Cleveland Stadium
Cleveland Stadium, commonly known as Municipal Stadium or Cleveland Municipal Stadium, was a multi-purpose stadium in Cleveland, Ohio. It was one of the early multi-purpose stadiums, built to accommodate both baseball and football. The stadium opened in 1931 and is best known as the long-time home of the Cleveland Indians of Major League Baseball, from 1932 to 1933 and again from 1937 to 1993, and the Cleveland Browns of the National Football League, from 1946 to 1995, in addition to hosting other teams, other sports, and concerts. The stadium hosted three AAFC Championship Games, six NFL Championship Games, served as one of the host venues of the 1948 and 1954 World Series to go along with being a four-time host of the Major League Baseball All-Star Game and the site of the original Dawg Pound, Red Right 88, and The Drive.
Through most of its tenure as a baseball facility, the stadium was the largest in Major League Baseball by seating capacity, seating over 78,000 initially and over 74,000 in its final years. It was superseded only by the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum from 1958 to 1961, while it was the temporary home of the Los Angeles Dodgers, and by Mile High Stadium in 1993, the temporary home of the expansion Colorado Rockies. For football, the stadium seated approximately 80,000 people, ranking as one of the larger seating capacities in the NFL.
Former Browns owner Art Modell took over control of the stadium from the city in the 1970s and while his organization made improvements to the facility, it continued to decline. The Indians played their final game at the stadium in October 1993 and moved to Jacobs Field the following season. Although plans were announced to renovate the stadium for use by the Browns, in 1995 Modell announced his intentions to move the team to Baltimore citing the state of Cleveland Stadium as a major factor. The Browns played their final game at the stadium in December 1995, after which they were renamed the Baltimore Ravens. As part of an agreement between Modell, the city of Cleveland, and the NFL, the Browns were officially deactivated for three seasons and the city was required to construct a new stadium on the Cleveland Stadium site. Cleveland Stadium was demolished in 1996 to make way for Cleveland Browns Stadium, which opened in 1999. Much of the debris from the demolition was placed in Lake Erie to create an artificial reef.
History
The impetus for Cleveland Stadium came from city manager William R. Hopkins, Cleveland Indians' president Ernest Barnard, real estate magnate and future Indians' president Alva Bradley, and the Van Sweringen brothers, who thought that the attraction of a stadium would benefit area commerce in general and their own commercial interests in downtown Cleveland in particular. However, some have incorrectly stated that it was built in a failed bid to attract the 1932 Summer Olympics, which had been awarded to Los Angeles in 1923, long before ground was broken on the stadium. Another common misconception is that Cleveland Stadium was a Works Progress Administration project; the WPA was not created until 1935, four years after the stadium was built.In November 1928, Cleveland voters passed by 112,448 to 76,975, a 59% passage rate, with 55% needed to pass, "a US$2.5 million levy for a fireproof stadium on the Lakefront." Actual construction costs overran that amount by $500,000.
Construction
Built during the administrations of city managers William R. Hopkins and Daniel E. Morgan, it was designed by the architectural firms of Walker and Weeks and by Osborn Engineering Company. It featured an early use of structural aluminum.The stadium was dedicated on July 1, 1931. On July 3, 1931, it hosted a boxing match for the National Boxing Association World Heavyweight Championship between Max Schmeling and Young Stribling, with 37,000 fans in attendance. Schmeling retained his title by a technical knockout victory in the 15th round.
The Donald Gray Gardens were installed on the stadium's north side in 1936 as part of the Great Lakes Exposition. They remained until construction started on Cleveland Browns Stadium in 1997.
Tenants
Indians
The stadium was built for football as well as for the Cleveland Indians, who played their first game there on July 31, 1932, losing to the Philadelphia Athletics' great pitcher Lefty Grove 1–0 while attracting a then-major-league-record crowd of 80,184. The Indians played all of their games at the stadium from the middle of the 1932 season through 1933. However, the players and fans complained about the huge outfield, which reduced the number of home runs. Moreover, as the Great Depression worsened, attendance plummeted. The Indians returned to their smaller previous home, League Park, which was owned by the team, for all of the 1934 and 1935 seasons.The Indians used the stadium to host the 1935 Major League Baseball All-Star Game and returned to the stadium in 1936 to host the New York Yankees on August 2 as part of the Great Lakes Exposition, drawing a crowd of 65,342. In 1937, the Indians began playing Sunday and holiday games at Cleveland Stadium during the summer, adding selected important games there in 1938. League Park lacked field lighting, so the emergence of night baseball in the 1930s led to the addition of night games to the schedule after lights were installed at the stadium in 1939. In 1940 and from 1942 on, the Indians played the majority of their home slate at the stadium, abandoning League Park entirely after the 1946 season. They remained at Cleveland Stadium until the end of the 1993 season, after which they moved to Jacobs Field.
Image:ClevelandMunicipalStadium1993Outfield.jpg|thumb|right|View of center field in 1993. Lake Erie is visible just outside the stadium. Visible beyond the outfield wall is a portion of the original outfield area.
