Polo Grounds
The Polo Grounds was the name of three stadiums in Upper Manhattan, New York City, used mainly for professional baseball and American football from 1880 to 1963. The original Polo Grounds, opened in 1879 and demolished in 1889, was built for the sport of polo. Bound on the south and north by 110th and 112th streets and on the east and west by Fifth and Sixth Avenues, just north of Central Park, it was converted to a baseball stadium when leased by the New York Metropolitans in 1880.
The third Polo Grounds, built in 1890, and renovated after a fire in 1911, was in Coogan's Hollow and was noted for its distinctive bathtub shape, with very short distances to the left and right field walls and an unusually deep center field.
The original Polo Grounds was home to the New York Metropolitans from 1880 to 1885, and the New York Giants from 1883 to 1888. The Giants played in the second Polo Grounds for part of the 1889 season and all of the 1890 season, and at the third Polo Grounds from 1891 to 1957. The Polo Grounds was also the home of the New York Yankees from 1913 to 1922 and New York Mets in their first two seasons. Each version of the ballpark held at least one World Series. The final version also hosted the 1934 and 1942 All-Star Games.
In American football, the third Polo Grounds was home to the New York Brickley Giants for one game in 1921 and the New York Giants from 1925 to 1955. The New York Titans/Jets of the American Football League played at the stadium from the league's inaugural season of 1960 until 1963.
Other sporting events held at the Polo Grounds included soccer, boxing, and Gaelic football. Its final sporting event was a pro football game between the Jets and Buffalo Bills. Shea Stadium opened in 1964 and replaced the Polo Grounds as the home of the Mets and Jets. The Polo Grounds was demolished and a public housing complex, Polo Grounds Towers, was built on the site.
Polo Grounds I
The original Polo Grounds stood at 110th Street between Fifth Avenue and Sixth Avenue, directly across 110th Street from the northeast corner of Central Park. The venue's original purpose was for the sport of polo. Its name was initially merely descriptive, not a formal name, often rendered as "the polo grounds" in newspapers. The Metropolitans, an independent team of roughly major-league caliber, was the first professional baseball team to play there, beginning in September 1880, and remained the sole professional occupant through the 1882 season. At that time the Metropolitans' ownership had the opportunity to bring it into the National League, but elected instead to organize a new team, the New York Gothams — who soon came to be known as the Giants — mainly using players from the Metropolitans and the newly defunct Troy Trojans, and entered it in the National League, while bringing what remained of the Metropolitan club into the competing American Association. For this purpose the ownership built a second diamond and grandstand at the park, dividing it into eastern and western fields for use by the Giants and Metropolitans respectively. Polo Grounds I thus hosted its first Major League Baseball games in 1883 as the home stadium of two teams, the American Association Metropolitans and the National League Gothams. The dual-fields arrangement proved unworkable because of faulty surfacing of the western field, and after various other arrangements were tried, the Metropolitans and Giants alternated play on the eastern field in later years until the Metropolitans moved to the St. George Cricket Grounds on Staten Island in 1886.Although the Giants would soon become the team of choice in the city, the "Mets" had a good year in 1884. They had started the season in a new facility called Metropolitan Park, which proved to be such a poor venue that they moved back to the Polo Grounds within a few weeks. Despite that bit of drama, the Mets went on to win the American Association pennant. Their good fortune ran out when they faced the Providence Grays in the World Series, in which Providence pitcher Old Hoss Radbourn pitched three consecutive shutouts against them. All three games had been staged at the Polo Grounds.
An early highlight of Giants' play at the Polo Grounds was Roger Connor's home run over the right-field wall and into 112th Street; Connor eventually held the record for career home runs that Babe Ruth would break July 8, 1921.
The original Polo Grounds was used not only for Polo and professional baseball, but often for college baseball and football as well – even by teams outside New York. The earliest known surviving image of the field is an engraving of a baseball game between Yale University and Princeton University on Decoration Day, May 30, 1882. Yale and Harvard also played their traditional Thanksgiving Day football game there on November 29, 1883 and November 24, 1887.
