FanPost

Awful Stadium Designs That Could Have Happened

For a while now, I've been interested in stadium designs, past and present. I know a lot of people disparage the retro designs that have been en vogue since the 1990s, but it's interesting to trace the baseball-only jewel box parks of the 1910s, 20s and 30s through the cookie-cutter multipurpose venues of the 1960s and 1970s through our current era.

But in doing some research on past and present ballparks, I came across another area that's perhaps more interesting — proposed ballparks that were never constructed. I did a write-up on six designs from the 1940s-1970s that were each fairly close to construction, and I thought I'd share it with the VEB community.

New Sportsman’s Park, St. Louis, Mo. (1949)

It’s hard to believe it now, but there was a time when St. Louis was a Browns town. Despite their occasional World Series appearances, the Cardinals hadn’t had their own stadium since the burning of Robison Field in 1920, and played at Sportsman’s Park as tenants of the Browns. After the 1944 World Series featured both St. Louis clubs in the “Streetcar Series,” the Cardinals proposed to build their own stadium. The design was a three-deck horseshoe in the Streamline Moderne style that was popular in the 1930s and 1940s, featuring sweeping curves and long horizontal lines.

Courtesy Stadiumpage.com

If you build it he will— On second thought, maybe don’t build it.

New SP 2

But before construction could begin on a location near Chouteau, the Browns relocated to Baltimore to become the Orioles, and the Cardinals, now owned by Anheuser-Busch, bought Sportsman’s Park in 1953 for $800,000.

Images courtesy Stadiumpage.com

Monogahela River Stadium, Pittsburgh, Pa. (1958)

By the 1950s, Forbes Field was showing its age. Built in 1909, the stadium was the fourth oldest in Major League Baseball going into the first round of post-World War II stadium construction. Combined with more than a half century of wear and tear hosting the Pittsburgh Pirates, Steelers and Pitt Panthers, the stadium was a prime candidate for replacement. As early as 1958, the Pirates considered alternative sites for a new stadium. The 1958 proposal featured a round multipurpose stadium to be constructed on an artificial platform spanning the Monogahela River. The platform would have included hotels, a marina and a 100-lane bowling alley.

Courtesy Stadiumpage.com

The Pirates would have lived in a stadium DOWN ON THE RIVER.

However, the platform stadium design had to be abandoned due to cost issues. Later that year, the University of Pittsburgh agreed to purchase Forbes Field from the Pirates until the team could construct a new stadium. The Pirates eventually moved to the newly constructed Three Rivers Stadium at the confluence of the Allegheny, Monogahela and Ohio Rivers.

Image courtesy Stadiumpage.com

Brooklyn Dodgers Domed Stadium, Brooklyn, N.Y. (1950s)

The 1950s were a good decade for the Brooklyn Dodgers. The team claimed four National League pennants, and won their first world series over the rival New York Yankees. But the Dodgers’ home stadium, Ebbets Field, was one of the smallest in MLB, seating only 32,000. Itching for increased revenue, Brooklyn owner Walter O’Malley began to push for a new stadium. O’Malley commissioned the noted architect and futurist Buckminster Fuller to design a domed stadium for the Dodgers to be located at Flatbush Avenue and Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn. The design included Fuller’s signature feature: a massive geodesic domes 300 feet tall and 750 feet in diameter. Fuller’s design was not fully detailed, but could have featured a sightseeing tram above the dome, an in-stadium parking garage and an interior subway and train station.

Courtesy Stadiumpage.com

Now you can cook your Dodgers in half the time.

Fuller dome 1Fuller dome 2

However, the plan encountered an obstacle — as so many New York buildings did — in the person of city Construction Coordinator Robert Moses. Moses opposed the Brooklyn site for fear of disrupting the city’s subway system. Instead, he proposed a construction site at an open space in Flushing Meadows, Queens. With his dome hopes dashed — and perhaps using the unfeasibility of the plan as leverage — O’Malley moved relocated his team to Los Angeles in 1958. The Dodgers won the World Series in the second year in Los Angeles playing at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Meanwhile, Moses’s proposed location became the site of the New York Mets’ Shea Stadium, and later, Citi Field.

Upper image courtesy Stadiumpage.com

Lower images courtesy Blog.modernmechanix.com

Boston Domed Stadium(s), Boston, Mass. (1960s)

The Dodgers weren’t the only MLB team that flirted with the idea of a domed stadium in the 1960s. Fenway Park’s condition combined the age of Forbes Field with the limited seating of Ebbets Field. The Boston Red Sox considered several proposals for replacing the venerable Fenway Park with a dome. A 1960 proposal featured a domed stadium, along with a hotel, convention center and theater.

Courtesy Stadiumpage.com

A design as timeless as the music of the Dropkick Murphys.

In 1965, another proposal called for a multi-purpose domed stadium complex with a retractable roof — the first of its kind — that could host baseball, football, basketball, hockey and dog racing. The stadium roof would have been made-up of 12 sections that moved outward to retract and inward to reform a covering.

Courtesy Stadiumpage.com

Gotta get back to the Stargate — the chevrons are locking.

A 1967 proposal called for the construction of a domed stadium just south of Boston near the Dedham-Needham line, surrounded by parking lots.

Courtesy Stadiumpage.com

If there’s one thing Boston loves, it’s radical change.

None of the proposals were acted on, but talk of demolishing Fenway Park continued through the 1990s. A 1999 plan called for the construction of a new Fenway Park adjacent to the original ballpark, updated for the 21st century but retaining the original aesthetics of the first park. Ownership rejected the plan, however, and opted for renovations instead.

Courtesy Stadiumpage.com

That’s more like it.

All images courtesy Stadiumpage.com

San Diego Floating Stadium, San Diego, Ca. (1964)

In 1964, San Diego didn’t have an MLB franchise, and its professional football team played in 34,000-seat hole called Balboa Stadium. William Barron Hilton had a plan to change that. That year, the Hilton Hotels magnate proposed a multi-purpose stadium for the city that could host both baseball and football. There was just one catch — it floated on the goddamned water. Hilton’s plan called for a stadium floating in Mission Bay near Fiesta Island. Seating for the stadium was based on the baseball aspect, with a three-part grandstand around first base, home plate and third base.

Courtesy Stadiumpage.com

“And on your left, you’ll see the S.S. Petco Park…”

The home plate section was stationary, but the first base and third base sections were movable and would serve as seating for the football stadium.

Courtesy Stadiumpage.com

Plus they triple in size…?

The plan was rejected due to its high cost, constituting the second-biggest embarrassment in Hilton family history.

Images courtesy Stadium page.com

Pontiac Sports Complex, Pontiac, Mich. (1970s)

Things were looking good for Pontiac in the early 1970s. Its population was growing, it was home to General Motors, and Americans still loved big goddamned cars — of which, General Motors produced the biggest. Times were good, and Pontiac was ready to take a risk. That risk was professional sports. In the early 1970s, the city proposed the construction of a sports complex. The plan called for a baseball stadium and a football stadium, presumably for the Detroit Tigers and Detroit Lions. But the design’s signature feature was a retractable roof that could be transferred from one stadium to the other, or left in between and create a shaded park area.

Courtesy Stadiumpage.com

A bit futuristic for Detroit. What is this, RoboCop?

The proposal was too expensive to be implemented, but Pontiac did attract the Lions to the newly constructed Pontiac Silverdome in 1975. That stadium now looks like this:

Courtesy Stadiumpage.com

That’s more like it.

But hey, it still hosts an ultimate Frisbee team.

Upper image courtesy Stadiumpage.com

Lower image courtesy Fieldofschemes.com