Some Jazz-Age Ballparks

[asrivkin]

Originally Posted by asrivkin

Oh! I have Swayne Field! I could have sworn that I posted it here, but a search seems to show that I didn't. I should be able to post that one this weekend!

OK, here's Swayne Field, primarily known as home of the American Association's Toledo Mud Hens from 1909-1955 but also home to a variety of other sports teams including the Toledo Tigers and Toledo Crawfords from the Negro Leagues and the Toledo Maroons of the early NFL. There's a SABR article about the ballpark for those interested.

Google Drive link to Swayne Field

I made this one over a year ago, I'm honestly a bit surprised I didn't post it at the time. I don't remember terribly much about the process, I think it was relatively easy to make since I was pretty experienced by the time I tried to tackle it. It has ~1910s-1920s ads. There's a factory beyond the left field walls that eventually had a very distinctive smokestack, but it hadn't been built at the time I was trying to represent so it's just a generic factory with a generic smokestack in this model.

I've been using it in my sim for a while, I haven't noticed any problems but let me know if you do!

[asrivkin]

Originally Posted by oosl

Another one I would add to my personal wishlist of Toledo’s Swayne Field and the original Bush Stadium in Indianapolis would be the Federal Park from the Covington Blue Sox of the Federal League (the year prior to the Federal League becoming a Major League), I am not sure if that park or Cleveland’s Luna Park, home of the Green Sox have ever been done from the year the Federal League was a minor league.

Appreciate all you do.

Thanks!

I've considered Covington but the way to handle it would need a lot of thought, most notably how to work the compromise between realism and the game. I broke down and did a quantitative look at what fence distances do/don't work when I started on the 19th century thread, including making "Concentric Park" specifically for these purposes, and I'll include a couple of the relevant screenshots below. This may be overdoing it for this Covington discussion, but it's a convenient place to put this for later use by anyone including me.

Basically, a shift left or shift right seems to put the fielder 10 degrees from the relevant foul line) at a distance of 285 feet or so from home plate, and the "Outfield Deep" shift puts the corner outfielders something like 315-320 feet from home plate at the "left field" or "right field" distances (not "left line" or "right line"), and the center fielder out at something like 350 feet in "center field". So to use the historical dimensions a field needs to be at least 320-325 feet deep at 15 degree angular distance from each foul line and at least 350 feet deep in straight away center. I suspect that any ballpark that meets those requirements and doesn't have crazy jogs in the walls will work as-is, and the grid can be set to keep outfielders inside the park.

A ballpark not meeting those requirements (SF's Recreation Park and Sacramento's Hughes Stadium, to name two that are in this thread) will end up with one or more outfielders standing outside the walls in the street (SF) or embedded in the outfield stands (Sacramento) as the ball is being pitched, only to rush through "solid" objects Kool-Aid Man style to make plays. For SF I didn't realize that was going to happen, for Sacramento the requestor didn't mind.

All of this is a long-winded way of saying that Federal Park in Covington is in my opinion unworkably small as-is--194 feet to the RF line, 218 feet to the LF line, and 267 to dead center. A Covington park that is increased by 80-100 feet in all dimensions would be workable, if you just wanted something that was reminiscent of the real-life park but weren't trying to be terribly accurate in how it looked. The simulation aspects of the game including park factors are divorced from the park models anyhow, so maybe that would be good enough for you?

[oosl]

Originally Posted by asrivkin

OK, here's Swayne Field, primarily known as home of the American Association's Toledo Mud Hens from 1909-1955 but also home to a variety of other sports teams including the Toledo Tigers and Toledo Crawfords from the Negro Leagues and the Toledo Maroons of the early NFL. There's a SABR article about the ballpark for those interested.

Google Drive link to Swayne Field

I made this one over a year ago, I'm honestly a bit surprised I didn't post it at the time. I don't remember terribly much about the process, I think it was relatively easy to make since I was pretty experienced by the time I tried to tackle it. It has ~1910s-1920s ads. There's a factory beyond the left field walls that eventually had a very distinctive smokestack, but it hadn't been built at the time I was trying to represent so it's just a generic factory with a generic smokestack in this model.

I've been using it in my sim for a while, I haven't noticed any problems but let me know if you do!

This is outstanding, did you do a day and night version as you do in many of your parks?

I am from Toledo and grew up a few miles away from the site of the former stadium (it was already a shopping center by the time I was born).

The factory in the outfield was actually the Red Man tobacco factory, which not only produced Red Man products but also the famous Red Man baseball cards from the early 1950's.

[oosl]

Originally Posted by asrivkin

Thanks!

