When the subject of baseball in Brooklyn comes up, the discussion centers around Ebbets Field, the Flatbush venue most famously home to The Boys of Summer. Those legendary 1940s and '50s teams that featured such historic and beloved players as Jackie Robinson, Duke Snider, Pee Wee Reese, Roy Campanella and Gil Hodges. Ebbets Field hosted its last major league game in 1957 and was torn down during the winter of 1960. But decades earlier, just before World War One, the Dodgers were based in the Park Slope area and played at Washington Park. Once they moved out, the land was occupied by another stadium, which housed a different franchise. The upstart Federal League, which played in the 1914 and '15 seasons, had a Brooklyn team called the TipTops. Owned by a local baking magnate Robert Ward, whose company produced TipTop bread, the club took over the abandoned lot along 3rd Avenue and built a new brick and steel venue. The only no-hitter in the Federal League's two...
While charming or intimate would not be the terms any of us would use to describe the now-leveled Cleveland (Municipal) Stadium, its mammoth size makes it memorable in its own right. After all, this was the home park for Hall of Famers such Bob Feller, Lou Boudreau, Early Wynn and Bob Lemon.Larry Doby and Satchell Paige made their major league debuts while the brilliant Bill Veeck ran the club. And Rocky Colavito and Al Rosen became stars in Cleveland uniforms.
When did the bloom wear off this outsized rose? Probably when Veeck lost control of the club due to personal financial issues. A subsequent ownership brought Frank "Trader" Lane in as general manager. Run out of St. Louis after failing to bring the Cardinals a pennant -- and being overruled by owner Gussie Busch after nearly trading franchise player Stan Musial, Lane gained control in Cleveland. His legacy was swapping Colavito to the Tigers for Harvey Kuenn. The move was a disaster for Cleveland, leading to a 30 year lull that was ended only when under the 1990s ownership of the Jacobs family, who signed young talent and oversaw construction of the far cozier neo-retro ballpark that bears their name.
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