The late-setting July sun illuminated the canyon of freshly deserted mills on the avenue. Over-sized factory windows impregnated with senescent layers of dust reflected a copper-tinted hue over buildings and roadway alike. The streets were now devoid of the usual parade of delivery trucks and day workers. Just hours earlier, loading docks bustled with a small army of teamsters disencumbering the trucks of their raw contents to waiting pallets. By 8:00 PM, the district more resembled a ghost town.
As we neared the end of our journey, the muted evening activity began to give way to a kluge of cars and buses. A discordant symphony of horns blared as frustrated drivers attempted to snake their way through choked and maze-like intersections. To a certain eight-year-old boy full of anticipation and squirming in a back seat, navigating those final blocks seemed to take an eternity.
By the time we reached 21st Street, traffic cops had taken control of the vehicular flow but had no say over the hundreds of pedestrians darting across the avenue in front of us; many in the growing crowd were exiting from a bank of buses that commandeered the far curb. As one bus pulled out a new arrived in its place. Pedestrians seemed drawn like the moths dancing far above their heads toward a huge factory-like building ahead of us. It emitted a powerful light source which produced a vivid aura in the moist night air.
We managed to survive the gauntlet and found a parking lot a few blocks east of our destination but were quickly buried in a confluence of fellow walkers winding their way back west on the avenue. Thick plumes of tobacco smoke hung low over the crowd as people entered the structure through various portals along formidable and endless walls.
There were few children my age among the crowd on this Saturday evening, but they would come in droves, many adorned in Cub Scout uniforms, on Sunday afternoon. I could see little more than the backsides of the adults walking ahead of me but craned my neck to catch glimpses of a decorative round tower topped by a cupola. It stood about six stories high and appeared to be carved out of the corner of the building's main entrance. The object's full grandeur was dampened in partial silhouette and framed by the curious aura that dramatically defied an otherwise darkening sky. To my young eyes, the tower resembled a ginger bread rocket from some fanciful sci-fi movie.
We crossed the avenue and followed the crowd as it formed into lines by the "rocket's" entry ramps. "Here's your ticket," my father shouted over the din as he ushered me in front of him for my very first encounter with a turnstile. "Gotta push hard," he advised as my ticket disappeared into a stranger's waiting hand, half of it returned to me a second later. The formidable metal barrier won the first round; undaunted, a second push found me on the opposite side.
"PRO-graaams, PRO-graaams" shouted a barker with a tone that appeared to emanate from deep within his penetralia. Waves of of familiar aromas; peanuts, popcorn, cotton candy, beer and over-boiled hot dogs wafted through the structure. Late arrivers rushed past the tempting concessions in search of their seats as game time neared.
The Phillies' ex-star center fielder and broadcaster Richie Ashburn said about the stadium after its demolition in 1976, "It looked like a ballpark; it smelled like a ballpark; it had a feeling and a heartbeat, a personality that was all baseball."
Shibe Park, as it was originally called, opened in 1909. It was an ornate French Renaissance structure replete with a Mansard roof and immense mid-story arches. The brick and stonework was further adorned with various baseball friezes and cartouches of the letter "A" over its main entrances in honor of the home team Athletics. It was a magnificent edifice and it rose from the intersecting bowels of two miserable North Philadelphia neighborhoods appropriately known locally as Swampoodle and Goosetown. The infamous "Smallpox" hospital was located nearby which made 21st and Lehigh an even less desirable location for any business to set stakes, but the "As" ownership had privately received political assurances that the hospital would soon close its doors. Various private developers acting in the capacity of secret surrogates for the ball club began buying up parcels of adjacent and dirt-cheap land.
Shibe Park was the first baseball stadium in the country constructed on a reinforced concrete and steel frame, a fitting monument for the long-time powerhouse Philadelphia Athletics team that called it home through the first half of the century. The stadium's structural engineering reflected a major trade up from the old wooden grandstands that often enjoyed limited life spans before they caught fire and burned to the ground. For 51 years the Phillies played in one of those makeshift stadiums, a bandbox-sized field called Baker Bowl and located just five blocks down the avenue from Shibe. A noticeable hump in Baker's center field barely covered an active railroad tunnel that had first claim over the local real estate. When the age of the live ball arrived, the ever-hapless Phillies club could only watch as opposing power-hitters drove the ball halfway to the nearby train station. A billboard on the right field wall advertised "Lifebuoy Soap" encouraging one disgruntled fan-cum-vandal to sneak into the stadium late one night and enhance the message with the words, "they still stink!"
