West Side Park #2, Chicago Base Ball Grounds
Life Span: 1893-1920
Location: Taylor, Wood, Polk and Lincoln (now Wolcott) Streets
Architect: NA
Chicago Tribune, April 16, 1893
CHICAGO BASEBALL CLUB’S WEST SIDE GROUNDS.
The above cut shows the plan of the new West Side baseball grounds at Lincoln and Polk streets, now rapidly approaching completion. The grounds can be reached by the Ogden avenue, Van Buren, Harrison, Taylor, and Twelfth street cars. They are 475 foet square, exclusive of the carriage yard. The seating capacity is enormous, consisting of 3,000 folding arm-chairs, 500 arm-chairs in fifty-six private boxes, 1,500 seats in a covered pavilion, and 5,000 open ones. Eight hundred thousand feet of lumber were used in the construction of the stands. The diamond will be 90 feat from the grand stand. The right and left field fences are 340 feet from the home plate, and extreme center field is 560 feet. that after this season all the games will be played there, The Cincinnatis will open the park May 14 if it is probable.
West Side Park is #2
Sanborn Fire Map
1917
West Side Park #2
1906 World Series
Game 3
October 11, 1906
West Side Park #2 (1893-1915)
In May 1893, the club opened their second West Side Park a few blocks west-southwest of the first one; on a larger block bounded by Taylor, Wood, Polk and Lincoln (now Wolcott) Streets. They split their 1893 schedule with South Side Park, then moved into the new ballpark full-time the following year. Some sources state that the club moved to this location to gain attendance from the World’s Columbian Exposition, as South Side Park was within walking distance of the 35th Street station of the then-new South Side Rapid Transit line, which reached the exposition grounds at Jackson Park.
West Side Park #2 (1893-1915)
Facing Toward Polk Street and Old Cook County Hospital Behind Grandstand.
The second West Side Park is now also sometimes called West Side “Grounds”, but during its active life, it was most often called a “Park”. Home plate was in the northwest corner of the field, at the Polk and Lincoln intersection. The right field fence paralleled Taylor, with flat apartments between the high fence and the street. There were also flats across Wood Street to the east, behind left field, giving the park (for a few years, at least) a degree of the ambiance that Wrigley Field would later be famous for. Cook County Hospital was across the street to the north, i.e. behind third base. Like the first West Side ballpark, the new facility was hemmed in by the streets around it, creating a somewhat rectangular playing area. The foul lines were originally reported as 340 feet, while the deepest part of center field was initially reported as 560 feet. Although that sounds symmetrical, the left field side in general was much more spacious, and the distance to center was really the diagonal of the rectangle. The remainder of the block, to the south (right field), was occupied by flat apartments just outside the fence that ran along right to center field. The original grandstand was reportedly double-decked, and the park held about 16,000 patrons. As with other parks of the era, fans were often permitted to stand along the outer perimeter of the playing field itself, so the park frequently drew well in excess of its official capacity.
Boys peeking through the fence at West Side Ball Park #2 around 1905.
As the park entered the new century, it featured a small covered grandstand behind home plate. Behind the home plate stands, the team and ticket offices were housed in a fairly ornate two-story brick building topped with statues of baseball players. Uncovered bleachers extended along both foul lines and into left field. Beyond left-center field, the bleachers gave way to a small clubhouse. The right-field bleachers were only five to ten rows deep, sitting underneath a free-standing billboard that ran above the length of the bleachers. The billboard frequently featured large ads for the sports pages and the sportswriters of local newspapers such as the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Daily News. A scoreboard was located on the extreme right end of the billboard, toward the right field corner. Much like today at Wrigley Field, several of the rooftops beyond the outfield bleachers offered bleacher seating of their own, at least for a few years.
The ballpark expanded with the club’s rising fortunes. For 1905, several rows of private box seats were built on top of the original grandstand roof behind home plate. That same year saw the construction of a new two-story brick clubhouse structure, fronted by columns, out in far left-center. After just two seasons, jury-box bleachers were built directly in front of and over the clubhouse. During the 1908 season, the bleachers along the first and third-base lines were gradually covered and topped by more private box seating.
West Side Park #2
Chicago, Cubs vs. Giants, Aug. 30, 1908
West Side Park #2
Chicago, Cubs vs. Giants, Aug. 30, 1908
By the early 1910s the wooden ballpark was showing its age, in large part due to neglect by Charles Murphy, the unpopular owner of the Cubs (one of whose alternate, media-driven nicknames was the unflattering “Murphy’s Spuds”). In 1910, the neighborhood view beyond the right field outfield wall was blocked off by an enormous, unsightly billboard. By 1912, the left field view was similarly obstructed by a large billboard which also served as the new scoreboard. The enclosure of the park was completed with the installment of billboards in dead center. At this time, the jury box bleachers in left-center field were removed, adding to the new claustrophobic feel of the outfield. With gambling becoming an increasing problem in baseball, starting in 1911 the playing field was adorned with large signs (as with some other major league ballparks) reminding fans “No Betting Allowed.” Additionally, the dilapidated park found itself competing unsuccessfully with new steel-and-concrete baseball venues. The Chicago White Sox inaugurated Comiskey Park in 1910. Four years later, the upstart Federal League placed a franchise on the North Side and began play in Weeghman Park. By 1915, the Cubs were the third most popular team in a three-team city.
