Shibe Park ( , rhymes with "vibe"), known later as Connie Mack Stadium, was a ballpark located in Philadelphia. It was the home of the Philadelphia Athletics of the American League (AL) from 1909 to 1954 and the Philadelphia Phillies of the National League (NL) from 1938 to 1970.
When the stadium opened April 12, 1909, it became baseball's first steel-and-concrete stadium.Suehsdorf, A. D. (1978). The Great American Baseball Scrapbook. New York: Random House. . p. 33 Over several eras, it was home to "The $100,000 Infield", "The Whiz Kids", and "The 1964 Phold". The venue's two home teams won both the first and last games at the stadium: the Athletics beat the Boston Red Sox 8–1 on opening day 1909, while the Phillies beat the Montreal Expos 2–1 on October 1, 1970, in the park's final contest.
Shibe Park stood on the block bounded by Lehigh Avenue, 20th Street, Somerset Street and 21st Street. It was five blocks west, corner-to-corner, from the Baker Bowl, the Phillies' home from 1887 to 1938. The stadium hosted eight World Series and two MLB All-Star Games, in 1943 and 1952, with the latter game holding the distinction of being the only All-Star contest shortened by rain (to five innings). In May 1939, it was the site of the first night game played in the American League.
Phillies Hall-of-Fame centerfielder and longtime broadcaster Richie Ashburn remembered Shibe Park: "It looked like a ballpark. It smelled like a ballpark. It had a feeling and a heartbeat, a personality that was all baseball."Leventhal, Josh (2006). Take Me Out to the Ballpark. New York: Black Dog and Leventhal Publishers. . p. 48. On another, less charitable occasion, Ashburn said the difference between Veterans Stadium and Shibe Park was "like the difference between chicken salad and chicken shit." Kuklick, Bruce (1991). To Every Thing a Season: Shibe Park and Urban Philadelphia. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. . p. 182.
History
1907: Design and construction In the early years of the 20th century, the Philadelphia Athletics were so popular that team president Ben Shibe found his team regularly turning away customers from their cramped Columbia Park ballpark even though it was just a few years old. When as many as 28,000 showed up to fill the 9,500 wooden bleacher seats, Shibe and manager/part-owner Connie Mack decided the A's needed a new place to play.Kuklick, p. 18
He searched for a site for his new park and found one on Lehigh Avenue between 20th and 21st Streets, five blocks west of Baker Bowl, straddling the neighborhoods known as Swampoodle and Goosetown. It was still primitive at the time, an area of "high clay bluffs, rain-washed gullies, quagmires, open fields, even ponds"Kuklick, p. 22 where chickens pecked and pigs rooted. Although a grid of streets was planned for the area, few actually existed. The area was already served by public transportation: trolleys ran up and down Broad Street and back and forth along Lehigh, and both the Pennsylvania and Reading railroads had major stations nearby. The area had "underachieved" thus far due to the presence of the city's Hospital for Contagious Diseases (the "smallpox hospital") a block west on Lehigh, but Shibe's privileged connections in town brought him word that the city would be closing the facility.Jordan, David M. (1999). The Athletics of Philadelphia: Connie Mack's White Elephants. Jefferson, North Carolina: MacFarland & Company. . p. 43 Without the hospital, the area's stigma would eventually dissipate, but at the time, the land was still a bargain.
Shibe quietly assembled title to his square block of land early in 1907, picking up parcels "through a complicated series of acquisitions, preventing price inflation by masking his intentions," even using straw buyers to keep his name out of the dealings.Kuklick, p. 24 He spent a total of $67,500 ($ in dollars) on seven land packages totaling , and in February 1908, he arranged to have two projected streets running through his block dropped from the city plan.
For the design and its execution, Shibe hired William Steele and Sons.Karsch, Carl G. (1999). "Five Generations of Builders." Carpenter's Hall website Their engineering staff had worked with the new technology of steel-reinforced concrete, and designed and built the city's first skyscraper, the Witherspoon Building at Walnut and Juniper Streets. The Steele design for the Shibe façade was in the ornate French Renaissance style, including arches, vaultings, and Ionic pilasters. The grandstand walls were to be of red brick and terra cotta and featured elaborate decorative friezes with baseball motifs, while cartouches framed the Athletics' "A" logo at regular intervals above the entrances. The souvenir program on Opening Day called it "a fetching combination of color."Kuklick, p. 28 Gabled dormer windows on the upper deck's copper-trimmed green-slate mansard roof looked out over the streets below.Jordan, p. 43 and Kuklick, p. 28. Presiding over all were terra cotta busts of Shibe and Mack above the main entrances on Lehigh and 21st.
