PART 2:
Last season saw the opening of two brand new ballparks in the Empire State. The Mets and Yankees, both one-time tenants of the same Manhattan stomping ground – the Polo Grounds – sent two of baseball ‘s most well-known ballparks to the wayside and moved into new hyper-modern replacements.
Both Yankee Stadium and Shea Stadium were great examples of different phases in Twentieth Century ballpark architecture. Unfortunately, Shea was best known as one of the ugliest ballparks in the history of the game. In all fairness though, all of the stadiums built in the 1960s were pretty atrocious. Yankee Stadium was a whole different story. It was giant, grandiose, and part of an era all its own – the only new Major League ballpark built in the 1920s.
The new stadiums, like many others recently constructed, were designed with specific elements that are a throwback to the old school of baseball and the Golden Age of ballpark architecture. Luckily for the Mets, the architects who designed their new home had great inspiration
The Mets new stomping ground, Citi Field, makes extensive reference to Ebbets Field, and some to the Polo Grounds. The Mets, as a franchise, were created as an expansion team with the goal of bringing National League baseball back to New York after both New York NL teams started baseball westward expansion. The Mets team colors, blue and orange, are themselves a direct reference to their NL ancestors.
(The Brooklyn Dodgers, Dodger Blue and white, played their home games at Ebbets Field from 1913 through 1957. The NY Giants, who played their entire existence – other than a brief stint in 1911 – in the Polo Grounds, wore black and orange.)
Citi Field includes an arched stone facade and a large rotunda in the main entry-way (named the Jackie Robinson Rotunda), as homage to Ebbets Field. Even the way the name is displayed on the ballpark is reminiscent of the former home of the Dodgers.
Photo: NY Daily news
Front Facade of Ebbets Field to compare with Citi Field's frontal appearence. Photo: Archival.
In Minnesota, Target Field’s dimensions are relatively identical to those of the Metrodome – quite hitter-friendly, especially with the new building’s overhanging Right field porch – and the Yankees did the same thing. The Mets, on the other hand, started anew.
Citi Field is massive, with power-alleys of 379’ and 383’, and though it has its own Right field over-hang, it barely makes a difference. Luckily for hitters the park is average, if not small, down the lines – 335 to Left and 330 to Right. It’s not built like the Polo Grounds down the lines, but it should help hitters enough.
The Polo Grounds (there were actually four stadiums by that name, but three of them were in relatively the same spot – one of them, the one they actually played Polo on, was located at the North end of Central Park. ) was built as a giant oval. Think about playing baseball on a football field… If you wanted to hit it out of the park you could basically bunt a ball from the middle of the field to the sidelines, but it would take a decent hit to put one out end-zone to end-zone.
After some work and renovations in 1925 the dimensions of the Polo Grounds were established as 279’ to the Left field foul pole, 257’ to the Right field pole and approximately 480’ to Center field. Those dimensions stood relatively unchanged until the park was torn down in April of 1964. When you put those dimensions into context some things become much more believable and others just seem that much more amazing.
Willie Mays’ catch ‘to save the 1954 World Series,’ which would have been a towering home run in any Major League ballpark today, was caught more than 415 feet from home plate. Vic Wertz hit the ball so far that Mays’ twirling throw back into the infield was intended to prevent the runner from tagging up and scoring from second base rather than third… It worked for a double-play.
Willy Mays (Bottom Right) making an over-the-shoulder catch nearing the the Center filed wall over 415 feet from home. Photo: Archival
However, Babe Ruth’s miraculous home run totals of 54 and 59 in 1920 and ’21 were thanks largely to those tiny dimensions. The Yankees played at the Polo Grounds from 1911 to 1922 after their original home, Hilltop Park, burnt down. It seems much less impressive to think that a six-foot-tall 200-pound man only had to hit a ball 260 feet for fame and fortune doesn’t it? He hit some out to Center and Right-Center at Yankee stadium too though – no easy task.
The Yankees moved into “The House That Ruth Built” in 1923 and it was mandatory that Right field still have minuscule measurements to the pole. The original dimensions of 296’ to Right would suffice.
With classic Yankee arrogance, the New Yankee Stadium is mainly designed to be a throwback to its own immediate predecessor. And the original, we’ll call it “Yankee ’23,” was designed to take the other recent stadium designs and cast a shadow on them so large that they become all but forgotten.
Yankee ’23 was built immediately across a train junction from Manhattan and the Polo Grounds. This was done for the purpose of stealing fans and kicking mud in the face of the Giants (Giants Manager John McGraw forced executives to evict the more popular Yankees from the grounds after the Yanks first World Series births in 1921 and ’22).
As much as I would love to hate it (Yeah, I’m one of those baseball fans who think the Yankees are evil) “’23” had some characteristics far more interesting than just it monumental size. The fact that almost 75,000 fans were able to attend the opening game at the stadium on April 18, 1923 is pretty impressive though. Tiger Stadium, The Polo Grounds, or Comiskey Park never drew a crowd larger than 60,000 people.
In the architectural style that was prevalent in recent decades, the Yankee ’23 was built to fit its surroundings. It was constructed on an oddly-shaped piece of empty land and the over-all aesthetic reflects that. The tiny dimensions made to accommodate “The Bambino” in Right field made way to enormous figures from Right-Center to Left which prevented right-handed sluggers like Jimmy Foxx from beating the Yankees.
Due to the convex, bubble, shape of the outfield wall, measurements from home to between straight-away Center field and the Left field power-alley measured nearly 500 feet. Straight-away Center was 460 in itself.
Old Yankee Stadium in its infancy. Notice the shape of Left-Center field. Photo: Ballparksofbaseball.com
Overhead look at the new Yankee Stadium. Yankee '23 is in the background. Note a the similarities in Left-Center field shape. Photo:ballparksofbaseball.com
After years of renovations, championships, and Hall of Fame players, the Yankees decided to erect statues in that massive expanse – for a long time they were in play. A wall was eventually put in front of those statues and an entire museum soon followed. A similar museum exists in the same place at the new park. Today, you can still see a reference to Yankee ‘23’s interesting dimensions in the shape of new Yankee Stadium’s outfield.
The new Yankee Stadium matched the outfield dimensions of ‘23’s final measurements identically. In fact, the only major difference between the two fields is that the new one lets fans sit closer to the action – 20 feet closer behind home plate to be exact.
The new stadium is basically just a hyper-modernized replica of its predecessor. I guess if you’re going to keep the name, you shouldn’t change things too much… Yankee ‘09 offers fewer seats and less standing room, but more luxury suites and concourse amenities… it looks like the bosses want to make their money back as quickly as possible.