West Side Park
Chicago Cubs vs Philadelphia Phillies
July 16, 1910
Chicago Tribune, March 30, 1911
When the Federal League collapsed after the 1915 season, Charles Weeghman, owner of the now-defunct Chicago Whales, was allowed to buy a substantial interest in the Cubs. One of his first acts was to abandon West Side Park and move the Cubs to Weeghman Park for the 1916 season. Weeghman Park survives today as Wrigley Field.
Dimensions of West Side Park #2
- Left Field – 340 ft.
Center Field – 442 ft.
Right Field – 316 ft.
Cubs versus Tigers World Series at West Side Grounds
October 9, 1907
Chicago Cubs, West Side Park, 1903
Bobby Lowe (standing, second from the left) and Jake Weimer (standing, first on the right). Lowe and Weimer played together with the Cubs only in 1903.
Standing Room Only
West Side Park #2
Chicago Tribune, April 20, 1916
ELEGY WRITTEN IN A WEST SIDE BALL YARD.
The whistles sound the knell of parting day,
The toilers travel slowly home to tea,
I’ve got to write a parody on Gray,
Though it be painful both to you and me.
Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight.
Save for the chatter of the laboring folk
Returning to their hovels for the night,
All’s still at Taylor, Lincoln, Wood, and Polk.
Beneath this aged roof, this grandstand’s shade,
Where peanut shucks lie in a mold’ring heap,
Where show the stains of pop and lemonade,
The Cub bugs used to cheer and groan and weep.
The adverse guess of Mr. William Klein,
The miscalled strikes of Eason and of Orth,
No more shall rouse the fire of hate in them—
They yield to their successors over north
Where Anson used to hit ’em on the pick,
Where Lange was went to grab ’em off the grass,
Where Dahlen used to kick and kick and kick,
Where Danny Friend was worked for many a pass.
Where games won by Callahan and Griff,
Where long home runs were knocked by Danny Green;
Where, later, Bill Maloney used to whiff,
Where Reulbach used to wound ’em in the bean.
Where Artie Hofman pulled his circus stunts,
Where Sheckard drove and caught ’em on his brow,
Where “Schlitz” was banished from the fold (just once),
Where Heine started many a healthy row.
Where Joe got coverage to go on the stage,
Where Brownie did his own and others toll,
Where Evers used to brew his boiling rage,
Where Chance cussed John McGraw and Larry Doyle.
Far from the madding crowd’s ignoble bleats,
The moles, untroubled, now dig up the turf,
And gnats and roaches occupy the seats
That other bugs once filled, to help out Murf.
“To help Murf? And who was he?” you say,
I answer with a melancholy sigh:
“Approach and read (if you can read) the lay
Graved on the door we used to enter by”;
THE EPITAFT
He was the one real Fox of modern time;
He had competitors all licked a mile.
He gave to baseball all he had—a dime.
He gained from it (’twas all he wished)—his pile.
No farther seek his merits to disclose,
Or draw his frailties from their dread abode.
Let him enjoy his well deserved repose
At 6157 Sheridan Road.
Chicago Tribune, August 8, 1916
Chicago Tribune, August 5, 1920
There is little that appeals to sentiment in the announcement there is for sale a mass of lumber on the west side in the city of Chicago. Some 1,000,000 feet are thrown on the market, and with the sale of this lumber the saws of a wrecking company buzz a requiem and awaken memories of hundreds of thou sands of baseball fans.
It is the end of the Chicago National league baseball park that was-Polk, Lincoln and Wood streets.
This famed landmark of baseball, the home of world’s champions and league champions, where heroes of the diamond cavorted on the green before admiring thousands in battles for baseball supremacy, is doomed. The wrecking company is attending to that.
Remember Anson’s Colts, and the great stare who followed.Remember Cap. Anson, Big Bill Lange, “Bullhead ” Dahlen, Clark Griffith, Jimmy Callahan, “Bridget” Donahue, Danny Green? Then later the “peerless leader,” Frank Chance, Johnny Evers, Joe Tinker, Heinie Zimmerman, Jimmy Archer and others—all associate themselves vividly in the minds of Chicago fans with Polk, Lincoln and Wood streets.
It was away back somewhere about 1890 that this ball park which soon will exist only in memory, sprang into being. Before that time the games were played on the lake front and on the grounds at Harrison, Loomis, Throop and Congress streets. A few years ago the club was transferred to the north side.
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