Burns-Eye Views of Big Time Parks, #6 – Shibe Park

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.

Sixth in the series is Shibe Park, home to the Philadelphia Athletics. The Phillies were still up the street in smaller Baker Bowl, but since the late Mr. Shibe added accommodations for their Brotherly Love brethren (including the then vacant “Phillyless Philly Clubhouse”, see and read below), they gave up on the old park and moved into beautiful Shibe for good in 1938. Although it looks like a “warehouse or brewery” from the outside, it’s hard to beat the best grass in the majors!