League Park
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| Missing image Leaguepark2.jpg League Park | |
| Location | Cleveland, Ohio |
| Opened | May 1, 1891 |
| Closed | September 21, 1946 |
| Capacity | 21,414 |
| Owned By | Cleveland Indians |
| Architect: |
Osborn Engineering |
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Dimensions:
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League Park was a baseball stadium located in Cleveland, Ohio. It was home to the Cleveland Spiders and Cleveland Indians. It was located at 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. They were replaced two years later by the Indians. The stadium was rebuilt for the 1910 season, with concrete and steel grandstands, now seating 21,414. The Indians began playing night, holiday and weekend games at the far larger Cleveland Stadium in 1932. They split games between the two stadiums 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, the Indians moved to Cleveland Stadium full-time.
Because of a need to squeeze the stadium 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.
League Park was demolished in 1951. A public park, including a baseball field—where a small section of the old first-base lower deck stands remain alongside a baseball diamond where the original was situated, and also the old ticket office behind what was the right field corner—stands on the site today.
External links
- USGS aerial photo of League Park Playground (http://terraserver.microsoft.com/image.aspx?T=1&S=10&Z=17&X=2231&Y=22978&W=2&qs=%7ccleveland%7coh%7c)