West Side Grounds

Here's a great photo of the main entrance of the West Side Grounds. I'd love to see a better pic of the statues on the roof. The flags are celebrating their 1908 championship.

And here's a look at the unique dugouts they had there. The stands at one time stopped at the line of the dugouts, and when they extended them, they put fabric triangles up to keep the fans from interacting heavily with the players.

This photo shows the bleachers that were constructed over the center field clubhouse. Take note of the differing rake of the grandstand. Once it reaches the roof of the building, it becomes shallower. The championship flag has just been raised on the flagpole. These three photos are from the Chicago Daily News collection at the Library of Congress website.

And finally, here's a HUGE file of a panorama from the LOC's panorama photo collection. It's even larger on their website (a 128mb tiff!) That championship flag is out there waving proudly.

Upcoming Jackie Robinson Movie

This movie looks simply fantastic. In this trailer alone I see faithful recreations of Ebbets Field, Sportsman's Park, Forbes Field and the Polo Grounds. There may be more in there. Looks like Hollywood put up the big bucks and really did it right. Can't wait to see it.

Parking

This is a fun shot from the Shorpy website.
April 26, 1923. Washington, D.C. "Automobiles at ballpark, opening game, Nationals-Athletics."
Next time you have to park at the ballpark think of this!
Make sure you click on the photo at the Shorpy site for the super sized version.
Shorpy is a terrific resource for old glass plate photos from the Library of Congress collection. They take publicly available large picture files and clean them up *dramatically*!

Happy Holidays!!!

I've sort of let things go to seed around here. I'm going to try to make a commitment to get back on track!

Comiskey Park

Here is a recent image of Old Comiskey Park in the last year of its existence. It's a commonly known piece of trivia that the first row of the upper deck of New Comiskey (or U. S. Cellular Field as it's now known) would have been higher and outside of the entire park of Old Comiskey. I'll be loading some goodies up on Zazzle.com featuring this park and New Comiskey Park soon.

KAUFFMAN STADIUM

I've been working very hard on a new series of illustrations to be offered in various designs, starting with t shirts at zazzle.com. If your interested in checking them out, just click on the link or the little ad on the right hand side of this blog. I hope you find them to your liking.

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!