19th Century 3D Ballparks

[BaseballMan]

Keep up the good work.
These ballparks really do make 19th century play more enjoyable.

[dfswans]

Agricultural Society Fair Grounds
1871 Rockford Forest Citys

No fences here. This field sat in the middle of a track that had a slightly raised elevation. I figure the likelihood of a ball from 1871 rolling up and over the track would be fairly minimal. I also find it doubtful that an outfielder would be able to retrieve a ball hit to the track on the fly in time to prevent a runner from rounding the bases, so the track serves as the fence line.

Agricultural_Society_Fair_Grounds

[AESP_pres]

Originally Posted by asrivkin

Let me see how big it would be and whether that's realistic. I certainly could put them all in a single Google Drive directory and then someone could download that whole thing in one go or not as they like. I think.

And thank you!

I downloaded them individually (I believe I have everything from that thread with 34 stadiums), and the total size is 1.58 GB. I'm not sure if that's too large for Google Drive, but I just wanted to let you know in case you haven't checked yet.

Edit: Too bad I haven't check that thread when I started my current game, but that will be really immersive next year when I'll start a new one with OOTP26...

[Garlon]

We have added the ballparks to the InteGreated NeL Mod.

If you are on the standalone version of OOTP25 grab a fresh download from the link in the first post of that thread.

If you are subscribed to the Steam Workshop version, open OOTP25 and access the Workshop from within the game and download it again and then reinstall the mod. You will also need to subscribe to the era_ballparks mods on Steam Workshop and keep one of those installed when using the mod so that the ballparks automatically load each season for the teams.

[RUKen]

This image of Forepaugh Park was published in the Philadelphia Times on May 4th, 1890.

[asrivkin]

Originally Posted by RUKen

This image of Forepaugh Park was published in the Philadelphia Times on May 4th, 1890.

That's great, that'll be useful for sure!

[asrivkin]

OK, here's the final missing ballpark from Garlon's expanded list: The OG Polo Grounds. The short version of the name is that it in fact belonged to a polo club who had, of all things, been evicted from their previous home by a baseball team. This plot of land across the street from the northern edge of Central Park was enclosed by the polo club, then rented out for use by the independent New York Metropolitans. The Metropolitans joined the AA at the same time the Gothams/Giants were created (by the owners of the Mets) to join the NL, and both teams shared the grounds. Eventually, NYC plowed the street grid through the grounds with little warning, and when the Giants founds themselves in their new permanent digs, that got called the Polo Grounds out of habit. See more here.

Google Drive link to the Polo Grounds 1882-1888

There was more info than I was anticipating, including a couple of photos. The artists' depictions of the grandstand were inconsistent, I ended up making reminiscent the Sportsman's Park model. I also put ads up on the right field wall behind the crowd, inspired by the photos that are out there. I found a mention of the right field line being 300 feet, so I went with that. The other dimensions are educated guesses, and I made it symmetrical out of convenience as much as anything else. The background and trees probably make it a bit more rural looking than it was, but hopefully it's close enough. I went for a roughly 1885-1886 appearance, when permanent walls went up and the photos were taken.

As I've said elsewhere in this thread, I intend to keep adding to things here, and I encourage others to do so as well! I will likely be scarce through the rest of 2024, so I'd like to wish everyone here happy holidays (no matter which ones you do or don't celebrate) and a wonderful 2025.

[percolaten]

Looks great, thank you!

[zappa1]

Thanks to you and dfswans for all of your wonderful work. Please enjoy the upcoming holidays.

[Torito_Mancha]

Hello — Does anybody plan on trying to create something for Elysian Fields? It was where all the biggest games were played before the Capitoline Grounds were built; the Mutual and Atlantic clubs played a championship game there for 15,000 spectators in 1865. There were no fences because it was a public park. That made it impossible to charge admission, so the Fields were phased out of big match play after 1865. Photoa are available in the LoC and on John Thorn’s blog.

[dfswans]

Hi Torito, I've been in winter hibernation mode and taking a break from building ballparks, but I'm planning on getting going again in the next week or so. I'll plan on taking a crack at Elysian Fields.

[asrivkin]

Originally Posted by dfswans

Hi Torito, I've been in winter hibernation mode and taking a break from building ballparks, but I'm planning on getting going again in the next week or so. I'll plan on taking a crack at Elysian Fields.