I've considered Covington but the way to handle it would need a lot of thought, most notably how to work the compromise between realism and the game. I broke down and did a quantitative look at what fence distances do/don't work when I started on the 19th century thread, including making "Concentric Park" specifically for these purposes, and I'll include a couple of the relevant screenshots below. This may be overdoing it for this Covington discussion, but it's a convenient place to put this for later use by anyone including me.

Basically, a shift left or shift right seems to put the fielder 10 degrees from the relevant foul line) at a distance of 285 feet or so from home plate, and the "Outfield Deep" shift puts the corner outfielders something like 315-320 feet from home plate at the "left field" or "right field" distances (not "left line" or "right line"), and the center fielder out at something like 350 feet in "center field". So to use the historical dimensions a field needs to be at least 320-325 feet deep at 15 degree angular distance from each foul line and at least 350 feet deep in straight away center. I suspect that any ballpark that meets those requirements and doesn't have crazy jogs in the walls will work as-is, and the grid can be set to keep outfielders inside the park.

A ballpark not meeting those requirements (SF's Recreation Park and Sacramento's Hughes Stadium, to name two that are in this thread) will end up with one or more outfielders standing outside the walls in the street (SF) or embedded in the outfield stands (Sacramento) as the ball is being pitched, only to rush through "solid" objects Kool-Aid Man style to make plays. For SF I didn't realize that was going to happen, for Sacramento the requestor didn't mind.

All of this is a long-winded way of saying that Federal Park in Covington is in my opinion unworkably small as-is--194 feet to the RF line, 218 feet to the LF line, and 267 to dead center. A Covington park that is increased by 80-100 feet in all dimensions would be workable, if you just wanted something that was reminiscent of the real-life park but weren't trying to be terribly accurate in how it looked. The simulation aspects of the game including park factors are divorced from the park models anyhow, so maybe that would be good enough for you?

I completely agree with everything you say, the quirky nature of the park, the way it was shoehorned into the city block has always appealed to me, so I think what would be great is a park that looks like Covington with the extra 100 feet if that's a possibility somehow. Something reminiscent of the real park with the realization that it's not going to be completely accurate due to the limitations you correctly mention.

[asrivkin]

OK, continuing to try to reduce my backlog with another park that I thought I'd shared last year: Allentown Fairgrounds Park.

The history of baseball in Allentown is a bit murkier for me than I was expecting. Allentown itself was in the lower reaches of the 100 largest US cities in the 1910s-1930s, but its metro area in the Lehigh Valley (using current definitions) was more like #30 in the country. There was minor league baseball on and off, sometimes in leagues with cities in New England and New York, sometimes in leagues with cities in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. When the Yankees came to town 1923, they seem to have played at a place called Edgemont Field, but various sources seem to agree that the minor league teams in that period played at the Fairgrounds.

Google Drive Link to Allentown Fairgrounds

The Allentown Fairgrounds were something of a tourist attraction, and the grandstand built in 1912 apparently still stands. This is one of those cases that would most charitably be considered "early multi-use sports complexes", where a baseball diamond got shoved into a racetrack because the racetrack already had a grandstand and it was just going to have to do--Tampa in this thread has a similar layout, and Ottawa and Quebec City had similar vibes. This one with the big racetrack was a bit of a challenge given how I tend to lay these out on a circular base, and I could/should have extended the background a bit further toward the rear of the stadium, but all in all I think it's not terrible.

[asrivkin]

I posted this in the 19th Century Ballparks thread, but it should go here, too.

I've made a folder on Google Drive, which hopefully has all the missing pieces for at least the 19th century parks:

"Ballparks Complete" folder on Google Drive


This folder has the following:
Day/Night images for the 16 parks posted in this thread that are missing them:
Hilldale Park, Savin Rock Park, Ramona Park, Duluth Athletic Park, Westood Park, Scranton Athletic Park, Wearn Field, Ackerman Park, Skeeters Park, Anchorage Base Ball Park, Handlan's Park, Greenlawn Park, Buffalo International Fairgrounds Park, Harrison Park, Swayne Field, Allentown Fairgrounds Park.

Day/Night/Diagram images and Zip files for the 8 19th-Century parks that I made, the latter now including the Day/Night/Diagram images (these now have "complete" in their zip file names)

You should be able to pick and choose among those, and I think you should also be able to just download the whole shebang, though I think that might be 650 Mb altogether. If you're not interested in the 19th-century parks, picking and downloading the daytime images you want will probably be the best bet.

Alternately, you can download all of the missing day/night images for the parks here. Depending on what you want, that may be best.

Let me know if you have any questions or issues, and hopefully I can address them!

And happy St. Patrick's Day to all who celebrate!

