Baker+Bowl

=__BAKER BOWL – //REACH//____ING THE GOAL__= The **Baker Bowl**, also known as Philadelphia Base Ball Grounds or National League Park, was the Philadelphia Phillies’ home from 1887 until 1938. The park was rebuilt in 1895, featuring breakthrough designs including the use of steel and brick as ballpark materials and a cantilevered pavilion that was the first of its kind. Because of its incredible impact on consequent stadiums, it is considered to be the “first modern ballpark,”[1] as are other parks since its time. Al Reach, the Phillies first and current president at the time, made all of this possible. Reach's background as a baseball player and businessman undoubtedly aided the Phillies’ progression as a ball club, culminating temporarily in the construction of the Baker Bowl. =**A Start for Reach and the Phillies**=
 * ~ Contents ||
 * # A Start for Reach and the Phillies
 * 1) Early Problems and Solutions
 * 2) Moving to a New Ballpark
 * 3) Philadelphia Base Ball Grounds
 * 4) Baker Bowl (National League Park)
 * 5) Reasons for the New Design
 * 6) Influences
 * 7) References
 * 8) Additional Notes
 * 9) External Links and Further Reading ||

Al Reach was one of the first baseball players with a salary.[2] Commuting from his home in Brooklyn to play for the Athletics in Philadelphia, however, was a lot for him with only $25 a week,[3] so he obtained a small store in Philadelphia and turned its focus to baseball supplies. He had the striking ability to predict changes in the sporting market. At the same time, he was reinventing the position of second baseman on the Athletics, and eventually became the team’s player-manager.[3]

After retiring from this position, Reach opened his own sporting goods store, which became very successful. Still wanting to remain involved in baseball, Reach attempted to gain some attention by clearing an area of ground in North Philadelphia and turning it into a reasonable ballpark.[2] The president of baseball’s National League took notice and offered Reach presidency of a new team in Philadelphia, and in 1883 the Phillies joined major league baseball with Al Reach as president and co-owner.

= Early Problems and Solutions=

The origin of major league baseball is very unclear and posed many difficulties for teams to organize players. Reach encountered many of these problems. One of his first ideas was to improve his Recreation Park to attract both players and fans. When he ran into financial problems (as many others did), he used ticket deals and discounts as a strategy to attract fans away from the competing American League, which only charged half as much for tickets compared to the National League. Because this did not work as well as he had expected, Reach found money in renting the park to other popular events, such as college football and bicycle racing.[2]

The Phillies’ bats posed another problem. In their first year, their record of 17-81 earned them last place.[4] As a countermeasure, Reach hired a new manager, Harry Wright, who in his 13 years as a manager had earned 6 teams first place with incredible winning percentages. Another one of Reach’s clever strategies, Wright was a huge success. With his skills as a manager and knowing which players to sign, he managed to increase the Phillies’ winning percentage from 0.173 to around or above 0.500 for the next 10 straight years. Coming in 3rd in the National League in 1885 and possessing a winning percentage of 0.623 in 1886[4] certainly contributed to the dramatic increase in the number of fans. With business still in mind, Reach was discontent with his “difficulty finding space for all the people who want to see us play. Our Ridge Avenue park isn’t big enough to handle our crowds… we’ve got to get a park worthy of our team.”[2] Watching the potential profit being turned away with each passing game, Reach devised a solution – a new ballpark. =Moving to a New Ballpark=

Philadelphia Base Ball Grounds
The article in the //Inquirer// directly after opening day says it all about the first ballpark at Broad and Huntingdon streets: //“No event in the history of baseball is parallel in importance to that of Saturday, when the new grounds… were for the first time open to the public. Eighteen thousand people were present to attest their appreciation which gave to Philadelphia the finest and grandest sporting park in the world.”// [5] Indeed, as the //Sporting News Guide// put it years later, “The Phillies National League park completed in 1887 at the cost of $80,000 was one of the finest pavilions in the United States.”[6] Its grandstands were made entirely of wood, and the walls that surrounded the outfield were built from brick. As a cushion in case the new park did not have the desired impact on attendance levels and finances, credited architect Al Reach[3] built a track around the field to take full financial advantage of the current bicycle craze by renting it out on off days and the off season as he had with his previous Recreation Park.[2] A new Phillies era had begun.  Disaster struck on August 6, 1894 when “Flames Lay[ed] Waste [to] the Pride of the Philadelphia Ball Club.”[7] From unknown causes, a fire was started and burned down the whole ballpark except for the brick fences in the outfield. Headlines loomed on the front pages of newspapers the next day. The destruction of “pride,” described in that first headline hit the nail on the head. According to co-owner Colonel Rogers, “All that we have accomplished by years of work and thought has been destroyed in a few hours. [We] have labored hard to give Philadelphia the best ball grounds in the world and had succeeded well.”[8]


