|
|
| Location | Cleveland, Ohio |
| Opened | May 1 , 1891 |
| Closed | September 21 , 1946 |
| Capacity |
21,414 |
| Owned By |
Cleveland Indians |
Architect: |
Osborn Engineering
|
Dimensions:
Left
Left-Center
Center
Right-Center
Right
|
385 ft. ( 1910 ), 375 ft. ( 1942 )
415 ft. ( 1942 )
420 ft.
317 ft. (estimated)
290 ft.
|
was a
Baseball stadium located in
Cleveland, Ohio . It was home to the
National League Cleveland Spiders , the
American League Cleveland Indians and the
Cleveland Buckeyes of the
Negro American League . It was located at the northeast corner of Lexington Avenue and E. 66th Street.
League Park was opened on
May 1 ,
1891 , and sat 9,000 on wooden seats at the time. The Spiders played there until going out of business after a disastrous 20–134 season in
1899 due to having their best players stripped from their roster by an unscrupulous owner. They were replaced the very next year by an entry in the new American League, which was initially a minor league and became a major league a year later. The stadium was rebuilt for the
1910 Season , with concrete and steel grandstands, now seating 21,414. The owner renamed the park after himself, so for a while it was called "". After ownership changed hands, the name reverted to the more prosaic "League Park" (there were a number of professional teams' parks called by the generic "League Park" at one time, but in this case the name stuck). The Indians began playing night, holiday and weekend games at the far larger
Cleveland Stadium in
1932 , although in some years following they played exclusively at League Park. They split games between the two stadiums off and on until the end of the
1946 Season . Lights were never installed at League Park, and it was thus impossible to play night games there. For
1947 , under the ownership of
Bill Veeck , the Indians moved to Cleveland Stadium full-time.
Because of a need to squeeze the ballfield into the Cleveland street grid, the stadium was rather oddly shaped by modern standards. It was only 290 feet down the right field line—though batters still had to surmount a 60-foot fence to hit a home run (by comparison, the
Green Monster at
Fenway Park is only 37 feet high). The fence in left field was only five feet tall, but batters had to hit the ball 375 feet down the line to hit a home run, and it was fully 460 feet to the scoreboard in the deepest part of center field. The diamond, situated in the northwest corner of the block, was slightly tilted counterclockwise, making right field not ''quite'' as easy a target as
Baker Bowl 's right field, for example.
After the demise of the
Negro American League Cleveland Buckeyes following the
1950 Season , League Park was no longer in use as a regular sports venue. The
Cleveland Browns football team would continue to use the aging facility as a practice field until the late 1960s.
Today the site is a public park, which includes a baseball field in the approximate location of the original; a small section of the old first-base lower deck stands, including the exterior brick facade; and also the old ticket office behind what was the right field corner. It has been reported that the grandstand remnant was taken down ca. 2005 as part of a renovation process to the decaying playground.
