As Prime Goes By
There is an accounting principle used by business to earmark the life cycle of materials and supplies that are kept in inventory, waiting to be processed into finished goods. This principle is called FIFO, first-in, first-out. It simply means that if a material or supply is, on a calendar basis, the first one of its kind placed in inventory, then it will be the first one taken off the shelf to be incorporated into a product for sale.
Think of it this way. During each MLB game, an average of 120 baseballs are used. Do the teams keep inventory track of each baseball by tagging it like wild animals in a preserve? Of course not. However, each box of baseballs delivered to that team probably has an inventory code on the side of the box to determine when the box first came in, and when it was used.
Do ballparks operate on a FIFO basis? Typically, not, but they certainly can. No, ballparks come and go based on whether they have passed their prime. However, sometimes it’s both.
Between the 1840s and the 1860s, baseball was played on farms and fields with onlookers leisurely standing around the baseball diamond, for free. After the Civil War ended, team owners came up with the bright idea of putting a fence around the field and charging people to watch their burgeoning heroes play baseball. Thus, the fanatic, the fan was born.
By the 1870s, as the popularity of our national pastime was growing, wooden ballparks started being constructed, usually with an average capacity of slightly more or less than 10,000 fans. The first of these was the South End Grounds in Boston in 1871. By 1920, the final home game of that season played by the St. Louis Cardinals was at Robison Field, the last of the wooden ballparks.
Something of particular importance happened in 1894. The wooden ballpark that was home to the Philadelphia Phillies burned to the ground. It wasn’t the torched wood that was important, but the structure that rose from the ashes a year later. In 1895, the Baker Bowl in Philadelphia was re-constructed as the first cantilevered concrete and steel ballpark in the United States.
The Baker Bowl was, during its prime, hailed as the finest ballpark in the country, preceding the second steel and concrete ballpark, Shibe Park, by fourteen years. But over time, the Baker Bowl transitioned from being the finest ballpark in the US, to an underdog, a relic, a has been, and then a FIFO. In 1938, the Phillies became roommates with the Athletics in Shibe Park. By 1950, the old ballpark, with all its thrills and memories, was demolished. Today, all that remains of the Baker Bowl is an historic sign, parked on a street corner like a gravestone for a beloved old friend.
Since the construction of Camden Yards in Baltimore, major league baseball has done a wonderful job saluting the architecture and panache of the golden age of ballparks. However, of the ballparks enjoyed from all those years gone by, only two are left: Fenway Park and Wrigley Field. Make plans to visit these two gems, and bring as many generations of your family with you as you can.
Congratulations! You are a baseball player. You are one of the millions of Americans who have stood in and stared out at a pitcher, writing your own page into the history in Our Game.