Boston Red Stockings: ‘Home Games’ Played in Other Cities

The home grounds for the Boston Red Stockings were the South End Grounds.1

But there were five other venues where they played “home” games as well. Here is the list of such games:

1871

May 27—Washington Olympics 6, Boston Red Stockings 5, at Union Grounds, Brooklyn, New York. Despite the new 50-cent admission charge, about 2,000 people turned out for the game, which the New York Herald proclaimed “one of the most brilliant contests of the season.”2 Boston’s George Wright was unable to play due to lameness, but the Washingtons (also known as the Blue Stockings or Olympics) were even more battered by injury. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle rained down superlatives, with a subhead calling it “the most brilliant contest on record.”3 It was 5-1 in Boston’s favor after three innings, and the score remained such after seven. The Olympics rallied with three in the eighth and two more in the ninth, to win the game.

The New York Tribune concurred, perhaps with a bit of hyperbole in calling the game “the finest exhibition of ball playing ever witnessed in this vicinity” but added that some of the luster was taken away by “[Andy] Leonard’s unfair and illegal act in preventing Spaulding (sic) from catching a ball in the last inning.”4 Though there was no suggestion of anything nefarious regarding umpire Mills (of the New York Mutuals team), the Daily Eagle criticized Leonard for “willful obstruction,” citing the rule book, and declaring his action “as plain a violation of the rules as it was unfair play, unworthy an honorable ball-player.”5

1873

July 16—Boston Red Stockings 21, Athletics (Philadelphia) 13, at Hampden Park Race Track, Springfield, Massachusetts. The 2:00 P.M. game was linked to another draw, and seen as “an auxiliary to the regatta sports” that had brought in crews from Harvard, Yale, Cornell, Columbia, Brown, and other colleges.6 The Springfield Republican grumbled that the ballplayers showed up late, the designated umpire never did, and that despite a crowd of about 2,500—featuring many collegians—there was “poor playing on both sides.” In the third inning, the paper reported, “the only entertaining feature was a strong foul by Barnes that sent the ball flying into the river.”7

August 16—Boston Red Stockings 11, Athletics (Philadelphia) 8, at 23rd Street Park, Chicago. The Philadelphias were also known as the White Stockings. As the Chicago Times observed, the “club is apparalled (sic) in a very tasty uniform. The pantaloons are of a drab color, hanging loosely downward to the knee, where they are fastened into the white-stocking which have given the club their well-known name.”8 Some 6,000 turned out for the contest, despite neither team coming from Chicago. Philadelphia won the coin toss and elected to bat last; the Athletics scored five runs in the bottom of the first. The lead changed hands, and in the ninth, Boston added four runs to take an 11-5 lead, holding on as Philadelphia scored three times in the bottom of the ninth, but fell short.

Note: the same two teams faced off at the same park three days later, this time the Athletics deemed the home team. Perhaps due to home-team advantage, the Philadelphia team prevailed, beating Boston 9-4.

1874

October 30—Hartford Dark Blues 17, Boston Red Stockings 11, at Worcester Driving Park Grounds, Worcester, Massachusetts. Hartford had held a 9-2 lead after the first three innings, and they continued to press their advantage. Al Spalding was hammered for 17 runs, but the playing surface was a rough one, and only one of the runs was earned: Boston committed 18 errors and Hartford 14. Some 500 attended the game, the last official game of the 1874 season. The Boston Daily Advertiser noted that the Bostons were the “only club which completed all its series, having played in all seventy championship games.”9

There had been an exhibition game on the 29th, Boston 3, Athletics 2. Then the game against Hartford on the 30th. Boston played Harford again the very next day, the 31st, winning 13-5. Locally, there seemed more attention in Worcester accorded the Grafton/Live Oak game, also at the Driving Park on the 31st.

1875

May 14—Boston Red Stockings 13, Washington Nationals 1, at Hampden Park Race Track, Springfield, Massachusetts. Somewhere between 1,500 and 2,000 people watched the game; the Holyoke, Massachusetts, band furnished music before and throughout. It was a one-sided contest with Boston taking an early lead, and the lone Washington run coming in the sixth.

June 22—Boston Red Stockings 11, Brooklyn Atlantics 0, at Adelaide Avenue Grounds, Providence, Rhode Island. The two teams played a game in Boston on June 21, Spalding beating Brooklyn’s John P. Cassidy, 8-7. Then, the next morning’s Daily Advertiser advised readers, “Today the Bostons and Atlantics go together to Providence, where they play a game on the new grounds in that city. They play here again tomorrow.”10 An estimated 1,400 people, “including many ladies,” saw Boston score two in the third, one in the fourth, five in the seventh, and three in the ninth.11 Brooklyn committed 10 errors, Boston only three. Though the box score does not reflect it, the special dispatch to the Globe says, “O’Rourke caught to Manning’s pitching the last innings.” That would be Jack Manning (16-2 on the season) pitching to center fielder Jim O’Rourke, who is indeed listed by Retrosheet as catching in one game in 1875. After the “whitewash” (the Boston Traveler used the phrase, too) on June 22, the two teams squared off again in Boston, with Spalding pitching against Cassidy for the third consecutive day, and winning for the third time, 15-1. Cassidy finished the season with a record of 1-21, despite a 3.03 ERA.

