Community hub
Recent from talks
Knowledge base stats:
Talk channels stats:
Members stats:
Bank Street Grounds
The Bank Street Grounds was a baseball park located in Cincinnati. The park was home to three major league baseball teams. The National League Cincinnati Stars club in 1880, the current Cincinnati Reds franchise from 1882 to 1883 and the Cincinnati Outlaw Reds of the Union Association in 1884. It succeeded the Avenue Grounds as the home site for professional ball in the Queen City.
A new National League entry, the Cincinnati Stars, formed for the 1880 season, but the new franchise was short-lived. The club was expelled from the league for selling beer and renting out its ballpark on Sundays, violating its self-instituted "blue law", the club was disbanded.
A new Reds franchise was formed as an American Association club in 1882. This club is the same Reds team that exists today. The AA had no such rules against Sunday play or beer sales. Indeed, the American Association was known informally as "the beer and whiskey league".
According to Lee Allen, Cincinnati writer and eventual director of the Baseball Hall of Fame, the Worcester club had been especially instrumental in having the Reds expelled after 1880. In his 1948 book, The Cincinnati Reds, Allen took some satisfaction in pointing out that when the Reds re-formed in 1882, it was the same year that Worcester's days as a major league franchise, as well as its influence, came to an end.
The Reds won the inaugural season of the AA, and as such participated in a World Series, of sorts, with the NL champions, the Chicago White Stockings. The exhibition Series was informally arranged, and ended after two games with each team having won one. Both games were staged at the Bank Street Grounds, or "Bank-Street Grounds" as the local papers stylized it.
In 1884, a former prominent member of the Reds front-office, a man named Justus Thorner, invested in the new Union Association club. He secured the Bank Street Grounds for his team, and the Reds had to look elsewhere. (Allen, p. 29-30). The Reds eventually settled on a site three blocks south, an asymmetrical lot bounded by McLean, York, Findlay and Western, opening the site that would eventually become Crosley Field, the home of the Reds until partway into the 1970 season.
During the 1884 season, the ballpark was dubbed Union Athletic Park in the local newspapers.
Although the Union Association was dominated by the St. Louis Maroons, the Cincinnati Unions or "Outlaw Reds" had a strong club that could hold its own against the Maroons, and drew well at the gate, eroding the "real" Reds' fan base. However, the "Onion League" folded after just one season.
Hub AI
Bank Street Grounds AI simulator
(@Bank Street Grounds_simulator)
Bank Street Grounds
The Bank Street Grounds was a baseball park located in Cincinnati. The park was home to three major league baseball teams. The National League Cincinnati Stars club in 1880, the current Cincinnati Reds franchise from 1882 to 1883 and the Cincinnati Outlaw Reds of the Union Association in 1884. It succeeded the Avenue Grounds as the home site for professional ball in the Queen City.
A new National League entry, the Cincinnati Stars, formed for the 1880 season, but the new franchise was short-lived. The club was expelled from the league for selling beer and renting out its ballpark on Sundays, violating its self-instituted "blue law", the club was disbanded.
A new Reds franchise was formed as an American Association club in 1882. This club is the same Reds team that exists today. The AA had no such rules against Sunday play or beer sales. Indeed, the American Association was known informally as "the beer and whiskey league".
According to Lee Allen, Cincinnati writer and eventual director of the Baseball Hall of Fame, the Worcester club had been especially instrumental in having the Reds expelled after 1880. In his 1948 book, The Cincinnati Reds, Allen took some satisfaction in pointing out that when the Reds re-formed in 1882, it was the same year that Worcester's days as a major league franchise, as well as its influence, came to an end.
The Reds won the inaugural season of the AA, and as such participated in a World Series, of sorts, with the NL champions, the Chicago White Stockings. The exhibition Series was informally arranged, and ended after two games with each team having won one. Both games were staged at the Bank Street Grounds, or "Bank-Street Grounds" as the local papers stylized it.
In 1884, a former prominent member of the Reds front-office, a man named Justus Thorner, invested in the new Union Association club. He secured the Bank Street Grounds for his team, and the Reds had to look elsewhere. (Allen, p. 29-30). The Reds eventually settled on a site three blocks south, an asymmetrical lot bounded by McLean, York, Findlay and Western, opening the site that would eventually become Crosley Field, the home of the Reds until partway into the 1970 season.
During the 1884 season, the ballpark was dubbed Union Athletic Park in the local newspapers.
Although the Union Association was dominated by the St. Louis Maroons, the Cincinnati Unions or "Outlaw Reds" had a strong club that could hold its own against the Maroons, and drew well at the gate, eroding the "real" Reds' fan base. However, the "Onion League" folded after just one season.