentary, especially compared to some of the
fancier ballparks that were its contemporaries.
The main dissatisfaction I have, and it's a big one, is the background. One could make a mosaic of the different views looking out at the field, but the very different photo qualities definitely makes the transition between photos obvious and jarring. I used an online auto-colorizer for the ones in B&W, but things still look rather wonky. But I don't have the skillz or the patience to try to do much better. If someone else ever decides to take on making the different background images look a bit more seamless, I'm happy to remake the park or make the Sketchup files available to support that!
Now, on to the next thing.
