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# 5 Dead Ball Era Ballparks Where We Wish We'd Caught a Game
- URL: https://www.grumpybuck.com/5-dead-ball-era-ballparks-where-we-wish-wed-caught-a-game/
- Published: 2026-08-27T14:02:32.000Z
- Updated: 2026-08-27T14:02:32.000Z
- Description: They were concrete-and-steel palaces with marble rotundas, uphill outfields, and fences built out of pure spite. All five are gone. Here's where we'd sit if the time machine ever gets fixed.
- Author: Brad Riddell
- Tags: Sports History, Baseball, Top 10

*They were concrete-and-steel palaces with marble rotundas, uphill outfields, and fences built out of pure spite. All five are gone. Here's where we'd sit if the time machine ever gets fixed.*

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## 5\. Crosley Field, Cincinnati (1912–1970) — The Park With an Uphill Outfield

![Redland Field — as Crosley was known for its first 22 seasons.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/6a/b0/6ab0eb2f-edcf-411e-aaff-39e6be3d4e39/content/images/2026/08/crosley-redland-field.jpg)

Redland Field — as Crosley was known for its first 22 seasons.

!['The New Ball Park' — a 1912 postcard.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/6a/b0/6ab0eb2f-edcf-411e-aaff-39e6be3d4e39/content/images/2026/08/crosley-redland-new-ballpark.jpg)

'The New Ball Park' — a 1912 postcard.

![The 1919 World Series at Redland Field — yes, that one.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/6a/b0/6ab0eb2f-edcf-411e-aaff-39e6be3d4e39/content/images/2026/08/crosley-1919-world-series.jpg)

The 1919 World Series at Redland Field — yes, that one.

For its first 22 seasons, it wasn't even Crosley Field — it was **Redland Field**, renamed in 1934 for new owner Powel Crosley Jr. Its left field ended in **the terrace**: a 15-degree incline rising four feet toward the wall, so outfielders literally ran uphill to make catches. No warning track needed — the ground itself warned you.

Crosley hosted the **first night game in MLB history** (May 24, 1935 — FDR flipped the switch from the White House), and in the 1937 flood the field sat under some twenty feet of water — **two Reds players rowed a boat over the outfield fence**. Beyond left field, the Superior Towel & Linen building offered a free suit to anyone who hit the Siebler Suits sign.

**Get us a seat for:** June 11, 1938 — the first of Johnny Vander Meer's back-to-back no-hitters. (Hold that thought until #1.)

## 4\. Shibe Park, Philadelphia (1909–1970) — The Palace With the Spite Fence

![The French Renaissance palace at 21st and Lehigh.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/6a/b0/6ab0eb2f-edcf-411e-aaff-39e6be3d4e39/content/images/2026/08/shibe-park-lccn.jpg)

The French Renaissance palace at 21st and Lehigh.

![World Series crowds — and crowd control — at Shibe.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/6a/b0/6ab0eb2f-edcf-411e-aaff-39e6be3d4e39/content/images/2026/08/shibe-police-world-series.jpg)

World Series crowds — and crowd control — at Shibe.

The **first concrete-and-steel stadium in baseball** — it beat Forbes Field by 10 weeks — and it looked nothing like a ballpark: a French Renaissance façade with a domed tower at 21st & Lehigh, and Connie Mack's office inside the dome.

Its greatest feature was born of pettiness. Neighbors on 20th Street sold rooftop seats overlooking right field — so in 1935 the A's raised the fence from 12 feet to roughly 50 feet of sheet metal. Philadelphia named it honestly: **the Spite Fence**.

**Get us a seat for:** Oct. 12, 1929, Game 4 of the World Series — the A's, down 8–0 to the Cubs, score **10 runs in the seventh inning** (Hack Wilson losing a fly ball in the sun along the way) and win 10–8.

## 3\. Forbes Field, Pittsburgh (1909–1970) — The Park Where No-Hitters Went to Die

![The straw-hat crowds of Forbes Field.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/6a/b0/6ab0eb2f-edcf-411e-aaff-39e6be3d4e39/content/images/2026/08/forbes-lf-bleachers.jpg)

The straw-hat crowds of Forbes Field.

![A million-dollar cathedral, 1909.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/6a/b0/6ab0eb2f-edcf-411e-aaff-39e6be3d4e39/content/images/2026/08/forbes-exterior.jpg)

A million-dollar cathedral, 1909.

