Friday, October 19, 2007

Ballpark Seats























The folks at http://www.ballparkseats.com have the only known example of a figural seat from League Park. They have quite a website loaded with seats from lots of ballparks and arenas. Check 'em out. The lone figural side shown to the left is from the auction house Lelands. The sides were sold in several different auctions. What a beautiful art nouveau design!

Sunday, July 8, 2007

League Park





Microsoft's Live Search has a feature called "Bird's Eye View". If you're lucky, you can find what you're looking for in sort of a 45 degree aerial view. It's at Local.live.com Here are some of the views available for League Park. Go to Live Search at Local.live.com and plug in your destination. Click on the little buildings that are popping up in sort of a 3D angle (under the 2d section). That's the Bird's Eye View feature. Once you have the Bird's Eye View, there is a compass tool that allows you to switch your viewing angle. Looking at these images gives you a true understanding of the site and how the existing wall fits into the scheme of things. Until a couple years ago, the concrete base to the lower deck stands behind that wall also existed, but it was crumbling and a safety hazard. Thanks to Lenny Difranza of the Hall of Fame and his webparks blog for this realization. He has been building a site that includes links to various web resources. At his site he has a picture of the Braves Field Windows Live image and from there I stumbled upon the compass points. Good stuff! Thank you Lenny for also giving me assistance on my Ebbets Field image on the New York Historic Ballparks poster.

The Posters Have Arrived!


The posters are here from the printer and are now available. Check out the site historicballparks.com for more information. I think they're the best yet (unless you hate Boston and New York, in which case they're suitable only to be used as shelf liner, preferably in the garage, underneath your more hazardous chemicals, such as paint solvents or pesticides).

Thanks to everyone who gave me suggestions and input!

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Addie Joss Day






















Here are some photos I saw up for auction on the internet. They're from the first all star game, a benefit game for the widow of Addie Joss. The old wooden version of League Park is clearly seen in the background.

League Park


Here are two photos from the Cleveland Public Library of early League Park. Some great detail here.

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

League Park



These are blueprints for the (then) planned demolition of League Park. I obtained a copy of them from the Parks department of Cleveland . You can see where the wall was capped off. That current wall is still standing, along with the ticket office. By the way, these are the only blueprints that feature the ticket office, as when Osborne engineered the brick and steel version of the park in 1910, the office was already standing and wasn't included in those drawings.

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

League Park


Phew, it's been a while since the last post. My apologies. I'll try to do better. A new initiative was announced last week to save what exists at League Park at Cleveland and expand upon what's there. Here's the full story at the cleveland.com's blog . Some people have linked to the cleveland.com article that doesn't have any images. The blog entry that's linked here includes this image. Will it happen? Who knows. There have been proposals before for townhouses associated with the site and a museum. One thing's for sure... League Park deserves better than what's been happening to it for the last ten years (although it did get a paint job that stripped it of the previous Pepto Bismol pink).

Unfortunately, the city of Cleveland doesn't have a lot of money to throw around to such projects. Forty three per cent of the seniors in its school system couldn't pass the state graduation exam and have to return to High School next year! However, when you hear about how poor Cleveland is, remember that its boundaries are fixed and when the population shifts and moves outward, those people are gone from the tax rolls and aren't counted in the city's population. Whereas a city such as Columbus, Ohio keeps on annexing the surrounding land year after year, giving a skewed picture as to how affluent the citizens are in each of the cities.