Crosley Field

The Crosley Field scoreboard with the Longines clock and the left field terrace. This photo was taken during the first game of a Reds/St. Louis Cardinals doubleheader on June 9, 1968. The Reds' Alex Johnson is in left field, and Lou Brock is at bat. Brock hit a fly ball to center for the second out, but the next nine Cardinals reached base safely, scoring ten runs. The Cards won the game 10-8.[8]

Crosley Field was usually among the smallest parks in Major League Baseball, both in seating capacity and playing field size.

Probably the most notable (or infamous) feature of Crosley Field otherwise was the fifteen-degree left field incline, called "the terrace". Terraces were not unusual in old ballparks. Most of them were constructed as a way to make up the difference between field level and street level on a sloping block, and most of them were leveled out ("Duffy's Cliff" at Fenway Park and Left Field bump at Wrigley Field are two examples).

The story of the Crosley Terrace is the reverse of the long-departed "Duffy's Cliff". There was no terrace in evidence during the ballpark's days as the Palace, which had a fairly high wall whose base was below street level. The terrace came about when the new ballpark was constructed for 1912. The club received permission to expand the playing field, by way of the city closing the eastbound lane of York Street. Instead of building a very high wall and retaining a level playing field, the club built a somewhat shorter wall with its base at roughly street level, with the sloping terrace making up the difference in grade.

As baseball boomed during the 1920s, many clubs built additional seating in their once-spacious outfield areas. The outfield area at Findlay and Western was already small, so building inner bleachers was not practical, and the Crosley terrace persisted and became one of the park's trademarks. It was used, as Duffy's Cliff had been, for temporary spectator seating, in the days when standing-room-only crowds would be allowed at the fringes of the field behind ropes. The terrace also served as a warning track, in lieu of the more typical dirt or gravel warning tracks that began to appear at most other ballparks by the 1950s. The slope was at least as much warning to an outfielder as a flat track was. Although the terrace was most prominent in left field, it extended clear across the outfield.

In later years, box seats were added to the terrace in the left field corner, in foul ground, directly facing the infield as the fair-territory seating once had. At the north end of the box-seat aisle, behind the corner boxes, and visible in some photos, was a stairway up to a roll-up exit gate to York Street. Another roll-up exit gate was on the center field side of the scoreboard. The terrace was shallower there, with a shorter flight of stairs up to Western Avenue.

There was a low fence in front of the left-center stairway (and the flagpole) which led to one of the two posted ground rules. The one on the low fence read, "Batted ball remaining back of barrier - 2 base hit. Bouncing out - in play." In building the new scoreboard for the 1957 season, that corner was reconfigured, eliminating the need for that short barrier and the ground rule. The other, more famous posted ground rule in the right-center field corner above the 387 sign (later 390) read, "Batted ball hitting wall on fly to right of white line - home run."

The Crosley terrace was not as extreme as the terrace at Nashville's Sulphur Dell, but it still frustrated many outfielders, mostly from visiting teams. Babe Ruth was victimized by it on May 28, 1935, playing for the Boston Braves in his final season. He was headed for the Hall of Fame, but one game as Ruth was headed up the Crosley terrace, he fell down on his face. Less dramatically, Yogi Berra had to negotiate the terrace on a Frank Robinson double in Game 3 of the 1961 World Series.

The terrace in 1946.

Frank Robinson, however, loved it. In the early 1990s, when the Baltimore Orioles were planning their future home, Oriole Park at Camden Yards, Robinson, an Orioles executive and one-time Reds star, unsuccessfully lobbied to get the team to install a terrace in left field.

When the Houston Astros' new facility, Enron Field, was being built, a prominent addition to the field was a 30° center field incline with a flagpole, which was dubbed "Tal's Hill" in reference to its proponent, Astros executive Tal Smith. However, it has been removed and replaced with seating.

To commemorate their Crosley Field years, the main entrance of the Cincinnati Reds' new park, Great American Ball Park, features a monument called "Crosley Terrace" that features inclines and statues of Crosley-era stars Joe Nuxhall, Ernie Lombardi, Ted Kluszewski, and Frank Robinson. References to the terrace are also visible. This monument was designed by architecture firm Populous and sculptor Tom Tsuchiya.

Through much of its history, Crosley Field was used for other events besides Cincinnati Reds baseball games. During World War I, the city's police force staged a review at Redland Field on October 17, 1917. The Negro leagues' Cincinnati Tigers in 1936 and 1937 called Crosley home. The original 1937 Cincinnati Bengals football team played home games there.

On August 21, 1966, Crosley Field hosted The Beatles, who on their final tour. The concert had been scheduled for the previous day, but was rained out. On June 13, 1970, Crosley Field hosted The Cincinnati Pop Festival. The band lineup included: The Stooges, Mountain, Grand Funk Railroad, Alice Cooper, Traffic, Mighty Quick, Bob Seger, Mott The Hoople, Ten Years After, Bloodrock, Savage Grace, Brownsville Station, Zephyr, Damnation Of Adam Blessing, and John Drakes Shakedown.

Other events held there included a Roy Rogers rodeo, a political rally for Wendell Willkie, and an Ice Capades show.

After the 1970 season, the Cincinnati Reds and the city, which had agreed to buy Crosley Field, were at an impasse over how much Crosley Field was worth. The Reds wanted $3.5 million; the city countered with a $1.5 million offer. Eventually the case went to court. The city contended that since Crosley Field's playing field was extremely depressed, it would need to be filled — a costly and time-consuming affair. The Reds countered that since Interstate 75 ran by it, the site would become premium real estate, and they should be fairly compensated for the increase in value. They also brought in an expert witness, Reds player Pete Rose. Rose espoused the positives of Crosley Field.

