No game wrap this week, but that doesn't mean we can't have an installment of View from the Ballpark:
If you ask me, what has been done with this ballpark should have been done to Tiger Stadium.
photo by Flickr user Josh Self
Remember, no embiggening.
Is it Rickwood Field in Birmingham, AL?
Right on the first guess! I was just about to give a clue, but you nailed it.
photo by Flickr user MGShelton
I admit I got pretty lucky with this one. I did a Google image search of "unique light structures minor league ballparks" and it was the second result.
those are indeed some weird-@ss light structures.
Rickwood Field is the oldest professional baseball field still standing. The former home to the Birmingham Barons and the Birmingham Black Barons, like Hinchliffe Stadium, Rickwood Field is also one of the few surviving Negro Leagues ballparks. To contextualize, it is two years older than Fenway Park (and the late Tiger Stadium), and four years older than Wrigley Field. A very incomplete list of legends who played here includes Babe Ruth, Willie Mays, Ted Williams, Stan Musial, Josh Gibson, Jackie Robinson, Ty Cobb, Satchel Paige, Burleigh Grimes, Walt Dropo, Reggie Jackson, and Cool Papa Bell.
These days the Barons play at Regions Park (formerly Hoover Metropolitan Stadium) in Hoover, AL, but their old ballpark hosts the Rickwood Classic every year, where AA teams dress in period uniforms and play in at what is effectively a working museum. My hope was that Tiger Stadium would be rescued by MLB and used in much the same way as the permanent home of the final round of the World Baseball Classic.
I'll close with few more photos from Rickwood Field:
Human-scale parks like this are best approached on foot.
photo by Flickr user Dystopos
There's a charming, not overly ornate, facade.
photo by Flickr user fables98
The sign on the backstop gives you the most important date:
photo by Flickr user fables98
The view from just behind the dugout:
photo by Flickr user fables98
Kids standing on the grandstand roof, with the beautiful field and scenery behind them.
photo by Flickr user MGShelton
What you can't see in either of those previous shots is the old outer wall. For that, you have to take to the air.
photo by Flickr user ▌ÇP▐
That's 448 feet to right field, and what looks like 478 feet to center or right-center.
photo by Flickr user fables98
I didn't know "concreted" was a verb, but I guess it is in the South.
photo by Flickr user fables98
Might as well see what the grandstand looks like from center field.
photo by Flickr user Pie in her face
As you would expect, Rickwood Field as a beautiful old (mostly) manual scoreboard. How many scoreboards list the battery anymore?
photo by Flickr user MGShelton
Not only is there a manual scoreboard, but the lineup card is a chalkboard!
photo by Flickr user Dystopos
A substitution means a guy in period garb gets to work.
photo by Flickr user MGShelton
Much of old-time baseball was about the small joys, like finding a new perspective to sneak a free peek at the game. Wander in this tunnel:
photo by Flickr user ▌ÇP▐
and you might just get a glimpse of the action or, if you're really lucky, the young top pitching prospect's autograph.
photo by Flickr user ednoles
Sneaking in might or might not get you banned, but like smoking in the Metrodome, some things are still verboten.
photo by Flickr user fables98
If you made it this far, here's a special treat. I wonder what's behind this door?
photo by Flickr user ednoles
I wonder what's behind this door?
Willie, of course.
Well done, CH.
Thanks. I really enjoy writing these posts and attendant CC-licensed photo-scrounging.
this might have been your best yet, CH. And they've all been great. But the photo tours are extry-special.
I feel like adapting Snapped to give you a pretty place to stage these ballpark tours. Maybe with a landing page to collect all of the tours with a thumbnail.
That would be awesome, considering all the room we have here at the new digs. I'm not a huge fan of posting all those photos in an LTE, but haven't figured out a better way to do it. The only consideration (apart from how code-intensive Snapped is on the user end) is that I'd like to keep any replies to the photo tours contained within the original View...Ballpark post.
That said, just because you mentioned it doesn't mean you're obligated to do it. When I started this series I didn't know how long interest in it would last (or even if there would be any). I've got several more ballparks more or less in queue, although not all of them have photo tours yet (or necessarily will, given the overwhelming number of photos are not CC licensed). But these things have a shelf life, and as much as I love doing them, I'll only do them as long as they're interesting to others.
Hmmm... I was thinking something more along the lines of http://www.pictorymag.com/. Meaning no comments at all. So posting the presentation here could lead to comments here. The guessing game would be here and the post- game presentation would be at ballparktours.com (or whatever).
As for software, I'd need to design a landing page and a way to group photos. Might be a nice challenge if you're motivated to use it. I just love the curated photos, but the general Snapped presentation may not be what you're looking for. Feel free to email me (barry at bjhess dot com).
Is there an easy-ish way to embed a slide show here? because that would be kewl.
Flickr does slideshows, but I don't know if you can create your own adhoc-like.
Yeah, I've never used that feature and wonder how it plays with licenses to other users' content and whatnot.
If not here, I could host the presentation on my site as a subdomain. Lord knows it's not being used for much else at the moment. Your ideas intrigue me; I would like to subscribe to your newsletter. (In other words, I'll drop you an email.)
I'll look for it!
Okay, I just noticed one really subtle piece of socioeconomic stratification engineered right into the seating. You can sit right down in front in an actual seat, but you're exposed to the baking Alabama sun (at least until the sun sets), or you can sit in the shade, but in doing so you're relegated to backless bleachers. Maybe Rick Woodward figured the fans sitting closer to the front were more willing/able to pony up for cold beverages and kept the roof just shy of their seating area to, erm, encourage a few more sales? Or maybe the roof simply couldn't reach that far given the engineering limitations of the day? Pretty interesting stuff.
I know at bullfights, seats at the corrida are priced not only by proximity to the action, but also how much sun you have to sit in. Sombra - shade; sombra y sol - halfsies; sol - sun.