Hey, that's great. I'll point you to this in case it helps: https://youtu.be/HR6eZpu9ewA?si=OJLO7m38dX-8D1Bc

It's a talk by a baseball historian about Elysian Fields and it looks like it could be super-useful for modeling. I say "it looks like" because I haven't been able to find the time to actually watch it...

[BaseballMan]

Still using these ballparks but i do have a slight problem.
I can manually import them but i cant get the game to find them when creating a league or going to the next season.
It do3esnt find any pictures, diagrams or the 3d.
Yet it finds it when i import the prk file or from the 3d tab.
Not sure why its happening but would like to get these parks to auto
import for 26.

[jcato]

Originally Posted by BaseballMan

Still using these ballparks but i do have a slight problem.
I can manually import them but i cant get the game to find them when creating a league or going to the next season.
It do3esnt find any pictures, diagrams or the 3d.
Yet it finds it when i import the prk file or from the 3d tab.
Not sure why its happening but would like to get these parks to auto
import for 26.

I had this problem on a project I'm working on. I cleaned up the teamID and franchiseID fields in the teams.csv. After that, the teamIDs didn't match the teamIDs in the era_ballparks.txt file. Making them match fixed it for me.

From what I can tell, OOTP first looks at the era_ballparks.txt for a matching teamID and uses the corresponding park name from that file. If no matching teamID, it uses the park name from the teams.csv file. In my case, the park names were different, so it didn't find the park to import.

Hope that's clear and helpful.

[BaseballMan]

Originally Posted by jcato

I had this problem on a project I'm working on. I cleaned up the teamID and franchiseID fields in the teams.csv. After that, the teamIDs didn't match the teamIDs in the era_ballparks.txt file. Making them match fixed it for me.

From what I can tell, OOTP first looks at the era_ballparks.txt for a matching teamID and uses the corresponding park name from that file. If no matching teamID, it uses the park name from the teams.csv file. In my case, the park names were different, so it didn't find the park to import.

Hope that's clear and helpful.

It was helpful. Thanks.

You were on the right track. I think i had some names in the path column that didn't match or i might have changed
the name in the ballpark folder. I'm gonna just try to change the name of the ballpark folder and not the contents.
I also realized that i had inserted a column in the era ballparks csv and had copied the path column to it for easier
editing. Problem was that i forgot to remove it.
Im trying to get everything automated so i don't have to import the parks every season.
Im borrowing some ballparks for ones we don't have and making a note of it.
Also getting rid of the II, III, IV etc for ballparks and just use the actual name.
I'm not sure about Polo Grounds but like we may call Yankee Stadium by the name Yankee Stadium II.
However at the stadium i believe it says Yankee Stadium.

[SGJ2]

Buffalo Olympic Park 1 and 2 and Messer Street Grounds as well have not been done? I figure not all are easy to get pictures of

[asrivkin]

Buffalo's Olympic Park II is here, in the Jazz Age thread: https://forums.ootpdevelopments.com/...lo#post4695882

Messer Street is on my to-do list, but is going to be largely historical fiction and based on one of the contemporary Boston parks--there's not a lot out there for it. I haven't thought about Buffalo's Olympic Park I.

I do have another park that's ready to post here--I'm not totally happy with it, but I don't think I'm going to be able to get it any better so I might as well just post it (later today?)... Next for this thread for me will probably either be trying Messer Street or one of the non-MLB parks for which we have decent info (like in SF or LA)?

[asrivkin]

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.

[Ctrane]

Messer Street is on my to-do list, but is going to be largely historical fiction and based on one of the contemporary Boston parks--there's not a lot out there for it.

I've found ballpark fence distances on the web. Like a lot of other parks from this era the dimensions are bizarre.
This a footprint I created for use in another unmentionable game.

[BaseballMan]

Originally Posted by Ctrane

Messer Street is on my to-do list, but is going to be largely historical fiction and based on one of the contemporary Boston parks--there's not a lot out there for it.

I've found ballpark fence distances on the web. Like a lot of other parks from this era the dimensions are bizarre.
This a footprint I created for use in another unmentionable game.

Projectballpark had some dimensions but not much.
Baseball Cathedrals mentions the Tourtellot house .
The book mentioned that fans would watch games from there like they do at Wrigley Field today.