Baseball in Philadelphia used to be played in a virtual palace.
by Rich Watson
During the early twentieth century, the Philadelphia Athletics were the dominant team in the brand new American League. This meant they were popular—to the point where fans had to be turned away from tiny Columbia Park.
Team president Ben Shibe eyed a square block of land on Lehigh Avenue between 20th and 21st Streets. It was part of an underdeveloped neighborhood, with trolley cars and railroad stations, but also containing bluffs and gullies where live animals roamed. A smallpox hospital was there too, but the city was about to shut it down.
Shibe quietly bought up the land beginning in 1907, with the intent to build a new, bigger ballpark on the site. Two years later, what he and the A’s got was nothing less than a cathedral to baseball.
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