Rickey Builds a Modern Field
The Snell and Hamlett Company fulfills their obligations for the property in short order. The trees and stumps are removed, holes filled and the property is leveled. Rickey draws up his ideal design and sends the St. Louis ballparks head groundskeeper, Sam Barnes, to handle the development of the playing field, particularly the planting and growth of the grass. The St. Pete Baseball and Amusement Company assigns Colonel V. A. Ridgely as the facility manager. Ridgely in turn selects T. S. Brown as the permanent grounds keeper and C. F. Brown to supervise the building of all structures: fences, stands and buildings.
The amount of property leased is termed as two full blocks. The dimensions of the complex that is fenced in is 520’ x 430’ with the North/South distance likely being the 520’ distance. Different reports list the fence height as 8’ or 9’. The outfield fence was reported to be 9’. It’s possible the outer fence was 10’. A higher section of wall was designed for the four handball courts Rickey desired, to help the squad with conditioning.
Rickey, fresh from the college ranks was attempting to innovate in the pros by bringing a scientific approach and teaching skills to the game. His St. Louis counterpart, Miller Huggins, 2nd year manager of the Cardinals, took a distinctly old school approach to the game of learning to play on sandlots and by observing others playing the game. Thus, leading the two into some conflict and eventually irony. They likely had known each other for nearly ten years. In 1904, Huggins’s rookie year as the Reds second baseman, Rickey, a catcher is called up to the Reds for three weeks in the fall although he doesn’t appear in a game. The old school approach was to call a young guy up just to observe and learn.
Prior to arriving in St. Pete, Barnes checks with some Florida grass growers to learn about southern grasses and how to best cultivate a ballyard in sandy soil. T.S. Brown is concerned with the drainage of the playing surface, making sure water will run off of all areas of the field and getting ready to clay the infield. C. F. Brown is busy getting his crews to erect the fencing. Securing lumber in a timely manner is going to be an on-going issue. The fencing comes first, then the needed building structures (locker rooms, concessions, storage, etc.) and finally the stands get erected.
The field itself was laid out in a South-easterly direction. The right field fence abutted 22nd Ave. N which at that time was the northern boundary of the St. Pete city limits. The right field corner was 240’ feet from homeplate. Although most big-league parks of the time were larger, it was the deadball era. News reports of the new Coffee Pot field indicated right field was a long poke and only one ball even hit the fence in 1914. Philly first baseman Fred Luderus would hit one out during his first batting practice session in 1915. The fence in center field was designed to be 290’ deep. I have not found the distance of the fence at the left field line, nor discovered any pictures showing the left field line. The fence from center towards left runs along the shoreline of the Bayou and appears to be deeper in the alley than the one in right. Given my estimate of the right field line based on pictures and before finding the listed distance was 235’ – 250’, I feel comfortable in predicting the left field corner to have been in the 250’ to 265’ range.
The infield was a carefully groomed work. The Cubs found the infield too soft and loose on the sand surface. It was hard to maneuver and run on, risking lower leg injuries, and defaced and cut open the cover of the baseballs fairly quickly. Based on conversations with Tampa who hosted the Cubs in ‘13 a careful design was enacted to avoid those problems. Tampa was bringing in clay for the ‘14 season to put on the infield. Rickey took it a step further. He had five rail cars of clay brought to the park. He had four cars of clay hauled in from Leesburg, in the central portion of the state, and one rail carload from Jacksonville.
That circumstance was by design and not a supply issue. The clay from Jacksonville was finer and thought to be much less abrasive on the body. That load of clay was used around the potential sliding areas. The Leesburg clay filled in the rest of the infield, the floor of the handball courts and other training areas.
Once the field was shaping up Rickey came back down to see to the construction of the batting and bunting cages, the sliding pits and running lanes as well as the handball courts. I imagine Rickey also looked in on the construction of the locker rooms and shower facilities. I’ll talk to those items in the next entry.