1. Stew Thornley Author/Baseball Historian
Twin Cities Ballparks
Presentations/Twin Cities Ballparks.doc
Stew Thornley Author/Baseball Historian

2. Fort Street Grounds – 1884
N: St. Clair Avenue
W: Oneida Street
S: Chicago, Minneapolis, St. Paul and Peoria railroad tracks
E: Duke Street
Used by the St. Paul team in the Northwestern League in This team finished its season in the Union Association, which is considered a major league, so this team became Minnesota’s first major league baseball team. In the Union Association, St. Paul played nine games, all on the road.

3. In the late 1880s, St. Paul played in a couple of ballpark’s on the city’s West Side (across the river from downtown St. Paul). The ballpark in the photo, Athletic Park on State Street , was prone to flooding.

4. In 1895 St. Paul got a team, owned and managed by Charles Comiskey, in the Western League, which later became the American League and became a major league in Comiskey moved the St. Paul team to Chicago after the 1899 season, and the team still exists as the Chicago White Sox.
Comiskey built a ballpark in 1895 between Dale and St. Albans streets and Aurora and Fuller avenues (a block south of University Avenue).
This ballpark was first referred to in the newspaper as “new Athletic Park,” but it also took the names of “Dale and Aurora Grounds” and “Comiskey Park.”
The team could not play Sunday games at this ballpark, so in 1897 Comiskey moved into a new ballpark, one mile to the west, at Lexington Parkway and University Avenue.

5. In 1902 the St. Paul team, by this time known as the Saints, became a charter member (along with the Minneapolis Millers and six other teams) in the American Association and played at Lexington Park. Because of a desire to play closer to downtown St. Paul, in 1903 the Saints moved into a small park—known as the Downtown Ball Park and The Pillbox—on the north side of 12th Street between Robert and Minnesota streets. A freeway (a common stretch of interstates 94 and 35W known as Spaghetti Junction) now runs in an east-west direction to the south of the site, which is now occupied by a laboratory building jointly used by the Minnesota Departments of Health and Agriculture.

6. The Pillbox in downtown St
The Pillbox in downtown St. Paul, with the capitol rotunda, which was finished in 1905, in the background. This ballpark was used from 1903 to 1909 with most Sunday games played at Lexington Park.
August 11, 1909 – St. Paul announces it will play no more games in downtown “pillbox.” All games to be at Lexington.

7. Pillbox – Photo in lower right is from April 23, 1909 St
Pillbox – Photo in lower right is from April 23, 1909 St. Paul Pioneer Press

8. During these years, many of the Sunday games were played at Minnehaha Driving Park off Minnehaha Avenue and East 36th Street in south Minneapolis. Nicollet Park wasn’t used for Sunday games until 1909, the first one being on April 25 before a crowd of 10,000.
Diagram
Photo from Sunday, April 22, 1956 Minneapolis Tribune of a game from August 27, 1899 at Minnehaha Park with Perry Werden at bat.

9. Athletic Park, Minneapolis – 1891
The Minneapolis team, like its St. Paul counterpart, played in several hastily constructed and short-lived ballparks. In 1889, the team moved into Athletic Park on the corner of 1st Avenue North and 6th Street, which is now the site of Butler Square. The block across 6th Street from Athletic Park is now occupied by Target Center.
The large building on Hennepin Avenue between 5th and 6th streets is the West Hotel.

10. Athletic Park with the West Hotel visible in the background
Athletic Park with the West Hotel visible in the background. The Minneapolis team played here from 1889 to early 1896.

11. Athletic Park was a small park (the approximate distance down the foul lines was 250 feet).
The tiny park created some high home-run totals during an era when the long ball was rare. To give an idea of how easy it was to hit home runs at Athletic Park, in of Perry Werden’s 45 home runs were at Athletic Park. Only 52 of the team’s 120 games were at Athletic Park, the other 71 being on the road or at Minnehaha Park or the state fair grounds at Hamline (see below). The first fair on the current location was in the mid-1880s, so this game, Saturday, September 14, 1895, was played on the current site of the state fair.
Special to the (Terre Haute) Express Minneapolis, Sept. 14, The game between Terre Haute and Minneapolis today was played at the state fair grounds at Hamline. It was newspaper day at the fair and a crowd of 8,000 people were out to see the novelty of a league ball game in connection with an agricultural fair. The grounds were poor and brilliant play was out of the question.
In May of 1896 the Millers were given their eviction notice from Athlet­ic Park. The land on which their grounds stood, only one block from the main street of Minneapolis, had been sold and they were given 30 days to find a new home. On May 23rd, the Millers played their final game at Athletic Park, then left on an extended road trip, not knowing where their new home would be when they returned.

