BrooklynBallParks.com
In our sun-down perambulations, of late, through the outer parts of
Brooklyn, we have observed several parties of youngsters playing "base,"
a certain game of ball. We wish such sights were more common among us.
-- Walt Whitman, Brooklyn Eagle, July 23, 1846
Nowhere has the now National game of Base Ball, taken firmer hold
than in Brooklyn, and nowhere are there better players.
-- Henry Chadwick, Brooklyn Eagle, May 10, 1860
If you read the Mills Report of 1907, you might be tempted to believe that baseball history had something to
do with Abner Doubleday in Cooperstown, in upstate New York. That whitewash aside, baseball has
very complex roots. The first draft of the modern game was codified by the Gotham and
Knickerbocker Clubs in New York, and aggressively
promoted by Brooklyn's Henry Chadwick. He gave us the box score, the whole notion of baseball
statistics, and maybe the best press coverage the game ever had.Largely as a result of Chadwick's influence,
Brooklyn became one of the cradles of organized baseball. The borough saw teams in five different major leagues and in the Negro Leagues,
with nicknames ranging from the Gladiators to the Royal Giants to the Hartfords to the Bridegrooms to the Mutuals. So we went in
search of Brooklyn's professional baseball history, past and present. This is what we have found.
What's New?
- We admit to theft of a single brick in the Park Slope Patch.
- Reorganized things, adding separate pages for important ancient, semipro, public, and scholastic parks.
- Added a ton of photos from the city's magnificent new map resource,
NYCityMap, featuring complete overhead views of the city in 1924 and 1951.
- We are still working through the large backlog of parks we have found but not written up. Maybe a hundred to go - every time
we research a field, it seems we find two more.
- In the meantime, we have some spectacular new photos to enjoy, including one of the Excelsior and Knickerbocker Clubs at
Red Hook in 1859, and a completely unique shot of Edison Field in 1911.
- On various dates this summer, Gotham SideWalks will conduct a ten
mile Brooklyn baseball bike tour, featuring many of the fields mentioned on this site. We were there last year, and had a great time. What is Gotham Sidewalks all about?
As they say: Gotham SideWalks make New York City's history relevant through themed, community-based tours that reflect the
contributions and diversity of notable and everyday New Yorkers. Highly recommended!
- A brand new page for the renovated gems of Take The Field
- Stump your friends: what year was the last Dodger game at Washington Park?
Ancient Parks
Professional Parks
Semipro and Leading Amateur Parks
Public and Military Parks
Scholastic Parks
Many More
The Teams
Our Travels
Our Favorite Games
If you'd like to read our minds a little, and see credit where it's due, please check our
research notes and guest
essays.
You Can Help
Keeping this website up has become a costly business. As well as hosting and domain name costs, we
have spent, and continue to spend, a great deal on fees for reproducing and displaying images. If you'd
like to help defray the cost a little, you could buy a
Brooklyn baseball t-shirt:
Or feel free to donate through Paypal:
BrooklynBallParks.com is brought to you by
Andrew Ross (wonders@brooklynballparks.com)
and David Dyte (tiptops@brooklynballparks.com).
Please contact us with any corrections, additions, or requests.