Baltimore historian discovers photograph of long-lost Maryland Baseball Park site
From Pete Kerzel at MASN Sports on November 25, 2013, with mention of SABR member David Stinson:
Baltimore baseball historians take note: A new discovery has unearthed a previously unknown photograph that details the exact location of Maryland Baseball Park, former home of the Baltimore Black Sox of the Negro Leagues.
Research by University of Delaware associate professor of English Bernard McKenna, a Baltimore baseball historian, uncovered the groundbreaking 1927 aerial photograph, which shows Maryland Park’s location on Russell Street, several blocks south of where M&T Bank Stadium now stands.
The photograph, shown at the right, was part of a collection of aerial photographs commissioned by the Maryland Port Authority, which wanted views of the city and the waterways that fed the Port of Baltimore. While many of the images were destroyed or lost over time, McKenna discovered this image had been digitized by Johns Hopkins University and made available online.
Maryland Park was located at Bush and Russell streets, on a small peninsula of land where the Wheelabrator solid waste incinerator facility now stands. Previously, researchers thought the ballpark was located just north of the site on Russell Street, approximately where the Holiday Inn Express now sits, but there was no photographic evidence of the structure.
The Black Sox, who played at Maryland Park from 1921-32, were started as an independent club in 1916 and were an original member of the Eastern Colored League, which operated from 1923-28. They played in the American Negro League in 1929, as an independent again for 1930-31, the East-West League in 1932 and moved to the Negro National League for the 1933-34 seasons.
Read the full article here: http://www.masnsports.com/orioles_buzz/2013/11/baseball-historian-discovers-photograph-showing-long-gone-maryland-park-westport-baseball-grounds-si.html
Related link: Read David Stinson’s Deadball Baseball blog for a more extensive report on McKenna’s discovery here.
Originally published: November 26, 2013. Last Updated: November 26, 2013.