[The Game]

[oosl]

Thanks again for these! Was there a day/night shot for the Kansas City Federal League park Gordon-Koppel , that’s one of a couple I don’t have day/night shots for.

[asrivkin]

Originally Posted by oosl

Thanks again for these! Was there a day/night shot for the Kansas City Federal League park Gordon-Koppel , that’s one of a couple I don’t have day/night shots for.

Hmm. I think I did include a daytime picture for G-K and put it in both day and nighttime slots, though it looks a bit weird because it's a Sketchup screenshot vs. an OOTP view. In any case, I'll stick new OOTP view versions in this post so you can download them and then put them in the folders, too.

[oosl]

Originally Posted by asrivkin

Hmm. I think I did include a daytime picture for G-K and put it in both day and nighttime slots, though it looks a bit weird because it's a Sketchup screenshot vs. an OOTP view. In any case, I'll stick new OOTP view versions in this post so you can download them and then put them in the folders, too.

Thank you for these! I appreciate it!

M

[asrivkin]

Hi all!

I've been spending most of my efforts on the 19th Century ballparks, but am (finally) taking care of a long-standing request for Greenlee Field, home of the Pittsburgh Crawfords and Homestead Grays from 1932-1938, and one of the few Black-owned ballparks of the era. This was the home park for Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson, Oscar Charleston, and Cool Papa Bell, among other baseball icons, for stretches of their careers.

As the main park for two important Negro League teams during the heyday of Black baseball, it's been the subject of a few articles out there, including this one and this one on the SABR website.

Google Drive Link to Greenlee Field

There's not a ton of documentary evidence that I had access to, but there are some contemporary photos that show what it looked like from the point of view of the 3rd base stands and an aerial photo of Pittsurgh from right around the time it was demolished--the diamond is there but I'm not sure if the stands are. I also had a bit of an unusual source--the stadium is available in a product competing with OOTP, and some folks on Youtube posted some in-game video that let me get a look at how they handle some other viewing angles. There's also a photo down the left field line available, though in the end I didn't really use it. Greenlee Field was entirely uncovered at the start, and that's how I modeled it. I

'm almost happy with the background, but not entirely so--the screenshots are taken from a bit higher off the ground than ideal, though that was the only way to avoid some modern elements I didn't particularly want to include. But it looks like the whole area is in something of a topographic bowl, when it wasn't. I suppose I could try stretching the backgrounds in a way I haven't tried before? For what it's worth, they are taken from the actual location of Greenlee Field, using Google Earth.

My next post (which should be soon?) will be about this thread, spoiler--I do plan to keep posting here, particularly once the 19th-century must-haves are completed.

Enjoy!

[oosl]

Thank you so much for Greenlee Field, such a valuable contribution to the game. As I have mentioned to you, you truly enhance my enjoyment of the game with your parks.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you!

Looking forward to your next announcement!!!

[zappa1]

I also enjoy your work. Love the background on this one, too.

[LansdowneSt]

Thanks for Greenlee! As someone that spent a lot of time working on NeL stuff this year - it's a fantastic addition!!

[asrivkin]

Thanks for the support, all!

So, here are my near-ish term plans for this thread. I have a couple more 19th-century parks to get through before I can come back here. The sim I'm playing will be entering 1924, and I have a few parks I'd like to make in time for Opening Day--Offermann Stadium in Buffalo and Spiller Park in Atlanta, specifically, plus I've got a few more esoteric ones for my minor league system. I'm also thinking of tackling 3-4 of the parks that teams used for Spring Training in the mid-20s in Clearwater/Sarasota/etc. I expect I'll post those here as I do them, or at least eventually.

I'm also happy to entertain requests! There's a spreadsheet that Thehef made that I could potentially draw from, also. And finally, I have a decent-sized backlog, though some of the parks are likely to be of limited interest...

So, this thread will go on, but probably will still be seeing limited updates for a little while yet...

[niu354]

Originally Posted by asrivkin

I have a few parks I'd like to make in time for Opening Day--Offermann Stadium in Buffalo and Spiller Park in Atlanta

Is the Spiller Park you are doing an updated Ponce de Leon Park with the tree in center field and stands in right field? If yes, I'm excited to use that one!

[asrivkin]

Yep, that's the one!

[thehef]

Greenlee Field. Awesome addition. Thanks!

[niu354]

Originally Posted by asrivkin

Yep, that's the one!

Awesome! I may have stirred some controversy involving your Ponce de Leon Park in my latest YouTube video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOdWZk5Pvpw

But as they say, bad press is still good press...I think?

[asrivkin]

Oh dear. Do I want to know?