19th Century 3D Ballparks

[Pelican]

I am attaching a 1901 map showing Union Park. Without a diamond, no clue as to configuration. Not sure if the diagonal corners would be OF or behind home plate. Logically the fans would be arriving mostly from the north and east, the top and right side of the map photo. So I would hazard a guess that hoe plate was there. Based on the positions of the streets and cemetery today, the field was not huge. I'm going to up and pace it off. More research pending.

[asrivkin]

That's great!!!

I did a little bit of online follow up after your hint--it looks like Plate 13 of that 1901 Baist Atlas of New Castle County covers the area in question in higher detail, I've attached what I could find online (for sale at eBay, but I was able to save the image) of the full page and the inset that shows the ballpark.

I think that the small square is maybe supposed to be stands? Who knows if the stands from 1901 were like the 1884 stands, but maybe? I certainly don't want to throw you off or send you down any rabbit holes, though!

[Pelican]

Thank you! I was out pacing it off yesterday. The cemetery is still there, although the streets to the north are different. My guess is that the diagonal boundary was behind home plate, so that the batters faced northwest. That would make the (shorter) RF along the north (Lancaster Avenue) boundary, and the longer LF to the west. I have not been able to find any data on the fences or distances.

[asrivkin]

Turns out this park is in Green Cathedrals, though I'd forgotten since they don't have most of the info I find most useful. They do have what they think is the orientation, though:

Left Field (NW) Bayard Ave
Third Base (SW)
First Base (SE) Union St
Right Field (N) Front St, then cemetery.

So, that agrees with your guess!

[BaseballMan]

I used chatgpt to see if it could help. This is what i got.
It estimated the dimensions based on

⚾ Likely dimensions (approx.)
Left field line: ~280–300 ft
Right field line: ~290–310 ft
Center field: ~360–380 ft
Foul territory: very small (minimal seating + tight boundaries)
🧱 Field shape characteristics (important detail)

Instead of a symmetrical modern diamond, it likely had:

A slightly lopsided outfield (one side deeper than the other depending on street layout)
A short fence or rope boundary
Possibly temporary stands along 1st/3rd base lines
Very limited deep outfield space compared to later parks like the Polo Grounds
🧠 What that means in gameplay terms

If you dropped modern hitters into that park:

Many routine fly balls today would have been home runs
Power numbers were heavily influenced by field geometry
Pitchers often worked in compact, hitter-friendly spaces
🧾 Bottom line estimate

If we compress all evidence into a single “best guess”:

Union Street Park was likely a compact urban ballfield roughly 280–300 ft down the lines and ~370 ft to center, with irregular boundaries shaped by city streets rather than standardized design.

[asrivkin]

OK, while I hadn't intended to do tackle this one yet, I managed to come up with an approach for it that I thought would work and I figured I'd strike while the iron was hot.

So, Speranza Park. This was the home to Toledo's American Association team, which I've seen called the Maumees or the Black Pirates, in 1890. The team and this ballpark started in the Tri-State League in 1888, moved to the International Association in 1889, and folded after the AA year. That means that the park went from hosting the Lima Lushers and the Sandusky Fish Eaters to hosting the Baltimore Orioles and Philadelphia Athletics in two short years. The park was named for the club owner's yacht. When they joined the Western League in 1892 after a year off, it was with a new ballpark.

Google Drive Link to Speranza Park

According to Baseball In Toledo, there is only one depiction of Speranza Park, which I include below. It is not on any relevant Sanborn map, but I used the 1895 map, its location in 1890, and a few city directories to try to suss out the likeliest orientation, and stuck the stands more or less where the Plymouth church is on the map below. I suspect I might have gotten that wrong, since it has the batter and catcher looking southwest, but other orientations lead to exceedingly short foul line distances so I decided it was close enough for these purposes.

This completes 1890 for our purposes, and completes not just the AA but all major leagues back to 1885, inclusive. As noted elsewhere there are also a few other seasons that are complete. I think the next things I'm going to try are a few 1884 Union Association Parks for which I have some info. Then we'll see what happens.

[dfswans]

Originally Posted by LansdowneSt

To those on Steam, with his permission, I have asrivkin's parks now on the Steam Workshop.

dfswans, let me know if you want yours up there too. Or if you are on Steam, if you want me to walk you how to put them up and maintain them yourself. It's only incremental work for me, just happy to get some more of the forum work out to the Workshop as a lot of people never come by the forum.

Lansdowne, apologies but I haven't visited the thread in a while. You certainly have my permission to put my parks on Steam if you're able to do so. Thank you!

[LansdowneSt]

Originally Posted by dfswans

Lansdowne, apologies but I haven't visited the thread in a while. You certainly have my permission to put my parks on Steam if you're able to do so. Thank you!