The signature feature of the exterior design was the octangular tower on the southwest corner. The upper floors would accommodate the A's offices, those of Shibe's sons Jack and Tom, who ran the day-to-day business aspects of the team,Although Ben was president of the club, he was more involved in the Shibe sporting goods operation than in running the team. Kuklick, p. 17 and the domed cupola on the very top were to house Mack's office. On the ground floor was a main entrance lobby. Bobby Shantz, pitcher for the A's in their last years at Shibe, wrote that the corner tower entrance "looked almost like a church." Shibe was proud of the egalitarianism of the design; he said it was "for the masses as well as the classes."Kuklick, p. 26 In April 1908, design in hand, the Shibes and the Steeles broke ground. With the resources of the Steele firm, construction was speedy, efficient and completed in time to open the 1909 season.One of the most daunting aspects of the project was the grading of the rolling land at the site: it took 40 men working with 50 horse teams over two months to remove the 15,000 wagonloads of dirt necessary to flatten the block. Westcott, p. 105
The city was excited about its new ballpark—the Philadelphia Public Ledger called it "a palace for fans, the most beautiful and capacious baseball structure in the world."Philadelphia Public Ledger, April 12, 1909 American League president Ban Johnson pronounced that "Shibe Park is the greatest place of its character in the world."Westcott, Rich (1996). Philadelphia's Old Ballparks. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. . p. 109 In more recent times, baseball author David M. Jordan wrote that it was "a splendid forerunner of others like it ... Ben Shibe and the Steeles initiated 'the golden age of ballparks'."
The original 1909 configuration was a double-deck grandstand in the southwest corner of the block, with open pavilion seating extending to the foul poles. The outfield was a large rectangle, surrounded by a brick wall that bordered the streets. The deepest part of center field was a square corner from home plate. It was 378 to the left field foul marker, and 340 to right field. The slight upslope of the land from south to north was reflected in a small "terrace" that ran across left and center field.Kuklick, pp. 26–28 The upper deck was built of wood mounted on steel girders, while the lower deck was built of concrete and steel. The only link with the Columbia Park was the transplanted sod, rolled out at the new venue. The 1909 seating capacity certainly was an upgrade from Columbia Park: 11,000 in the double deck and 12,000 in the two pavilions, for a total of 23,000. Overflow crowds were accommodated by roping off the left field area in front of the wall. Some 500 tons of steel went into the construction.Westcott, p. 106
April 1909: "Play ball!" On Monday, April 12, 1909, the Opening Day proceedings walked a fine line between festival and chaos. More than 30,000 fans showed up and got in; another 15,000 showed up and were turned away. Nervous officials closed the gates hours before game time, turning the outsiders into a "howling mob of thousands"Philadelphia Public Ledger, April 13, 1909 whose pressure forced open one of the gates. Hundreds poured in without paying admission, and an estimated 7,000 standing-room only spectators saw that first game ringing the outfield up to seven-deep, held back by a rope stretched between the left field seats and the right field bleacher.Sparks, Barry, (2005). Frank "Home Run" Baker: Hall of Famer and World Series Hero. Jefferson, North Carolina: MacFarland & Company. . p. 26. Another 6,000 more looked in from various rooftops around the block. "It seemed as if all of Philadelphia was there", wrote the Public Ledger. Mayor John E. Reyburn called the new facility a "pride to the city"Jordan, p. 44 and threw out the first ball. The A's beat the Boston Red Sox that day, 8–1.
The Athletics and their new stadium were a hit: the A's won pennants—and brought World Series to town—in 1910 and 1911, and by 1913, when they would win another, Shibe initiated the first of the expansions of seating capacity that would continue right on through the 1950s. He called again upon the Steele company and added a new unroofed bleacher section across left field, taking advantage of the site's rectangular, rather than square, shape, and also added roof structures to cover the open pavilions down the first base and third base lines.
After Ben Shibe's death in 1922, sons Tom and Jack became president and vice president, respectively.Tom and Jack Shibe had two siblings who held stock but did not participate in team management. Kuklick, p. 112 and in 1925 they replaced the 1913 open left field bleachers with a double-deck that extended from the foul pole to the center field corner. This construction covered the "terrace" except in the deepest part of center field which still had a slight upslope. Where the upper deck of the main stands abutted the upper deck of the bleachers, there was a slight overhang. Whether this ever affected play is unknown. They also extended the upper deck out over the pavilions. These expansions resulted in another 10,000 seats.Westcott, p. 112 In 1928, the brothers installed a mezzanine that added 750 pricey box seats and the following year they raised the original grandstand roof and installed a press box underneath it, along with 3,500 more seats.
For the 1923 season, Connie Mack had the infield moved back an estimated . This was a choice of speed over power, as moving the plate back increased left field and right field dimensions by each. Home runs dropped about 50% for the next three seasons. The Shibe brothers moved it back to its original position, resulting in field dimensions of to right field, 334 to left, and 468 to the square corner in center.
In 1936, A's President Tom Shibe died, and Connie Mack succeeded in gaining control of the team by buying out Tom Shibe's share from his widow. The move made the Mack family the controlling partner in 1937, though various Shibe family members still had "considerable holdings" in the team.