1.
Sportsman's Park
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Sportsmans Park was the name of several former Major League Baseball ballpark structures in the central United States, in St. Louis, Missouri. All but one of these were located on the piece of land, at the northwest corner of Grand Boulevard and Dodier Street. The physical street address was 2911 North Grand Boulevard, in 1923, the stadium hosted St. Louiss first NFL team, the St. Louis All-Stars. Baseball was played on the Sportsmans Park site as early as 1867, the tract was acquired in 1866 by August Solari, who began staging games there the following year. It was the home of the St. Louis Brown Stockings in the National Association, originally called the Grand Avenue Ball Grounds. Some sources say the field was renamed Sportsmans Park in 1876, the local papers also still used the alternate name Grand Avenue Park until at least 1885. The first grandstand—one of three on the built in 1881. At that time, the diamond and the grandstands were on the southeast corner of the block, the park was leased by the then-major American Association entry, the St. Louis Brown Stockings, or Browns. The Browns were a strong team in the mid-1880s. When the National League absorbed the strongest of the old Association teams in 1892, soon they went looking for a new ballpark, finding a site just a few blocks northwest of the old one, and calling it New Sportsmans Park, which was later renamed Robison Field. They also changed colors from Brown to Cardinal Red, thus acquiring a new nickname. When the American League Browns moved from Milwaukee in 1902, they built a new version of Sportsmans Park and they initially placed the diamond and the main stand at the northwest corner of the block. This Sportsmans Park saw football history made and it became both the practice field and home field for Saint Louis University football teams, coached by the visionary Eddie Cochems, father of the forward pass. These included a 39–0 thrashing of Iowa before a crowd of 12,000, robinson launched an amazingly long pass in the game against the Jayhawks, which was variously reported to have traveled 67 or 87 yards in the air. College Football Hall of Fame coach David M. Nelson called the extraordinary, considering the size, shape and weight of the fat. Sports historian John Sayle Watterson agreed, in his book, College Football, History, Spectacle, Controversy, Watterson described Robinsons long pass as truly a breathtaking achievement. St. Louis finished with an 11–0 record in 1906, outscoring its opponents 407–11, the previous wooden grandstand was retained as left-field bleachers for a while, but was soon replaced with permanent bleachers. The Cardinals came back to their home in mid-1920, as tenants of the Browns, after abandoning the outdated
2.
St. Louis
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St. Louis is an independent city and major U. S. port in the state of Missouri, built along the western bank of the Mississippi River, on the border with Illinois. Prior to European settlement, the area was a regional center of Native American Mississippian culture. The city of St. Louis was founded in 1764 by French fur traders Pierre Laclède and Auguste Chouteau, in 1764, following Frances defeat in the Seven Years War, the area was ceded to Spain and retroceded back to France in 1800. In 1803, the United States acquired the territory as part of the Louisiana Purchase, during the 19th century, St. Louis developed as a major port on the Mississippi River. In the 1870 Census, St. Louis was ranked as the 4th-largest city in the United States and it separated from St. Louis County in 1877, becoming an independent city and limiting its own political boundaries. In 1904, it hosted the Louisiana Purchase Exposition and the Summer Olympics, the economy of metro St. Louis relies on service, manufacturing, trade, transportation of goods, and tourism. This city has become known for its growing medical, pharmaceutical. St. Louis has 2 professional sports teams, the St. Louis Cardinals of Major League Baseball, the city is commonly identified with the 630-foot tall Gateway Arch in Downtown St. Louis. The area that would become St. Louis was a center of the Native American Mississippian culture and their major regional center was at Cahokia Mounds, active from 900 AD to 1500 AD. Due to numerous major earthworks within St. Louis boundaries, the city was nicknamed as the Mound City and these mounds were mostly demolished during the citys development. Historic Native American tribes in the area included the Siouan-speaking Osage people, whose territory extended west, European exploration of the area was first recorded in 1673, when French explorers Louis Jolliet and Jacques Marquette traveled through the Mississippi River valley. Five years later, La Salle claimed the region for France as part of La Louisiane. The earliest European settlements in the area were built in Illinois Country on the east side of the Mississippi River during the 1690s and early 1700s at Cahokia, Kaskaskia, migrants from the French villages on the opposite side of the Mississippi River founded Ste. In early 1764, after France lost the 7 Years War, Pierre Laclède, the early French families built the citys economy on the fur trade with the Osage, as well as with more distant tribes along the Missouri River. The Chouteau brothers gained a monopoly from Spain on the fur trade with Santa Fe, French colonists used African slaves as domestic servants and workers in the city. In 1780 during the American Revolutionary War, St. Louis was attacked by British forces, mostly Native American allies, the founding of St. Louis began in 1763. Pierre Laclede led an expedition to set up a fur-trading post farther up the Mississippi River, before then, Laclede had been a very successful merchant. For this reason, he and his trading partner Gilbert Antoine de St. Maxent were offered monopolies for six years of the fur trading in that area
3.
