In 1937, Ed Burns, a sportswriter for the Chicago Tribune, penned a series of articles on every major league park at the time (15 articles in all, of 16 parks for 16 teams; the Cardinals and Browns shared Sportsman’s Park in St. Louis, while the Indians played in both League Park and Cleveland Municipal Stadium that year, with one article for both), which were also published in the Sporting News that year.

A very interesting series, especially from the perspective of 1937, and the hand-drawn diagrams of interesting plays and quirks of each park are wonderful. I’ll post them in order of when they were originally published, and one at a time to make things interesting. Click the Burns-Eye Views of Big Time Parks category link to the right to see all the articles together.

Second in the series, the old Baker Bowl in Philly, one of two parks in Philadelphia in those days, home of the Phillies (the A’s played in nearby Shibe Park, soon to be Connie Mack Stadium), and was actually officially known as National League Park. A less than flattering review below, which must have rang true, as the Phillies abandoned the Baker Bowl midway through the following season (1938), to join their city brothers in larger, newer Shibe.