Labatt Park
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Labatt Park is a baseball stadium in London, Ontario, Canada. It is thought to be the oldest continually operating stadium in the world.
The site of Labatt Park was used for baseball as far back as 1866; baseball had probably arrived in the area with American settlers in the previous decades. The history of Labatt Park itself begins with the London Tecumsehs, founded in 1868. Cleveland oil tycoon Jacob Englehart built Tecumseh Park for them in 1877, at the forks of the Thames River in downtown London. The Tecumsehs played in the International Association, a rival of the National League. The Tecumsehs defeated the National League's Boston Red Stockings in an exhibition game at Tecumseh Park in 1877, and later in the season they defeated the Pittsburgh Alleghenies for the Association championship. Over 6000 people attended the championship game, in a park built to seat 5000. The Tecumsehs were offered membership in the National League but declined, and when the International Association foundered a few years later the Tecumsehs folded as well.
Tecumseh Park was damaged by a flood in 1883, and in the 1880s and 1890s the park was used for bicycle races. Baseball continued to be played there as well, with three more incarnations of the Tecumsehs in the International Association (1888-1889), the International League (1890), and the Canadian League (1898-1900), and the London Alerts, also of the Canadian League, playing in 1896-1897. Meanwhile, in 1895 the park was the site of the first-ever motion picture display in London.
The London Cockneys played in the Class D International League in 1908 and the Class C Canadian League in 1911, while another Tecumsehs club played in the Class C and Class B Leagues from 1912 to 1915. The Tecumsehs played in the Class B Michigan-Ontario League from 1919 to 1924, and in 1921 the team included future Major League star Charlie Gehringer. Gehringer and the Tecumsehs defeated the Boston Red Sox in an exhibition game, also in 1921. A second London team, the Indians, played in the Michigan-Ontario League in 1925. The Tecumsehs also played in the Class D Ontario League in 1930.
The devastating flood of 1937 damaged the park again, but the local Labatt brewing family donated $10,000 to renovate the park. It was then renamed in their honour. The renamed Labatt Park was home to the London Pirates of the Class D PONY League from 1940-1941.
During World War II Labatt Park was the home of the London Majors, who won the National Baseball Congress North American championship in 1948. It was also the home field of an All-American Girls Professional Baseball League team during the war, and the London Supremes played in the Michigan-Ontario Women's Fastball League into the 1950s. In honour of this heritage, the park was supposed to be used in the filming of the 1992 movie A League of Their Own, but filming could not fit around the baseball schedule.
Professional baseball declined in London after the war, with mostly amateur teams playing at Labatt Park in the following decades, until 1989 when an AA Eastern League affiliate of the Detroit Tigers was established. In 1989 the park was named Beam Clay Professional Baseball Park of the Year. The London Tigers were relocated to New Jersey in 1993.
The London Werewolves of the Frontier League played at the park from 1999 to 2001, and in 2001 the park was used as the baseball venue for the Canada Summer Games. In 2003 the park was home to the London Monarchs of the short-lived Canadian Baseball League.
Along with bicycle racing, Labatt Park has in the past been used for soccer and Canadian football. Currently, it is home to the London Majors of the Intercounty League, and the amateur London Badgers team.
Labatt Park was also the planned name of Montreal Expos' new stadium, before these plans were scrapped in 2001.