Connie Mack Stadium — A History …
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A friend contacted me requesting that an “all-time highlights” feature
be done on Connie Mack Stadium of Philadelphia. This feature will focus only on the baseball aspects of Connie Mack Stadium. The Philadelphia NFL football Eagles also played in the facility from 1940 through 1957.
Connie Mack Stadium was opened in 1909 and for the first 2/3rds of it’s lifetime, it was named Shibe Park, named for Philadelphia Athletics stockholder Ben Shibe who was 1/2 owner of the A’s, a partner in the A.J. Reach sporting goods company and inventor of machinery which made possible the mass-production of standard baseballs. Shibe Park was baseball’s first concrete-and-steel ballpark, and on May 16, 1939 it also hosted the AL’s first night game which the Athletics lost to the Cleveland Indians by an 8-3 score.
Today’s stadiums are built with huge bond issues in the hundreds of millions of dollars, but Shibe Park was built for the priestly sum of $450,000. Check out Wikipedia.org for a number of interesting statics concerning the stadium’s seating capacity and outfield dimensions.
The Athletics shared baseball occupancy of the stadium with the NL Phillies from 1938 until 1954. In 1953, the stadium was renamed Connie Mack Stadium to honor the retired A’s manager Connie Mack. In 1955, the Athletics moved west to Kansas City leaving the Phillies as lone baseball occupants of Connie Mack Stadium.
In 1956 a plexiglass shield was installed to protect fans seated behind home plate, replacing the standard wire screen, and a large scoreboard from Yankee Stadium was added to the right field wall, which was simultaneously reduced from 50′ to 36′. Richie Allen hit the only ball ever to clear that scoreboard.
Other great moments at the stadium were 2 All-Star Games, in 1943 and 1952, Athletics World Series games in 1910, 1911, 1913, 1914, 1929, 1930, 1931, as well as the Phillies home games of the 1950 World Series against the New York Yankees.
The last game played in Connie Mack Stadium was October 1, 1970 as the Phils defeated the Montreal Expos 2-1 in 10 innings. Connie Mack Stadium was torn down in June 1976.
The Phillies moved into the then-new Veterans Stadium in 1971 and occupied it until the conclusion of the 2004 season. In 2005, they moved into their new Citizens Bank Park facility.
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