Thanks, I'm gather them from the thread here and get them up over the weekend. There are many who never come by the forum and game on Steam so will be great to share them with more people.

[asrivkin]

Another week, another update! This one comes from the short-lived Union Association. The Dartmouth Grounds (aka Dartmouth Street Grounds aka Union Grounds) was home to the Boston Reds, who represented the Hub in the circuit. It was on an oddly-shaped parcel of land, which accounts for its availability on relatively short notice when the UA added a Boston team in mid-March 1884, only a short time before they hosted their first home game at the end of April. In all, the Dartmouth Grounds hosted 57 UA games, second-most of any ballpark in this very unstable league. After the UA dissolved the park had a few more years of use. Today it's basically where Copley Place stands.

Google Drive link to Dartmouth Grounds

This one was somewhat easier than a lot of the more research-heavy parks that I've tackled of late. It appears on a Sanborn map and there was a SABR article about it, so even without any photos it wasn't too hard to visualize. The funny luxury boxes atop the grandstand were specified as having corrugated iron walls in the SABR article, so that's what they got! Even so, there were some inconsistencies to iron out between the sources that existed, and I had to increase the size of the outfield from the historical size to prevent Outfielder Kool-Aid Man Effect. I was pretty convinced this was going to be an ugly park given the way it looked on the insurance map, but I think it came out all right? The backdrop is from a location just above the Boston Commons, and contrary to what I've done lately I just took a snippet and repeated it in order to avoid any modern buildings.

I'm planning (or maybe just "planning") to do Baltimore and Altoona's UA parks next. After some more digging I think I've got an idea of how to handle the missing Milwaukee parks, plus I found a few (simplistic) depictions of the missing DC parks and an actual photo of the Elizabeth Resolutes' grandstand! So, along with what Pelican provided for Wilmington (along with some inspiration from BaseballMan), I think there are unique, semi/mostly-historical models that can be made most of for what remains, and justifiable alternatives for the remainder. So, the end of this phase is in sight.

[Torito_Mancha]

Hello again! If anybody is interested in making some generic parks for the 1860s, I can forward some contemporary accounts for inspiration.

Somebody may also want to look into the Fashion Course Games of 1858; it was a racecourse that hosted the first paid gate in baseball history. Plenty of references available!

[asrivkin]

Originally Posted by Torito_Mancha

Hello again! If anybody is interested in making some generic parks for the 1860s, I can forward some contemporary accounts for inspiration.

Somebody may also want to look into the Fashion Course Games of 1858; it was a racecourse that hosted the first paid gate in baseball history. Plenty of references available!

That's great, and that's definitely a direction I'd like to try next--before the push to complete the MLB set I'd toyed with doing those very early grounds, and I suspect some other folks would love to see those done...

[Torito_Mancha]

Originally Posted by asrivkin

That's great, and that's definitely a direction I'd like to try next--before the push to complete the MLB set I'd toyed with doing those very early grounds, and I suspect some other folks would love to see those done...

I’d love to see them done! There’s also a lot of room for creativity; most of the parks were just empty lots with all sorts of weird quirks (train tracks, wonky dimensions, etc.)

[dfswans]

Asrivkin, I am nearing completion of West Seventh Street Park in St. Paul.

After that, I have nothing in the queue. Please feel free to suggest a few parks that you want me to grab.

[asrivkin]

Great! If you'd like to stay in the National Association groove, I think Red Stocking Park in St. Louis hasn't been done and has some info out there. I'm happy to send you what I've found on Waverly Fairgrounds if you'd like to try that one. If you'd like to try something (slightly) more modern, I found some info on Cleveland's c. 1890 NL ballpark that I somehow missed when I first tried it last year as well as for Cleveland's 1890 Players League ballpark.

If you'd like to use your imagination more, there are a few parks for which I've basically found only the barest description--the Virginia Base Ball Park in Richmond, Recreation Park I (1883-1884) in Columbus, South Street Park in Indianapolis (1878), and Athletic Park (1884) in Kansas City are all parks that I don't have any particular ideas or substantive leads for. You've probably seen the idea come up of making something generic and period appropriate, so you could try that if that strikes you as fun.

I'm planning to do Belair Lot in Baltimore next, I've got some ideas for how to tackle Milwaukee's remaining parks and I'd like to try Wilmington. I'm happy to share any info I have either in this thread or by some other means (Google Drive or Dropbox or whatever). And certainly don't feel obligated to do any if you'd like or need a break--we're doing this for fun, after all.

[asrivkin]

Today it's back to Charm City and the home of their Union Association entry: Belair Lot. Belair Lot was home to all but one of the Baltimore Monumentals' home games, where they managed a 28-21 home record en route to a 4th place finish.