12. When the Millers returned from their road trip in May of 1896, they had a new ballpark on the corner of West 31st Street and Nicollet Avenue, just off Lake Street. The entry building, which housed the team’s offices, was constructed on the corner of 31st and Nicollet (the right-field corner) in 1912.
This photo is of the final Sunday game played at Nicollet Park, in September of 1955, as the Millers played the Rochester Red Wings, champions of the International League, in the Junior World Series.

13. Nicollet Park from the air
Nicollet Park from the air. At the bottom is Blaisdell Avenue, to the west of the ballpark. West 31st Street is on the south side and Nicollet Avenue on the east. Lake Street is on the other side of the buildings beyond the left-field fence.

14. Nicollet Park with Nicollet Avenue on the left.

15. Nicollet Park

16. Roy Campanella of the Saints homering at Nicollet Park in 1948, receiving a handshake from manager Walt Alston.

17. In St. Paul a fire in November of 1915 destroyed much of Lexington Park . The park was rebuilt with the field reconfigured so that home plate moved from the southwest to the northwest corner of the ballpark.

18. Lexington Park

19. Lexington Park

20. Lexington Park – 1935
For many years the distance down the line to right field was 369 feet with the fence and scoreboard atop an embankment.

21. Lexington Park – 1952
By this time the distance to right field was shorter (325 feet down the line). A gale that struck the Twin Cities in 1950 knocked down the right-field fence, which was rebuilt.

22. Lexington Park

23. Lexington Park – June 23, 1954 (with Keys Well Drilling Sign over right-field fence)
Keys Well Drilling Sign – August 2004 (This may not be the same sign that shows in the 1954 photo according to Jeff Keys of Keys Well Drilling. He said a black sign hidden by the billboards was the sign shown in the 1954 photo of Lexington Park. He thinks the orange sign went up in the 1960s on top of a warehouse they just built. He thinks the beams that the billboards were on may have been part of the right-field fence. Keys Well Drilling got pushed out as new buildings, such as the Wilder Foundation, were constructed on the site. Keys Well Drilling moved to 1156 Homer Street in St. Paul in around 2007.)

24. Lexington Park, 1952 – looking west

25. Aerial view showing construction of Midway Stadium, St
Aerial view showing construction of Midway Stadium, St. Paul; Snelling Avenue in foreground crossing railroad tracks – August 1956
In the mid-1950s, new stadiums were built for the Millers and Saints. Both Minneapolis and St. Paul hoped their new park would eventually be the site of a major league team.

26. Opening Day at Midway Stadium - 1957

27. Midway Stadium was single-decked but built in such a manner that a second deck could be added if a major league team used the park. However, major league baseball was never played here. Midway Stadium was demolished in the 1980s and a new and smaller stadium was constructed to the west. This stadium, originally known as Municipal Stadium and later as Midway Stadium, has been home to a new St. Paul Saints team since 1993.

28. Minneapolis Tribune, Tuesday, December 14, 1948, p
Minneapolis Tribune, Tuesday, December 14, 1948, p. 15, aerial photo of new ballpark site looking east along Wayzata Boulevard: “Air View of New Ball Park Site—The Minneapolis baseball club plans to build its new stadium on land extending east from Zarthan Avenue along the south side of Wayzata boulevard. The land does not include the gravel pit, at right. McCarthy’s cafe is at left, across Wayzata boulevard. In background is the Belt Line (Highway 100) and at upper left is the clover leaf intersection of Wayzata boulevard and the Belt Line.” (The ballpark site is almost directly across Wayzata Boulevard from McCarthy’s Café (just slightly to the west. This is the area next to where the Cooper Theater was built in the early 1960s, and the land apparently stayed in possession of the New York/San Francisco Giants for many years, even though no ballpark was built there. Later there was a sign on this lot with the name Candlestick Park; apparently the Giants labeled the land with the name of their ballpark in San Francisco.)

