The last time I saw Connie Mack Stadium was 1956. I was 8 years old and had just finished my first year of organized baseball, if you can call biddy league organized anything. Tamaqua had a well-organized baseball system - that included biddy league, minor league, little league, junior league, teener league, and legion league. At the end of the season, they took all the players on a 100 mile train ride to Philadelphia to see a major league game.
The train left my hometown at about 8 AM for the 3 hour ride to Philadelphia,, which at the time was the third biggest city in the country. The Reading Railroad of Monopoly fame followed the Schuylkill River from its source at Tamaqua, through Reading, Pottstown, Valley Forge to our final destination, the North Broad Street Station, and then a couple miles to its mouth on the Delaware. I thought to myself, we left the station on Broad Street in Tamaqua and arrived at the North Broad Street Station in Philly, why didn't we just walk down Broad Street to the game?
When we arrived in Philadelphia, one of my coaches unwound a long rope with the command, "Grab onto the rope and do not let go for anything." So I grabbed on with the several hundred other kids and off we marched to the ball park. It seemed like miles through the busy crowded neighborhoods of the big city.
Several blocks away you could see this giant building. It looked alot like a cathedral, getting bigger and bigger as we walked. Someone said that this was Connie Mack Stadium. I thought, "Why would they name a baseball park after a girl?"
My dad told me that I was going to see the New York Giants and Willie Mays. He was half right. When we got inside the stadium, I didn't see any giants, but I got a good view of Willie Mays's butt because we sat in the sun drenched wooden bleachers in center field after paying 25 cents admission, right behind Willie. Being a bit near-sighted and refusing to wear my glasses because ball players never wore glasses, I couldn't see much of anything else. Every now and then Willie would catch a fly ball with his classic basket style but I could not see the batter swinging about 475 feet away.
I looked forward to the long August train ride home because at least we would be in the shade. Best of all, the train stopped in Valley Forge where they loaded cases and cases of little glass bottles of chocolate milk, my favorite.
Not much of a memory of my first visit to a major league sporting event.
Now 50 years later, I have a chance to spend a week in downtown Philadelphia as the Trailing Spouse. It reminds me of the joke - first prize a one week visit to Philadelphia - second prize a two week visit to Philadelphia. I would have lots of time to see new things, but the more I looked the more I wanted to trace my old footsteps.
A Google search on the Internet said I should go to 21st and Lehigh Street. This would be north and west of city hall, not far from Temple University. So I hopped on the subway to the North Broad Street Station. The weather was gray and overcast when I got on the subway, but was pounding rain and wind when I came out of the tunnel. The neighborhood looked pretty sad, I was tempted to just snap a few pictures, say I was there, and return to the tunnel like the Punxetawney Phil groundhog after he sees his shadow.
Instead, I pulled my jacket over my head and walked west. Little did I realize that I was walking past the site of the Baker Bowl - the first home of the Philadelphia Phillies on the corner of Broad and Lehigh Street. Ironically, my favorite hangout back in my old hometown was Broad and Lehigh along the railroad tracks in Tamaqua at the foot of Lehigh Street - the street where I lived my early years.
It was hard watching my back as I trudged forward into the wind with my coat over my head. Every few steps I was spin around to watch my six. The street signs passed quickly, 15th, 16th.....19th, 20th. This must be it.
The neighborhood is really run down. The once proud row homes were in disrepair, many empty with condemned signs on them. The giant factories had thousands of broken window panes.
On the entire city block between 20th and 21st Streets was a giant new church. It was raining hard as I snapped some pictures of the red brick landmark. Then I found the historic maker, Shibe Park - Connie Mack Stadium.
In 1908, Shibe was the owner of the Philadelphia Athletics. He built the first ever all concrete and steel stadium for his team and named it after himself. A few years later the Philadelphia Phillies moved into the park to share time, American League and National League. For almost 50 years, there was a major league game there every day from April to October, one league or the other.
Imagine, this field was the center of the sports universe. The Negro Baseball League had several World Series games here. The Philadelphia Eagles won the National Football League Championship here in 1948. Babe Ruth hit two home runs that traveled over 500 feet here, landing two streets away. Lou Gehrig hit four homers here, two over left field and two over right - during his fifth at bat he send one straight away in center field that was caught 470 feet from home plate. Rookie of the Year Richie Allen hit two giant homers that left the park and Richie Ashburn was Rookie of the Year and National League Batting Champion as he fouled off 16 pitches before finally delivering one of his patented singles.
The 1925 NFL Champion Pottsville Maroons beat the Notre Dame Four Horsemen here in front of a sellout crowd forcing the commissioner to take away their crown for barnstorming. Thousands of Coal Cracker fans took the matinee train south for the 3 hour trip along the Schuylkill to see this game heard round the world that gave the fledgling NFL respect in the college dominated football universe.
Any kid that lived within walking distance could see 16 major league clubs play there, 8 National League and 8 American League, for loose change if they had it, or by simply retrieving a home run ball and handing it over at the turnstile. Until 1939, all games were played in daytime until this stadium was one of the first to have lights that helped prevent kids playing "hookie" to see their heroes.
Connie Mack coached here for 50 years. Imagine that, 50 years in the same job. It makes teaching 33 years in the same classroom seem like child's play.
I am typing this on the night train as I am returning to Philly after a visit to see my sister in Wilmington, Delaware. The trains are smoother now, cleaner too, but they still have that romantic exotic feeling of a magic carpet ride that takes you from reality into a new an exciting fantasy world somewhere in time. You also have a chance to think back, to an earlier, simpler civilization. A time when an 8 year old kid could hop onto a train just down the street from his home, go 100 miles down the Schuylkill River, step off on the other end, and walk onto his Field of Dreams.
It is nice to have a chance to re-live those times, even if only for a few hours in our minds. Things were different then, the good old days were not always so good. Our selective memories have a way of choosing the good times, and burning them into our souls.
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