The stadium foreshadowed problems that would emerge 40 years later when cookie-cutter stadiums were in vogue. Due to the fundamentally different sizes and shapes of baseball and football fields, the baseball sight lines generally left much to be desired. Many of the seats in the upper deck were too far from the field to be of any use during the regular season. The original baseball playing field was so large that an inner fence was constructed in 1947 to cut down the size of the spacious outfield. Even after the fence was installed, the distance markers on the bleacher walls remained visible for many years: from home plate to the bleachers in straightaway center field, to either corner of the bleachers, and to the far corners of the main stands in left-center and right-center. No player ever hit a home run into the center field bleachers.
According to his autobiography, Veeck – As in Wreck, Indians owner Bill Veeck would move the fence in or out, varying by as much as, depending on how it would favor the Indians, a practice that ended when the American League specifically legislated against moving fences during the course of a given season. But over the years, various ownerships tinkered with the position of the fence from time to time.
Like some other facilities built before warning tracks became standard, the stadium had an earthen berm in front of the center field wall. After the inner fence was installed, the berm was still visible during football season.
Jim Palmer was convinced that the pitcher's mound at the stadium was taller than most. "The mound was, despite whatever the rules claim, just a little lower than Mount Kilimanjaro."
The facility, located just south of Lake Erie, was known for the biting cold winds that would blow into the stadium in winter, as well as during much of the spring and fall. Because of its proximity to the lake during hot summer nights, its lights attracted swarms of midges and mayflies. Game 2 of the 2007 American League Division Series at Jacobs Field on October 5, 2007, brought back memories of the old stadium, when swarms of midges infested the field, particularly the pitcher's mound.
The Indians set three Major League attendance records during the 1948 season, when they won the American League pennant and World Series behind pitcher Bob Feller and shortstop/player-manager Lou Boudreau. That season, Cleveland had the highest single season attendance, 2,620,627, which was not eclipsed until 1962 by the Los Angeles Dodgers, largest regular season night game attendance of 72,434 for the first major league start of Satchel Paige, and biggest World Series game attendance of 86,288 for game 5 on October 10, 1948. However, during the Indians' lean years from the 1960s through the 1990s, they rarely attracted more than 30,000 people, and even crowds of 40,000 looked sparse in the cavernous environment. After the Indians were eliminated from the pennant race in 1949, as a black humor-themed stunt they held a mock funeral procession on the field and buried their 1948 pennant behind the center field fence. Due to the large size of the facility, the Indians began using a bullpen car in 1950.
In addition to the 1935 MLB All-Star Game, Cleveland Stadium also hosted three additional all-star games: 1954, 1963, and 1981. Cleveland Stadium and Yankee Stadium are the only venues to host four MLB all-star games. On May 15, 1981, Len Barker threw a perfect game at the stadium, the second in franchise history and eighth in modern Major League history. The final Indians home game at Cleveland Stadium was held October 3, 1993, a 4–0 loss to the Chicago White Sox in front of 72,390 fans. During the game, fans, led by comedian Bob Hope, who grew up an Indians fan and was once a part-owner, sang a version of his signature song "Thanks for the Memory" with special lyrics for the occasion.
Browns
The Cleveland Browns, originally members of the All-America Football Conference, began playing at the facility in 1946, and played there through 1995. The stadium was the site of the AAFC Championship game in 1946, 1948 and 1949, all Browns wins. The Browns joined the NFL in 1950 and hosted the NFL Championship Game in 1950, 1952, 1954, 1964, and 1968, winning titles in 1950, 1954, and 1964.The first Browns game at the stadium was also the first AAFC game, when the Browns hosted the Miami Seahawks on September 6, 1946. The Browns won the game 44–0 and drew 60,135 fans, what was then a record for a professional football crowd. During the 1980s, the center field bleachers at the east end of the stadium were home to many of the club's most avid fans and became known as the Dawg Pound after the barks that fans made to disrupt opposing teams' offensive plays. The fans were copying Browns players Hanford Dixon and Frank Minnifield, who frequently appeared to bark to each other and to the opposition. Some of the fans even wore dog masks and threw dog biscuits at opposing players. The Dawg Pound was included in the design of Cleveland Browns Stadium, where the east end zone also has bleacher seating.
The stadium was also the site of two notable moments in Cleveland sports and Browns history. In a 1980 divisional playoff game on January 4, Browns quarterback Brian Sipe was intercepted in the end zone with less than a minute remaining in the game, resulting in a 14–12 loss to the Oakland Raiders. The game has since been referred to by the name of the pass play, Red Right 88. Six years later, during the 1986 AFC Championship game on January 11, John Elway led the Denver Broncos on what is referred to as The Drive, a 98-yard touchdown drive with 5:32 left that tied the game and sent it into overtime. The Broncos ultimately prevailed 23–20.
The final game in the stadium was held December 17, 1995, an emotional 26–10 win over the Cincinnati Bengals, the Browns' final game before the franchise was officially deactivated until 1999. At the end of that game, many fans cut and removed their seats.