![The wall that outlived the ballpark — still standing on Pitt's campus.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/6a/b0/6ab0eb2f-edcf-411e-aaff-39e6be3d4e39/content/images/2026/08/forbes-outfield-walls.jpg)

The wall that outlived the ballpark — still standing on Pitt's campus.

A million-dollar poured-concrete cathedral set against Schenley Park, with an outfield so vast — **457 feet to left-center** — that the Pirates stored the batting cage *in center field, in play*. In 61 seasons of baseball, **no one ever threw a no-hitter there**. Not one. The ivy-covered brick wall enclosed Greenberg Gardens (later Kiner's Korner), a bullpen zone invented to bring Hank Greenberg's home runs closer.

And Forbes is the one you can still touch: a stretch of the ivy wall **still stands on Pitt's campus**, distance markers intact, and home plate sits preserved under glass in the floor of Posvar Hall — office workers walk over it every day.

**Get us a seat for:** Oct. 13, 1960 — Bill Mazeroski walks off Game 7 of the World Series against the Yankees, still the only Game 7 walk-off homer in Series history.

## 2\. Polo Grounds, Manhattan (1911–1963) — The Bathtub Under the Bluff

![The bathtub, seen from Coogan's Bluff.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/6a/b0/6ab0eb2f-edcf-411e-aaff-39e6be3d4e39/content/images/2026/08/polo-coogans-bluff-view.jpg)

The bathtub, seen from Coogan's Bluff.

![September 23, 1908 — the Merkle's Boner game.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/6a/b0/6ab0eb2f-edcf-411e-aaff-39e6be3d4e39/content/images/2026/08/polo-merkle-boner-1908.jpg)

September 23, 1908 — the Merkle's Boner game.

![The 1905 World Series.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/6a/b0/6ab0eb2f-edcf-411e-aaff-39e6be3d4e39/content/images/2026/08/polo-1905-world-series.jpg)

The 1905 World Series.

The most gloriously wrong-shaped field ever built: **279 feet down the left field line, 483 to dead center**, where the clubhouse stood in fair territory. A pop fly could be a home run; a 450-foot rocket could be an out — ask Vic Wertz, whose blast died in Willie Mays' glove in **The Catch** (Sept. 29, 1954). Broke fans didn't need tickets: they watched free from **Coogan's Bluff**, the cliff looming over the grandstand. And no, it never hosted polo.

Three MLB franchises called it home, and it hosted one of the most famous swings in baseball history: **Bobby Thomson's Shot Heard 'Round the World**, Oct. 3, 1951.

**Get us a seat for:** That one. Obviously. Sorry, Ralph.

## 1\. Ebbets Field, Brooklyn (1913–1957) — The Cathedral of Flatbush

![Opening day at the rotunda, April 1913.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/6a/b0/6ab0eb2f-edcf-411e-aaff-39e6be3d4e39/content/images/2026/08/ebbets-1913-opening-day.jpg)

Opening day at the rotunda, April 1913.

![Genevieve Ebbets, daughter of the owner, throws the first pitch in park history.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/6a/b0/6ab0eb2f-edcf-411e-aaff-39e6be3d4e39/content/images/2026/08/ebbets-genevieve-first-pitch-1913.jpg)

Genevieve Ebbets, daughter of the owner, throws the first pitch in park history.

![Ebbets under the lights in its final decade.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/6a/b0/6ab0eb2f-edcf-411e-aaff-39e6be3d4e39/content/images/2026/08/ebbets-interior-1950.jpg)

Ebbets under the lights in its final decade.

You entered through an **80-foot marble rotunda** beneath a chandelier made of 12 baseball bats holding baseball-shaped globes. Inside: a right-field wall with roughly nineteen different angles, the Abe Stark sign promising "**Hit Sign, Win Suit**," Hilda Chester howling over her cowbell (the bell is in Cooperstown now), and the gleefully off-key Dodgers Sym-Phony band.

And on **April 15, 1947**, Jackie Robinson took first base in Dodger white, and the sport — and the country — changed. No park on this list held more history per square foot, and none went down harder: the wrecking ball that leveled it in 1960 was painted like a baseball, and reportedly came back four years later to take the Polo Grounds too.

**Get us a seat for:** April 15, 1947\. And June 15, 1938 — when Vander Meer, four days after his Crosley no-hitter, threw his *second straight* under Ebbets' brand-new lights. Two parks on this list, one immortal week.

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*Which demolished park do you resurrect first? One vote each. Wrong answers celebrated.*