29. 1962
When Major League Baseball came to the Twin Cities in 1961, with the transfer of the Washington Senators to Minnesota, the team, the Twins, played at Metropolitan Stadium in suburban Bloomington, which was built in the mid-1950s and first used by the Minneapolis Miller.

30. Met Stadium excavation – 8/10/1955

31. Met Stadium construction, 1956
Met Stadium construction, Stadium commission chairman Bill Boyer with Ed Sullivan, a baseball fan who was speaking in the Twin Cities.

32. New Bloomington Stadium (not yet known as Metropolitan Stadium) – Opening Day for the Millers, 4/24/1956
No scoreboard yet in right-center field.

33. Photo from the wall of Gluek’s in downtown Minneapolis
Photo from the wall of Gluek’s in downtown Minneapolis. Halsey Hall as master of ceremonies prior to Louisville-Minneapolis game.

34. Metropolitan Stadium - 12/9/1960

35. After the Twins moved to Minnesota, the first and second decks of the grandstand were extended to right field. The grandstand on the third-base side was never extended.

36. Harmon Killebrew at bat as the Twins play the Chicago White Sox May 25, 1963.

37. Met Stadium – May 9, 1964
Through 1964 there were bleachers in left-field. A double-decked grandstand, to accommodate the Minnesota Vikings, was built in 1965.

38. Opening Day – April 12, 1965, Yankees vs. Twins.
Left-field grandstand under construction.
Jim Kaat pitching to Mickey Mantle.

39. Met Stadium – 1965, with new grandstand.

40. Met Stadium during 1965 All-Star Game

41. Final play of final baseball game.

42. Aftermath of final football game.

43. Metrodome

44. During the final scheduled game for the Metrodome, October 4, 2009 (from my perch as the official scorer).

45. Pre-game introductions, Yankees vs
Pre-game introductions, Yankees vs. Twins, Game 3, 2009 American League Division Series, Sunday, October 11, 2009, final game at Metrodome.

46. Target Field from the 50th floor of the IDS Building – Friday afternoon, April 16, 2010

47. Sustainability at Target Field
The Twins decided to use the high-profile nature of their new ballpark to highlight issues of sustainability. The ballpark includes a membrane filtration system to capture and treat rainwater for use in irrigating the field and washing the grandstand. The rainwater and irrigation water within the collection area percolates through Target Field’s underground drainage system and travels through a 12-foot-diameter culvert, which runs under the warning track in the outfield, to a wet well beyond the outfield fence in left-center field.  
After pre-treatment, the water is filtered to a level of 0.01 micron using a hollow-fiber ultrafiltration (UF) system at a rate of approximately 125 gallons per minute. The feed and back-pulse pumps for this system are integrated into the skid. The UF system is back-pulsed and cleaned at a frequency based on the build up of pressure due to the accumulation of suspended solids removed by the UF system. The backwash from this filter is discharged to the sanitary sewer.
Besides reducing municipal water usage by more than 50 percent, saving more than 2 million gallons of water each year, the arrangement brings attention to the global issue of water, raising awareness of the value of sustainability and the wise use of water. 
Alexandra Cousteau, granddaughter of Jacques, and her international Blue Planet tour team toured Target Field and its water treatment system on July 3, 2010, as part of a 100-day, 1,450-mile expedition. The bottle in Cousteau’s right hand contains water from the wet well; the bottle in her left hand contains water that has passed through the filtration system.

48. First pitch at Target Field, March 27, 2010; Minnesota’s T. J
First pitch at Target Field, March 27, 2010; Minnesota’s T. J. Oakes pitching to Louisiana Tech’s Kyle Roliard.

49. April 12, 2010 – Batting practice by Boston Red Sox and introductions prior to the first regular-season game at Target Field.

50. First regular-season game, Monday, April 12, 2010 – Fourth inning, Joe Mauer about to hit a run-scoring infield single (grounder up the middle that hit second base). Notice black spruce trees in center field.

51. Sunday, April 10, 2011 – Scoreboard in right field shows Hideki Matsui of Oakland coming to bat in the fourth inning (he homered on the third pitch).
Changes in 2011: Black spruce trees removed from behind the center-field fence and from in front of the batters’ eye; hitters had complained that they were distracted when the wind blew them back and forth. New scoreboard/videoboard in right field so that people in the left-field stands could see the videos. New 100-foot-high tower with LED animation, graphics, and text information. The top of the tower displays the time.