There used to be a ballpark here: Athletics Park
From SABR member Tom Shieber at Baseball Researcher on May 14, 2012:
It is likely that Frank Sinatra was thinking of Brooklyn’s long gone Ebbets Field when he sang those words back in 1973, but there have been lots of ballparks that have disappeared over the years. In this and future blog postings, I’ll take a look (and I do mean “look” … we’ll examine a number of images) at a few parks that are gone, but not forgotten.
First up: The old Athletics ballpark at 15th and Columbia in Philadelphia.
Though the park was home to the Athletic Base Ball Club of Philadelphia for just a few years in the mid-to-late 1860s, it was captured in a pair of oft-reproduced images. Perhaps the best known is this lithograph from 1867:
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Titled “The Second Great Match Game for the Championship,” the print depicts action from an October 22nd, 1866, match between the Athletics (at bat) and the visiting Atlantic Base Ball Club of Brooklyn (in the field). (The Athletics won 31-12.) The illustration was created and printed by John L. Magee of Philadelphia.
Note how this image shows a pickpocket “caught in the act” as seen in the bottom, left-hand corner.
Read the full article here: http://baseballresearcher.blogspot.com/2012/05/there-used-to-be-ballpark-right-here.html
Originally published: May 14, 2012. Last Updated: May 14, 2012.