Talk:Crosley Field

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[edit] High water line?

I don't recall ever seeing one on TV, and there is no such line in evidence in the photos in books such as Lawrence Ritter's Lost Ballparks and The Sporting News' Take Me Out to the Ballpark. The latter's photos contradict its own text, in fact. They make that same claim, but it is not in evidence in the photos. Also, the water was above the heights of the outfield walls in any case. There was a line across center field, but that was a home run line. There was an extension to the wall in later years, for a better batters' background, and anything hit above the line onto the extensions was a home run. The absence of the extension, and the line, is noticeable in earlier photos. Wahkeenah 09:21, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

No, that WAS the high-water mark. BiggKwell

The line in center field was painted in the 1960s after they extended the center field wall upward. Anything above it was a homer. There was no line in left or right field, except for the vertical line where the taller wall met the shorter "moon deck" bleacher fence. Anything to the right of it was a homer. Wahkeenah 20:33, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merger proposal

Regarding League Park (Cincinnati) and Palace of the Fans...

I question the need for separate articles on those two parks, given their short duration, their relationship to Crosley Field, and the amount of repetition or redundant material between them. They may as well be just one article, giving a smooth timeline, with the other two as redirects to this one. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 06:22, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Agree. Based on the timeline and the length of these articles, merging them makes sense and will improve continuity for the reader. JGHowes ^talk - 07:03, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Re-working it offline, I'm finding that 3/4 of the article is from the current Crosley Field, even before taking out the redundant parts from the other two articles. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 09:48, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

If all three fields were in the exact same location, then I could probably agree with this. You might want to mention at WT:MLB for more opinions. You may find the current arrangement was agreed to for some reason. —Wknight94 (talk) 11:53, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Done. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 14:35, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

I think each park is deserving of its own article. Kingturtle (talk) 14:37, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Each park was its own entity, with its own history - its own firsts and lasts, its own architects, its own part of baseball history. I find studying the history of ballparks to also be a study of the evolution of U.S. society and urban history. I'd prefer keeping the articles separate, but working on them to remove redundancy. Kingturtle (talk) 14:42, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Kingturtle here. I think each ballpark is notable on their own, one article is insufficient. But they would need to be worked on, like mentioned. --Borgarde^talk 14:44, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Two-thirds of the timeline at that site, and all of the team's on-field success, was from the Crosley Field portion of it. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 16:46, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

I have weeded out a lot of the redundancy between the three articles, while including a fairly uniform intro for each that hopefully makes it clear they are each part of a continuum at the site. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 12:18, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Inadvertently I ran across the source of the original writeup in this article, which had kind of a POV edge to it. It was lifted from this site: [1] Hopefully the changes I've made are sufficient to avoid copyright disputes. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 08:57, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

The cleanup is looking good, but I have an issue with the section "The location of the diamond and consequently the main grandstand seating area was shifted several times during the park's existence. Some of the moves resulted in different names being assigned to the ballpark during its 86 1/2 seasons of use:". From the article, it seems as though they were three separate ballparks constructed on the same site rather than one ballpark with three names. SixFourThree (talk) 19:17, 3 June 2008 (UTC)SixFourThree

It gets complicated. Read all 3 articles and you'll see. The venue was like a yo-yo or a pendulum for its first 30 years. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 03:39, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

I've re-read the articles. You're right - it is complicated, but they still appear to be three separate parks (although the second used pieces of the first). Three separate articles, and we should clarify in the timeline and opening paragraph that they were indeed three separate parks (the sentence "Some of the moves resulted in different names being assigned to the ballpark during its 86 1/2 seasons of use" seems misleading to me, especially as it conflates the second and third ballparks, which from the text were entirely separate structures occupying part of the same parcel of land. "The ballpark" didn't have 86 1/2 seasons of use - the land did. SixFourThree (talk) 19:19, 4 June 2008 (UTC)SixFourThree

It depends on how you define "ballpark". Consider Sportman's Park, whose diamond was at three of the four corners at various times, yet the histories generally don't consider them to be separate, due to the name being constant. Meanwhile, notice that the discussion stopped in late January. The reason is that the consensus, such as it was, seemed to be to keep the three articles separate, which is also what you appear to be arguing. At that point, I focused on weeding out the copyrighted information, and left it alone otherwise. Maybe we could mark this section "resolved" like they do in the ANI page? Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 19:27, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. The only thing I still question is that one sentence, which seems to imply that the three parks are unquestionably the same. SixFourThree (talk) 16:57, 6 June 2008 (UTC)SixFourThree

They are all on the same site. Findlay and Western was the home of the Reds from 1884 through mid-season 1970. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 17:36, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

True enough (and sorry for prolonging this), and that ought to be recognized, but I wonder if something like "The site was home to three ballparks during its 86 1/2 seasons of use" might be better, especially since we're maintaining three separate articles (lending weight to them being three separate stadiums)? SixFourThree (talk) 18:06, 6 June 2008 (UTC)SixFourThree

I thought of a useful example of two different buildings on the same site, each of which have their own article: World Trade Center and Freedom Tower. A third article, World Trade Center site, discusses the actually site. We might want to refer to these articles for phrasing, etc. Kingturtle (talk) 18:17, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

For another example closer to baseball, consider Bennett Park vs. Tiger Stadium (Detroit). Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 19:13, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

nice one! Kingturtle (talk) 19:15, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Comparisons closer the the WTC would be the Empire State Building (on the site of the former Waldorf-Astoria location) and the Mall of America (on the site of Metropolitan Stadium).

For the Tigers' venue, the distinction is more clear-cut than for Cincinnati. The grandstand was at "The Corner", i.e. Michigan and Trumbull, from the beginning until the end of 1911. The entire thing was rebuilt for 1912. Findlay and Western is a bit murkier:

League Park

1884-1893: Grandstand at Findlay and Western (southeast corner)

1894-1900: Grandstand at Western and McLean (southwest corner)

1900-1901: Back to the still-existing grandstand at Findlay and Western

Palace of the Fans

1902-1911: Back to Western and McLean, remnant of 1884 stand still existing

Redland Field / Crosley Field

1912-1970: Western and McLean, all previous stands replaced

Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 19:27, 6 June 2008 (UTC)