Google Drive link to Belair Lot

There's some info out there for this park--enough that I felt like it would be doable without too much guesswork about things. I did extend left field a bit further than the maps sort-of indicated in order to avoid Kool-Aid Man Outfielder Syndrome. The maps show some kind of structure in right field, which I decided was a clubhouse, so I borrowed a cricket pavilion of the right age from 3D Workshop and stuck it in. The background is from the right part of Baltimore, but maybe not exactly the spot. I finally put in the time to get eriqjaffe's OOTP OBJ exporter working, so there's even separate day and night backgrounds. I'm second-guessing the white fence and white walls in general, I could change that if people feel strongly.

I think I'm going to try my hybrid solution for the remaining Milwaukee parks for the next modeling effort.

[Jamesdyl17]

Delete.

[asrivkin]

Well, after saying I'd do Milwaukee next, I called an audible.

This is the third Union Association park in a row I'm posting, but the previous two were situated in two of the 10 largest cities in the USA and hosted over 100 UA games between them. Columbia Park sat in Altoona, a city of less than 20,000 people, and only hosted 18 games before the Mountain Citys folded after very poor attendance and a Kansas City joined the UA to take over their schedule.

Google Drive link to Columbia Park, Altoona

Despite seeming like the same kind of situation as Richmond and Wilmington, there was enough to work with here to make this model not too difficult compared to several recent ones--the park lasted until 1912, and so there's actually a photo (it looks like an aerial but I suspect it's from a nearby mountain) and it appears on a 1902 insurance map. There's _also_ a photo that purports to be from the interior from the 1800s. If that photo is correct, a 1800s model depiction shouldn't have the wings to the grandstand and should have a judge's stand like the racetrack ballparks have. Since Altoona began the season in the "big league" of the Union Association, I am skeptical that they wouldn't have made the park bigger and gotten rid of that judge's stand, and also skeptical that they would have added the grandstand wings (which the park definitely had c. 1900 according to the map and the other photo) _after_ they lost the big league team. So, I didn't use that info.

A couple of other notes--I extended the field from what the map suggests so that the outfield was a decent size. I inclulded the dressing rooms out in far right field, as the map indicates. I did not put (what looks like) a press box since it's _not_ on the (earlier?) map though it is on the (later?) photo. Finally, I used purple as the color for the stands because Wikipedia mentioned it as one of the team colors, so I'm just taking their word for it.

I'll also note that part of the reason I'm trying to go into detail about this stuff is that I'm seeing this thread showing up when I'm doing internet searches on these parks. So if only for any later researchers I want to list on these models what I think is actually historical, what I think is a reasonable guess, and what I'm making up!

[micropterus58]

Thanks again. The research you do is amazing. I've had trouble finding pictures from the 1970s, never mind the 1870s. I wish I had the time to play all the different OOTP leagues so I could use these gems.

[asrivkin]

Two ballparks remain for Milwaukee: the Milwaukee Base Ball Grounds (sometimes called Eclipse Park), home to the NL team of 1878, and the Wright Street Grounds, home to the Union Association team of 1884. Both of these teams were one-year affairs, and the Union Association Brewers were more like a one-month affair--the team joined the UA along with the St. Paul team as the Chicago/Pittsburgh and Wilmington teams dropped out. There are some details to be found about the UA ballpark, and the size of the lot the NL park sat on is out there as well. I decided to make a hybrid of the parks, with a ballpark kind of like the text description of Wright Street put onto a lot kind of like the NL park and oriented to provide a reasonable* outfield.

Since this park didn't really exist, I gave it a name that reflects its origin: "Milwaukee National Union Grounds". Naturally, you can rename it whatever you like in the game! I have the field markings set to 1878 rather than 1884, since the UA Brewers only had 12 home games compared to 25 home games for the UA Grays in 1878. I also made the park gray to reflect the team name.

Google Drive link to Milwaukee National Union Grounds

Not too much to add here, I think? The screenshots below are all of the model, since there really are no depictions of the park out there. Not sure what I'll try next--I may try grinding away after the remaining NL parks, or may try the remaining DC parks (both from 1884 and I may try a similar hybrid approach for those)...

[asrivkin]

Originally Posted by micropterus58

Thanks again. The research you do is amazing. I've had trouble finding pictures from the 1970s, never mind the 1870s. I wish I had the time to play all the different OOTP leagues so I could use these gems.

Thank you! I appreciate the kind words. I enjoy the research, and the creative problem of filling in the information we don't have from what we do...

And I understand what you mean about not having the time! Ironically, the sim I play doesn't use any of these!