Yesterday’s list of teams was fun to out together, but this is ultimately a blog about the built environment, so let’s discuss what’s really important: the fields and stadiums where the various teams played. Today: some of the fields in Brooklyn.
The Brooklyn Atlantics, played for a while in the Capitoline Grounds, which shows on the map as having streets run through it.
Since it’s described as having grandstands and clubhouses, those streets may have been mapped but not yet opened, and so were theoretical until the park closed in 1880. Here’s an engraving of the Atlantics playing the Cincinnati Red Stockings in 1870:
The Atlantics, Eckford of Brooklyn, the New York Mutuals, and the Brooklyn Hartfords all played at the Union Grounds in Williamsburg, which doesn’t show on the map at all:
but looks rather lively, with ths fans standing to watch the game:
Ward’s Wonders was the first team to play in Eastern Park, but it’s better known for the Dodgers playing there 1891 to 1897. I can’t readily find a map showing it, but here are the empty blocks in 1886 where the stadium would be built a few years later:
and here’s a view of the stands:
The Excelsiors played in Carroll Park in the 1850s, which is simply a city park that they used. It’s still there, but 170 years ago it was just an open expanse of grass:
Similarly, the Brooklyn Royal Giants spent a year in Saratoga Park, an ordinary city park at the east end of Bedford-Stuyvesant before moving to the second Washington Park. The first Washington Park was on the site of what is now a city park with a reconstructed version of a Revolutionary War structure, the Old Stone House, in its middle. That was the original home of the Dodgers before they moved to Eastern Park. The second Washington Park was a block away, and was the home of the Dodgers after they realized that Eastern Park, which was not readily accessible by mass transportation, was a mistake and before they built Ebbets Field.
Washington Park I:
Washington Park II:
Washington Park II in 1901:
Note that the Dodgers were in Brooklyn for 74 years, and played in Ebbets Field for only 44 of them, or 59 percent of their history. Except for hardcore trivia buffs and Dodgers fanatics (as opposed to Dodgers fans), I doubt many people could name the three places they played before Ebbets. I certainly couldn’t before I looked it up for this post.
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