The Red Stockings’ record as the home team in out-of-town ballparks was 4-2.

What were these ballparks?

Both the Brooklyn Eckfords (1871 and 1872) and the New York Mutuals (1871-75) used the Williamsburg section Union Base Ball and Cricket Grounds as their ballpark.12 It is noted as the “first enclosed ball field to charge admission.”13 The park hosted what is considered the “first major-league postseason championship game,” on October 30, 1871.14 During the winters it was an ice skating rink for the Union Skating Club.

The Hampden Park Race Track hosted a game in 1873 and another in 1875. It had also served as the home park to the National Association’s Middletown Mansfields on July 23, 1872. The teams that played baseball there played on the “south end of mile-long oval bicycle race track, running along NW-SE axis.”15

Chicago’s 23rd Street Park was, perhaps unsurprisingly, at 23rd Street, at the corner of State. About 6,000 people turned out for the Boston/Philadelphia game.

The venue in Worcester drew 500 fans, “many of them sitting in trees or on fences.” The facility was more formally known as the Agricultural County Fair Grounds Race Track (I), host to an annual fair each September. During the Civil War, it had served as a “training and recruiting camp for Union soldiers.”16 Baseball had to contend with a somewhat beat-up playing surface, and even a tree growing in left field.17 From 1880 through 1882, it was the home park of the National League’s Worcester Brown Stockings. After the team drew only 18 fans to its September 29, 1882, game, there has been no more major-league baseball played in Worcester, though in 1902 and 1910, Boston’s American League team played preseason exhibition games there. They played in-season exhibition games at Worcester in 1908, 1910, 1927, and 1929. The Red Sox played exhibition games against Holy Cross at Worcester in 1934, 1936, 1937, 1938, 1939, 1941, 1942, and 1947.18

Little can be found in the standard ballpark reference books about Providence’s Adelaide Avenue Grounds. Michael Gershman’s Diamonds has nothing. Philip Lowry’s Green Cathedrals informs us that the park was located on Adelaide Avenue (little surprise there), and also bounded by Broad Street, Hamilton Street, Sackett Street, and Elmwood Avenue. It was used as a neutral site by the Hartford Dark Blues (home team) and the New Haven Elm Citys on June 12, 1875, and by the Boston Red Stockings (home team) and Brooklyn Atlantics 10 days later, on June 22, 1875.

BILL NOWLIN was born in Boston, but well after the glory days of the Red Stockings. In December 1907, when the successor Boston Braves decided to move to wear blue stockings, the Boston Americans quickly grabbed red for their “sox” and the American League franchise had a new name. Bill has followed the Red Sox since sometime in the 1950s, and written extensively on them when not working for Rounder Records. He has been on SABR’s board since 2004.

 

Notes

1 The Red Stockings’ principal home park is often rendered in books on ballparks as South End Grounds (I), to distinguish it from South End Grounds (II) and South End Grounds (III)—also known as Walpole Street Grounds (I), which of course differed from Walpole Street Grounds (II). All of those parks were on the same location, and just to complicate matters a little, the “II” park was also known as the Grand Pavilion, the Union Baseball Grounds, and the Boston Baseball Grounds. The “III” Park was sometimes called the South Side Grounds. See Philip J. Lowry’s SABR book Green Cathedrals (New York: Walker & Company, 2006).

2 “The National Game,” New York Herald, May 28, 1871: 6.

3 “Sports and Pastimes—Base Ball,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, May 29, 1871: 9.

4 “Out-door Sports: Base-Ball,” New York Tribune, May 29, 1871: 2.

5 Brooklyn Daily Eagle.

6 Lowell Daily Citizen and News, July 17, 1873: 2.

7 “The Boston-Athletic Match,” Springfield Republican, July 17, 1873: 5.

8 “The Boston and Philadelphia Baseball Clubs Play in Chicago,” Chicago Times, August 17, 1873: 4.

9 “The Fall Sports—End of the Base Ball Season,” Boston Daily Advertiser, November 2, 1874: 1.

10 “Summer Pastimes—The Base Ball Field—Another Boston Victory,” Boston Daily Advertiser, June 22, 1875: 1.

11 “Base Ball—The Bostons Whitewash the Atlantics,” Boston Globe, June 23, 1875: 1.

12 The opening of the grounds is detailed in the Brooklyn Eagle of May 16, 1862.

13 Michael Gershman, Diamonds (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1993), 2.

14 Gershman, 12.

15 Lowry, 221.

16 Alan E. Foulds, Boston’s Ballparks & Arenas (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2005), 146.

17 Foulds, 146.

18 Bill Nowlin database of Red Sox exhibition games.