Demolition and forced relocation
New York City was in the process of extending its street grid into uptown Manhattan in 1889. Plans for an extended West 111th Street ran through the Polo Grounds. City workers are said to have shown up suddenly one day and begun cutting through the fence to lay out the new street. With the Giants having won the National League pennant the year before, as well as the World Series there was significant sentiment in the city against the move; a bill was even passed by the state legislature giving the Giants a variance which would allow the park to stand. Governor David B. Hill, who had campaigned for office on a "home rule" pledge, vetoed it on the grounds that whatever he might think of the forced destruction of the park, the will of the city government was to be respected. The loss of their park forced the Giants to look quickly for alternative grounds.Polo Grounds II
The Giants opened the 1889 season at Oakland Park in Jersey City, New Jersey, playing their first two games there. Four days later, they moved to the St. George Cricket Grounds.After closing out a homestand at the St. George Grounds on June 14, the Giants went on the road. Upon their return on July 8 they had relocated again, to a "New Polo Grounds" site within Manhattan at the far terminus of the then Ninth Avenue Elevated at 155th Street and 8th Avenue. Newspaper accounts indicate that the seats from the original Polo Grounds were moved to the new Polo Grounds stands. Despite their vagabond existence during the first half of the 1889 season, the Giants began their stay at the new ballpark just 4 games behind the league-leading Boston club. They rallied to win the pennant for the second consecutive year, as well as that year's World Series against Brooklyn.
The new site was overlooked to the north and west by a steep promontory known as Coogan's Bluff. Because of its elevation, fans frequently watched games from the Bluff without buying tickets. The ballpark itself was in bottomland known as Coogan's Hollow. The grandstand had a conventional curve around the infield, but the shape of the property made the center field area actually closer than left center or right center. This was not much of an issue in the "dead ball era" of baseball. The land remained in the Coogan estate, and the Giants were renters for their entire time at Polo Grounds II, III and IV. The Brooklyn Dodgers played a pair of home series at this ballpark in late July and early August 1890.
File:Merkles Boner game Polo Grounds Sept23 1908.jpg|thumb|Fans on Coogan's Bluff watch the infamous Merkle's Boner game between the Giants and Cubs, September 23, 1908
After the National League version of the New York Giants moved into Polo Grounds III in 1891, Polo Grounds II was sub-leased to the Manhattan Athletic Club and was referred to ever after as Manhattan Field. It was converted for other sports such as football and track-and-field.
The New York Giants leased Manhattan Field to the Columbia University football team for $14,000 in 1899 and $15,000 in 1900.
The superstructure of Manhattan Field was demolished in 1911 following the fire that destroyed Polo Grounds III, but the site still existed as a field for 20 more years. Babe Ruth's first home run as a Yankee, on May 1, 1920, was characterized by The New York Times reporter as a "sockdolager", and was described as traveling "over the right field grand stand into Manhattan Field". Bill Jenkinson's modern research indicates the ball traveled about in total, after clearing the Polo Grounds double decked right field stand. Manhattan Field continued to be an occasional site for amateur sports reported in local newspapers as late as spring of 1942. In June 1948, the Giants again leased the Manhattan Field property, and had it paved over to serve as a parking lot for the Polo Grounds.
Polo Grounds III and IV
Polo Grounds III
Polo Grounds III was the stadium that made the name nationally famous. Built in 1890, it initially had a completely open outfield bounded by just the outer fence, but bleachers were gradually added. By the early 1900s, some bleacher sections encroached on the field from the foul lines about halfway along left and right field. Additionally, there were a pair of "cigar box" bleachers on either side of the "batter's eye" in center field. The expansive outfield was cut down somewhat by a rope fence behind which carriages were allowed to park. By 1910, bleachers enclosed the outfield, and the carriage ropes were gone. The hodge-podge approach to the bleacher construction formed a multi-faceted outfield area. There were a couple of gaps between some of the sections, and that would prove significant in 1911.Known as Brotherhood Park when it opened in 1890, Polo Grounds III was the home of a second New York Giants franchise in the Players' League. The latter was a creation of Major League Baseball's first union, the Brotherhood of Professional Base-Ball Players. After failing to win concessions from National League owners, the Brotherhood founded its own league in 1890. The Players' League Giants built Brotherhood Park in the northern half of Coogan's Hollow, next door to Polo Grounds II, otherwise bounded by rail yards and the bluff. Brotherhood Park hosted its first game on April 19, 1890, the same day the National League's Giants played their first home game of the season. For the full 1890 season the two editions of the Giants were neighbors. When the teams played on the same day, fans in the upper decks could watch each other's games, and home run balls hit in one park might land on the other team's playing field. After the one season the Players' League folded, and the Brotherhood's members went back to the National League. The National League Giants then moved out of Polo Grounds II and into Brotherhood Park, which was larger. They took their stadium's name with them once again, turning Brotherhood Park into the new-new Polo Grounds. Between Polo Grounds II and III-IV, they would remain in Coogan's Hollow for 69 seasons.