By 1938, with attendance down for both clubs, the Phils and "As" became roommates at Shibe to cut back on overhead, leaving Baker Bowl to an overdue wrecking ball. In 1954, the Athletics left town only to enjoy a decidedly unremarkable twelve years in Kansas City before joining the baseball gold rush to California. The Phillies became synonymous with the newly named Connie Mack Stadium, ironically named in honor of the still-breathing 90-year-old ex-owner of the team who bolted town.
The tickets were marked "Upper Reserved" which meant reaching our seats required ascending a multi-flight, vertigo-inducing open metal staircase. I began to wonder what any of this had to do with a baseball game. Where exactly inside this immense factory was the field? Our seats were at the farthest end of the third base line close to the left field bleachers. On route we would pass myriad food counters and collectibles stands. Dark concrete tunnels separated sections of the food counters revealing brief glimpses of sky and scoreboard at their far end.
"Here we are, section 35" said my father. We made a right turn and headed down one of the tunnels toward what appeared from a distance to be a sheer drop into nothingness. I instinctively slowed up, not wanting to step into the abyss - then stared in awe, taking in the most magnificent vista I had ever seen. An exquisite expanse of green bathed by towers of light that miraculously turned night into day.
The stadium was small by 1950s standards, holding a capacity of just under 35,000, but a respectable-sized crowd would come out this night to see a very good Milwaukee Braves team face off against our Phils. I had never been in a crowd anywhere near this magnitude. It seemed a living entity with a mind of its own, reacting as one to every pitch, every swing of the bat. Directly across from us in right field was an imposing 32 foot high solid metal fence with the number "329" written at its base by the chalk line. The "spite" fence, as it was known, was an afterthought of iconic "As" owner, Connie Mack. He ordered its construction to stop homeowners on 20th Street from selling hundreds of under-pricing roof-top tickets to erstwhile stadium patrons. A newly installed scoreboard stood in right center, twice as high at sixty-four feet and containing a Ballantine Beer sign at the top; above the sign stood an eleven-foot high Longines clock. Wisely, the team left their old Lifebuoy Soap sign back on Broad Street.
"Red Hots! Getcher red hots!" bellowed a hawker. I instinctively jumped, never having heard a human bark that loud before. Wide straps crisscrossed his shoulders to help support a metal box protruding from his waist. In his right hand was a pair of menacing looking tongs. "Hungry - want a hot dog?" my father shouted in a relative whisper. I was still too stunned to talk but eagerly shook my head in the affirmative. My father held up two fingers in the direction of the hawker and shouted "mustard." Two "red hots" rapidly advanced across disinterested laps and arrived at our seats in the middle of the row while a pair of quarters took the opposite route. "The soda man should be along any minute," my father promised, but I was too awestruck by the mechanics of the previous transaction to consider the next. This was almost as amazing as the magical self-refilling key lime pie window at the Horn and Hardarts Automat that my grandmother and I frequented.
The Phils received a standing ovation as they took the field in the top of the first. To some, the adulation might have seemed misplaced. The club had been on a six-year downhill slide since the pennant-winning glory of the 1950 Phillies "Whiz Kids." The string of lean seasons would last for the better part of another twenty years and included the infamous "Phold" of 1964 when the club blew what seemed a sure pennant in the waning days of the regular season. Despite recent glories, the Phillies still hold the dubious distinction of being the losingest franchise in major league sports history. From 1883 through the 1979 season the club managed to win just two pennants and no World championships.
Before I could take a bite from my "red hot," we were on our feet again, this time for the playing of the National Anthem. As the vocalist completed "O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave," cheers began to build, reaching thunderous proportions by "and the home of the brave."
The home team still boasted a few great players like pitchers Robin Roberts and Curt Simmons and centerfielder Richie Ashburn, stars from their 1950 Pennant season, but on this night the Phils would be no match for the young, talent-laden team from the Midwest further strengthened by a great veteran pitching staff. The Braves had been gradually replacing Brooklyn as the team to beat in the National League and would be just one season away from their first, and last, World Series Championship for the city of Milwaukee before moving to Atlanta.
It didn't matter that our seats were located directly behind a view-obstructing steel support column, nor did it matter that I remained too much on sensory overload to concentrate on the game. It didn't matter when a young fleet-footed outfielder by the name of Henry Aaron buried a high Curt Simmons fastball into the Left Field bleachers to begin a route of the home team.
It didn't matter, because on that night, I became a baseball fan.
The main entrance at 21st & Lehigh
Fans watch a 1914 World Series game from the roofs of 20th Street homes
View from home plate, circa 1960s