Shibe Park / Connie Mack Stadium, Philadelphia

Shibe Park / Connie Mack Stadium

The Athletics moved out of their small ballpark on Columbia Street, and into their beautiful new ballpark on Lehigh Avenue & 21st Street in 1909. Much like Oriole Park at Camden Yards set the tone for ballpark architecture in the 1990's, Shibe Park had set the standard almost a century earlier, that designers now seek to recapture.

As seen below, when built there was not much around the ballpark. It became the focal point of the neighborhood, and spurred development all around it.

Within 15 years, the surrounding neighborhood filled with a mix of commercial and residential development. You can see the proximity of Baker Bowl (in the upper right) to Shibe Park. The great depression ihas yet to hit and send the area into a downward spiral for generations to come.

An early interior view of the ballpark prior to the expansion of the grandstands.

After several expansions and a name change to honor Connie Mack, the ballpark settled into this interior appearance.

The net effect of double decking the stand reduces the spectacular domed cupola entrance way from a focal point to an overwhelmed afterthought.

A view from behind the plate highlights the scoreboard (which was purchased from the Yankees), and the "Spite Wall" which was erected by Connie Mack of years earlier to prevent spectators from looking into the ballpark from the roofs of the houses on 20th Street. If you look closely at the aerial image above, you can see that the "Spite Wall" had yet to be erected.

Today, the houses on 20th Street are still there, with an open view into the lot now occupied by the Deliverance Church.

The marker placed to remember the ballpark is on Lehigh, off of 20th Street, which would be the right field corner of Shibe Park, as the famed main entrance was down the block on the corner of 21st Street.

One last look from late 2003.