 The fullness of Al Reach’s passions is best seen in his invitation for fans to see the entirely new ballpark on May 1, 1895. His elaborate letter begins with a description of the old park and the horrors that afflicted it. He explains, however, that “Although the fruits of patient care and economy had disappeared in a few hours, the officials of the club wasted neither time nor tears in repining” and how they put “all their energies and resources into instant action.”[6] Wanting no more than the best for his team, Reach’s efforts allowed for the field to be open temporarily to 9,000 fans for the championship game just 12 days after the conflagration. Furthermore he stated that all his time and energy has “been concentrated upon the construction of our new Pavilion, which, for beauty, ornate and unique magnificence, as far excels the former Pavilion, as did it all others in America.”[6,9] a

Reach was clearly proud of his old and new stadiums, both of which he built for different purposes. In addition to previously stated reasons, the old park “was considered a marvel because, unlike all other so-called Grand Stands, it had but one row of iron posts… to obstruct the view of the spectator”[9] – apparently another one of Reach’s strategies in the design, which was expanded upon in the new stadium’s design.


 The new stadium’s purpose was to prevent any future fires from occurring (so as to avoid such terrorizing headlines), as well as to avoid anything that had the potential to destroy Reach’s finances, the safety of others, and the success of the Phillies. Reach stated in his invitation, to convince himself and others of the stadium’s invulnerability, that the “new structure is mainly of brick and steel, containing no wood or other inflammable material except the platforms and seats.”[9] Brick had been used before, but the use of steel in stadium was a very new idea.

The basis behind use of steel lies in recent changes in the field of structural engineering. The massive amount of steel required was rendered possible with the Bessemer process (1855). However, its use in structural engineering remained limited because of its unreliability as seen in the brittleness of some early American rails. Only with the development of other open hearth processes, such as the Siemens-Martin process (1875), did steel gain consistent quality. This went hand-in-hand with the construction of steel bridges. The first cantilever bridges were built in the 1880s,[10] and it was only after their success that people like architect John D. Allen started thinking about the cantilever design for other applications.

Another purpose of the new stadium was to amaze, in hopes of attracting admirers and fans, which entails a number of things. Appeasing the fans, the new stadium had “no posts at all in front of two-thirds of those seated on the lower deck, and none at all in front of all those seated on the upper deck. In other words nine platforms of the upper deck project beyond any post in the air, and over the heads of those below. This [is] only rendered possible by the adoption of the Cantilever system,”[6,9] which was the idea of Allen, the architect of the new stadium. While such a thought was ingenious, its application seemed “chimerical” in the eyes of Reach and many others. After seeing a recent cantilever bridge in Scotland and being reassured of its structural integrity (through both Allen’s words and practical tests),[6] Reach was convinced and could not wait to alter the design to help suit his many purposes. Fifteen cantilevers were built by Parvin & Company[6] and were more than ready for opening day. Reach, in his invitation, thus asks that his new stadium’s “title as pioneer in original, beautiful and appropriate architecture, be confirmed by the verdict of its patrons, and that the public at large will appreciate the enterprise, which adds so novel and unique a structure to the many other ornamental edifices of our beloved city.”[6]

Opening day was a huge success, as it had been eight years earlier. Front pages of papers hailed the new park as a “grand and inspiring sight” and the “finest ballground on the continent.”[9] While Reach’s strategy of Harry Wright had worked for the Phillies, he was no longer around by the time the new park opened, yet the Phillies continued to achieve success as a team for several more years. Reach had other less obvious strategies in the building of the Baker Bowl, as it came to be called. The first included the bicycle track that encircled the stadium as it had in the first design, which symbolizes Reach’s tact of opening up the stadium to other tenants as a means of raising more money for the Phillies. Also, as the years progressed, he sacrificed field space in exchange for stands in the outfield.[2]