Chris von der Ahe
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Christian Friedrich Wilhelm von der Ahe was a German entrepreneur, best known as the owner of the St. Louis Brown Stockings of the American Association, now known as the St. Louis Cardinals. Von der Ahe arrived in New York City but quickly moved to St. Louis, later, he bought out the store owner and expanded business by establishing a saloon in the back of the store. He named the team the Browns and hired future Chicago White Sox owner Charles Comiskey to play first base, Von der Ahe took a very active role in the team, even though he knew almost nothing about baseball. He was the first baseball owner with a significant public persona, with his thick German accent bushy mustache and showmanship, he was as much of a story as his players. The Browns dominated the American Association, winning four league championships starting in 1885, and the baseball, beer. He made $500,000 off the team alone. He set the price at 25 cents, hoping fans would spend money on beer. As a result, the Browns led the league in attendance, the term fan is sometimes attributed to von der Ahe. In 1885, von der Ahe erected a statue outside of Sportsmans Park, not of any of his star players. A sportswriter from Denver mockingly dubbed the statue Von der Ahe discovers Illinois, although eccentric, von der Ahe made a number of innovations, including operating a farm club called the St. Louis Whites. Also, tradition holds that von der Ahe was the first to sell hot dogs at the ballpark, Von der Ahe billed himself as the Millionaire Sportsman. In 1887, after a showing in the World Series. In 1891, he was majority owner of the Cincinnati Kellys Killers which played for part of one season in the American Association. In 1892 the team joined the National League after the American Association folded, by this time, Comiskey had lost patience with von der Ahe and left for the Cincinnati Reds. Without Comiskey, the Browns quickly became a last-place team, legal problems plagued von der Ahes ownership, especially in the later years. The league, which prohibited gambling on its grounds, disapproved of the race track, the press called the facility Coney Island West and nicknamed von der Ahe Von der Ha Ha. With losses still piling up, von der Ahe resorted to selling off his best players, in 1898, part of the ballpark burned down during an April game with Chicago, his second wife divorced him, and his bondsman kidnapped him for not paying his debts. In a highly publicized trial connected with the fire, von der Ahe lost his baseball team, the Browns changed hands twice and changed their name twice, first to the Perfectos and then to the Cardinals
4.
Charles Comiskey
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Charles Albert Charlie Comiskey, also nicknamed Commy or The Old Roman, was an American Major League Baseball player, manager and team owner. He was a key person in the formation of the American League, Comiskey Park, the White Sox storied baseball stadium, was built under his guidance and named for him. Comiskey was inducted as an executive into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1939, Comiskey was born on August 15,1859, in Chicago, the son of Illinois politician John Comiskey. He attended public and parochial schools in Chicago, St. Ignatius College Prep and he played baseball at St. Comiskey started his playing career as a pitcher, and moved to first base after developing arm trouble. He is credited with being the first to play hitters off of first base and he entered the American Association in 1882 with the St. Louis Brown Stockings. He managed the team during parts of its first seasons and took over full-time in 1885, leading the Browns to four consecutive American Association championships and a close second in 1889. He also played and managed for the Chicago Pirates in the Players League, the Browns again, Comiskey left Cincinnati and the majors in fall 1894 to purchase the Western League club in Sioux City, Iowa and move it to Saint Paul, Minnesota. He had compiled a.264 batting average with 29 home runs,883 RBI and 419 stolen bases, as a manager, he posted an 839-542 record. The St. Paul Saints moved to the South Side as the White Stockings of the renamed American League for the 1900 season, the American League then declared itself a major league starting in 1901. As owner of the White Sox from 1900 until his death in 1931, Comiskey oversaw building Comiskey Park in 1910 and winning five American League pennants, Comiskey was notoriously stingy, even forcing his players to pay to launder their own uniforms. Traci Peterson notes that, in an era when professional athletes lacked free agency and she writes, Charles Risberg and Claude Williams made less than $3,000 a year. Joe Jackson and George Weaver made only $6,000 a year, eddie Cicotte had been promised a $10,000 bonus if he could win 30 games in a season. When Cicotte closed in on the 30-game goal, Comiskey had him benched to keep him from reaching the mark, Comiskeys stated reason for having manager Kid Gleason bench Cicotte was that with the Sox headed for the World Series he had to protect his star pitchers arm. In one incident, he promised his players a bonus for winning the 1919 pennant — the bonus turned out to be a case of flat champagne, however, he initially defended the accused players and, in an unusual display of largesse, provided them with expensive legal representation. Indeed, the White Sox promptly tumbled into seventh place and would not be a factor in a pennant race again until 1936, five years after Comiskeys death. Comiskey is sometimes credited with the innovation of playing the first base position behind first base or inside the foul line, later he had played a large role in the dissolution of the National Commission, baseballs former body of authority, following a quarrel with Ban Johnson. He was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1939, Comiskey died in Eagle River, Wisconsin in 1931. Comiskeys son J. Louis inherited the team but died a few years later, the trustees of his estate were going to sell the team, but J. Louis widow Grace was able to gain control of the team and avoid a sale