Eventually, a jury set the sale price at $2.5 million. After the sale was made official, the city turned the park into an auxiliary auto impound lot while the Queensgate project was finalized.[9] Ironically, given the parking shortage for many years, Crosley had itself become a parking lot. Two years later, the demolition of Crosley Field began in earnest. The lights were dismantled and relocated to various recreation areas in the city.[10] The park was soon gutted; seats sold for $10 and fans and present and former club employees scrounged for mementos. On April 19, 1972, Pete Rose, Jr. pulled a lever that sent a wrecking ball into the side of Crosley Field. By autumn, just the faint outline of the grandstand remained.

Today, seven buildings occupy the site and a street runs through it. The former site of home plate has been painted in an alley.[11] The old left field terrace area is now a parking lot, but it is still distinguishable due to its slope and its location next to York Street. Dalton Street, which formerly dead-ended into Findlay Street, was extended through the former field of play.

In 1974, Larry Luebbers of Union, Kentucky, built a replica of the Crosley Field playing field on his farm. To that, he added memorabilia that he had harvested during Crosley's demolition, such as seats, signage, and the old Crosley ticket booth; painted advertising on the fences; and opened it for the Cincinnati Suds professional softball team, which he also owned. However, by 1984, it was gone, too. Luebbers was forced to sell his farm to pay off his creditors. Luebbers' son, Larry Luebbers, played for the Reds and several other clubs in the 1990s.[12]

At about the time Larry Luebbers' Crosley re-creation failed, Marvin Thompson, then city manager Cincinnati suburb Blue Ash, came up with the idea to make one of the ballfields of a planned community sports complex a re-creation of Crosley Field. Administrative aide Mark Rohr was put in charge. He tracked down memorabilia for the park; what he couldn't find was often donated by fans. Items such as usher's uniforms, signage, rooftop pennants, and a field microphone were given to the new project, which opened in 1988 with an Old Timer's game (which has been discontinued). A replica scoreboard carries information from the final game at the old park. The field also has a white wall with "CROSLEY FIELD" in red letters in the appropriate font. This re-creation was met with positive reviews from fans old enough to remember the real park, as well as retired Reds players such as Pete Rose, Joe Nuxhall, and Jim O'Toole. A wall features a number of plaques commemorating Crosley-era Reds greats. Additionally, 400 seats from the original field were installed at the Blue Ash replica.

Rohr, who wasn't a baseball fan when the project began, stated: "Sometimes I have a hard time understanding the people who come and stare at this place with tears in their eyes; a woman actually hugged the ticket booth and kissed it". The field is used regularly by teams in various levels of play. Moeller High School's Varsity Baseball team plays its home games at Crosley.

Crosley Field was known as a hitter-friendly park, though it was less so in its early days when the diamond was farther from the fences.

• The first over-the-fence home run struck at Redland/Crosley Field was by outfielder Pat Duncan on June 2, 1921.
• Ernie Lombardi once hit a home run that landed in a truck traveling beyond the outfield fence. The truck carried the ball for 30 miles (48 km). Writers facetiously called this the "longest home run" in history.
• The Goat Run, additional rows of seats which decreased the right field porch from 366 feet (111.5 m) to 342 feet (104.2 m), was added specifically for slugging, sleeveless left-handed batter Ted Kluszewski, presumably to increase his home run total. However, "Klu" rarely hit home runs in the area and it was removed after the 1958 season. Crosley's normal right field layout had the rare element of a foul line farther away (366) than the power alley (360); this meant that balls hit down the right-field line "died" in the corner, with the batter often getting a triple, due to the long distance to third base from right field.
• The scoreboard in left-center field was a major impediment to home-run hitting. At 55 ft (16.8 m) tall, and entirely in play (yellow lines appeared on walls many years later), many hits that would be home runs anywhere else became two-base hits, bouncing back to the outfielder. A sign to the right side of the clock at the very top of the scoreboard offered a free suit from a local tailor to any Reds player to hit the sign. Small consolation for a near miss on a home run.
• On June 10, 1967, Houston outfielder Jimmy Wynn hit a home run to center, onto future I-75. This shot has been portrayed in many films and television shows.

In 1937, the Mill Creek flooded, submerging the field under 20 feet (6.1 m) of water.[13] As a lark, Reds pitcher Lee Grissom and the team's traveling secretary, John McDonald, got into a rowboat and entered Crosley Field over the left field fence and rowed to the area of the pitcher's mound. There was a photographer present, of course, and the picture has been well-circulated since then. For example, it can be seen on p. 40–41 of Lost Ballparks, by Lawrence Ritter.

Across the left field wall on York Street, a sign on the Superior Towel and Linen Service plant advertised a downtown clothier, Seibler Suits, which rewarded any player hitting the sign with a suit. Wally Post, who won 11, led the Reds in this unofficial statistical category; Willie Mays led all visitors with seven. Its demolition in the early-1960s netted 38 parking spaces.

• The editors of the Sporting News (1992). Baseball A Doubleheader Collection of Facts, Feats, & Firsts. St. Louis, Mo.: The Sporting News Publishing Co. ISBN 0-88365-785-6..
• Cincinnati's Crosley Field: The Illustrated History of a Classic Ballpark by Greg Rhodes and John Erardi, 1995, Road West Publishing
• Baseball Library.com
• Green Cathedrals, by Phil Lowry, 1992
• Baseball Parks of North America, by Michael Benson, 1989
• The Cincinnati Reds, by Lee Allen, Putnam, 1948.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Crosley Field.

• Tribute site
• Info on Crosley Field re-creation in Blue Ash, Ohio
• Crosley Field diagram at Clem's Baseball
• Cincy Sports