Another very important aspect of the stadium that was not mentioned earlier was the park’s location, which was definitely considered when Reach decided it was time for a move. While not much was present in 1887, he must have foreseen some future because the site eventually become local to numerous hotels, businesses, and the Reading Railroad across the street.[2] Each of these contributed indefinitely to the Baker Bowl’s success through tourist attraction and ease of transportation. =  Influences =

= = = =  Al Reach’s plans may have culminated with the building of the Baker Bowl, but his influences and that of the Baker Bowl extend well beyond its construction. The use of a stadium for other tenants, for example, extended to the use for other sports teams, as the Philadelphia Eagles made Baker Bowl their home from 1933-1935. This idea of a multi-sport stadium (it was the first in Pennsylvania) reached to Chicago, with the construction of Comiskey Park, and was revived later with Philadelphia’s own Veterans Stadium.[2]

Moreover, in terms of architectural design, the park served as a new model for steel-and-concrete stadiums with cantilever designs. Immediately apparent was its influence on Shibe Park (1909) in Philadelphia (also known as Connie Mack Stadium) as well as Forbes Field (1909) in Oakland/Pittsburgh.[2] These parks are known for being “firsts” and subsequent parks have only built upon existing designs.

Al Reach, as a baseball admirer and businessman, had goals for himself and the Phillies and achieving those goals took specific strategies. His employment of these solutions led to Harry Wright, more fans, and precise designs in some fantastic stadiums that unmistakably affected the Phillies, their fans, and ballparks of the future.

=References=

[1] Warrington, Bob. "A Historical Sketch of Baker Bowl." __Elysian Fields Quarterly__ Spring 1992. [2] Westcott, Rich. __Philadelphia's Old Ballparks__. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1996. [3] Casway, Jerrold. "Alfred J. Reach - Sporting Goods." __American National Biography__. Ed. John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes. Oxford University Press, 1999. __Kensington Portraits & Biographies__. 2006. 19 Jan. 2009 <http://www.kennethwmilano.com/page/Encyclopaedia/KensingtonPortraitsBiographies/AlfredJReach/tabid/226/Default.aspx>. <span style="color: rgb(39, 42, 44);">[4] Nemec, David. __Great Encyclopedia of 19th-Century Major League Baseball__. New York: D.I. Fine Books, 1997. [5] __The Philadelphia Inquirer__ 2 May 1887, Front Page: 3. [6] Doyle, Ed, et al. "Baker Bowl." __The Baseball Research Journal Archive__. 2005. The Society for American Baseball Research. 15 Mar. 2009 <http://research.sabr.org/brj/index.php/baker-bowl>. b [7] "The Ball Park: A Heap of Ashes." __The Philadelphia Inquirer__ 7 Aug. 1894, Vol. 131 - No. 38, Front Page: 7. [8] "The Ball Park Fire." __The Philadelphia Inquirer__ 8 Aug. 1894, Sports sec.: 3. [9] __The Philadelphia Inquirer__ 3 May 1895, Front Page: 5. [10] Langmead, Donald, and Christine Garnaut. __Encyclopedia of Architectural and Engineering Feats__. 3rd ed. Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio Inc, 2001. =Additional Notes=

a. [6] and [9] have content that is word-for-word in some sections, probably because the article was using Reach’s exact words from the day before, just replacing some words like “our” to “the,” and eliminating sections that were unnecessary for the article. For this reason some citations use [6,9]. b. The exact reference of Reach’s invitation in unknown. According to [6], it was an “<span style="color: rgb(33, 33, 33);">invitation which Reach sent out for the 1895 inaugural on May 2. We are indebted to SABR member Bruce Foster, who provided an original copy, which is quoted here in part.” The document is signed <span style="display: block; text-align: center; color: rgb(33, 33, 33);">“Philadelphia Ball Club A. J. Reach, President Philadelphia May 1, 1895” = <span style="display: block; text-align: center; color: rgb(33, 33, 33);"> <span style="color: rgb(33, 33, 33);">External Links and Further Reading =

=<span style="color: rgb(33, 33, 33);"> = <span style="color: rgb(33, 33, 33);">
 * [|Philadelphia Phillies Team History & Encyclopedia]
 * [|Baseball’s Deadliest Disaster]
 * [|Crazy ’08 – Cait Murphy]
 * [|Survey of A.J. Reach Company’s Base Balls & Sporting Goods Factory]
 * Jordan, David M. __Occasional Glory: The History of the Philadelphia Phillies__. McFarland, 2002.