Columbia Park or Columbia Avenue Grounds was a baseball park in the Brewerytown neighborhood of Philadelphia. It was built in 1901 as the first home of the American League Philadelphia Athletics, who played there for eight seasons, including two games of the 1905 World Series. Columbia Park was also used by amateur and Negro League baseball teams, as well as for college and professional football. Columbia Park was repurposed and used for circus performances in 1909 after the Athletics' move to the larger Shibe Park. The site would be sold in 1913 and developed with residential housing.
Neighborhood and Construction Columbia Park was constructed in 1901 by the Philadelphia Athletics when the team was established with the creation of the American League. The site was a vacant lot owned by Luther Martin for which manager and part-owner Connie Mack obtained a ten-year lease. It occupied the block bordered by 29th Street, Oxford Street, 30th Street, and Columbia Avenue (later renamed Cecil B. Moore Avenue, in honor of the civil rights leader). The park was one city block, 400 (east-west) by 455 feet (north-south), and totaled 4.2 acres.
Martin had purchased the land in 1876 for from GW Tryon. On March 18, 1841, Tryon acquired the area from JE Ridgway for $14,000 as part of a ninety-five acre tract of farm land that extended to the Schuykill River at the west and Ridge Avenue at the north.
The area in 1901 was an active residential and commercial neighborhood familiar to Philadelphia sports fans and accessible by public transportation. The neighborhood was home to half of the city's breweries including F.A. Poth and Bergdoll Brewery, both among the largest producers in the country and within blocks of Columbia Park. It was often reported that the smell of hops and beer filled the ballpark and surrounding blocks. The city's earliest amateur and professional base ball clubs, Olympic, and then the National Association's Athletic Base Ball Club and later the American Association's Athletics had played until 1890 at the Jefferson Street Grounds four blocks southeast of Columbia Park. The Philadelphia Phillies had played their first seasons at Recreation Park, ¾ of a mile to the east of Columbia Park, as had the National Association Athletics.
Ballpark options were limited for the new Philadelphia club in 1901. The Phillies had moved to National League Park on N Broad Street which had the largest capacity in the city at 18,000, but closed to the Athletics who would compete for fans with the Phillies. Both the Jefferson Street Grounds and Recreation Park had been developed for residences and community use by 1901, Forepaugh Park had closed in 1894, and the PRR's YMCA Athletic Field would not be developed and opened until 1903.
Columbia Park was built by contractor James B. Foster at a cost of $35,000, equal to $ today. In contrast to the Phillies' Philadelphia Ball Park built in 1887 and rebuilt in 1894 with non-union labor, the Athletics employed exclusively union in Columbia Park's 1901 construction. Philadelphia's union leaders praised the move, declaring in April 1901, "[we] welcome [the Athletics] amongst us as brother unionists, and promise them our support and assistance, and bespeak for them the hearty goodwill, favor and patronage of all self-respecting citizens of Philadelphia.
The stadium was small and originally had a seating capacity of only 9,500. This was increased to 13,600 by the addition of bleacher seating in the outfield. During sold out games, additional unofficial seating could be found on top of adjoining homes. There was only one dressing room, for the home team; visiting teams had to change at their hotel.
At its opening in 1901, Columbia Park consisted of a single-deck covered grandstand that extended from first base to third base, and bleachers down both foul lines. On the roof of the grandstand was a small press box set between a wire screen on each side to keep foul balls inside the park. Right field was considerably shorter than left, and a screen of chicken wire 25-feet in height was erected atop the exterior right field wall all the way to centerfield to keep balls from flying onto 29th Street or hitting homes across the street.
Although the ballpark was in Philadelphia's Brewerytown section, beer sales were prohibited.
The ballpark was accessible by public transit lines. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad station at 31st Street and Girard Avenue was a short walk to the park. Fans could also take the Pennsylvania Railroad to Philadelphia's Broad Street Station, exit at 15th and Filbert Streets, walk one block north to Arch, and take the Strawberry Mansion trolley to the field.
Philadelphia Athletics (1901-1908) During their tenure at Columbia Park, the Athletics won the American League pennant twice, the first time was in 1902, before the institution of the modern World Series.
The A's practiced at the park for the first time on April 5, 1901, with 600 fans in attendance. The first game at the ballpark was a preseason exhibition on April 8, 1901; the A's defeated Frank Moss' Professionals 8–1 in front of 1,000 fans on a cold and bleak day. Bill Bernhard started for the Athletics and his first pitch to Arlie Latham was a strike.
The first official game in Columbia Park was held on April 26, 1901, after the first two games were rained out. The Athletics played the Washington Senators in front of a crowd of 10,524, with some fans standing on the outfield walls and the roofs of nearby houses. The Athletics lost 5–1, despite three hits by second baseman Nap Lajoie.
In October 1902, following the regular season, the Athletics faced the independent Negro league Philadelphia Giants with future Hall of Famers Sol White at shortstop and Frank Grant at second base. The Athletics beat the Giants 8-3 on October 2, 1902 in front of 800 fans at Columbia Park.
Following their successful 1902 season, the Athletics built a narrow upper deck on the rooftop of the ballpark.
The Phillies and the American Association Athletic, as well as the Eastern League Philadelphia Athletics in 1892, and Atlantic League Philadelphia Athletics in the late 1890s all played a City Series. The Phillies and American League Athletics revived the City Series tradition during the 1903 preseason. On Monday, April 6, 1903 at Columbia Park, the Phillies' Fred Mitchell beat the Athletics' Rube Waddell 2 to 0 in 10-innings in front of 6,543 fans.
The Phillies' Philadelphia Ball Park suffered a fatal collapse of its left field bleachers in August 1903. Prior to the 1905 season, the Athletics reinforced Columbia Park's seating and grandstands with heavy yellow pine joists which received the approval of the City of Philadelphia's Chief of the Bureau of Building Inspections.
On August 15, 1905, the A's Rube Waddel no-hit the St Louis Browns for 5-innings. The game was called on account of rain, and the no-hitter has not been offficially recognized because the game did not go the full 9-innings.
On September 28, 1905, the Chicago White Sox came into Philadelphia tied with the Athletics for first place in the American League. The Athletics won the first two games to go up two in the standing. For the third game on Saturday afternoon, September 30, more than 25,000 fans packed into Columbia Park to see Eddie Plank face off against the White Sox and 20-game winner Frank Owen. The Inquirer reported, "From every house top and window overlooking the field of action, scores of men and women kept watch... Telegraph poles also held their full quota of ball seekers, while the fence inclosing the grounds had the top of all of its four sides jammed." It was estimated that 10,000 fans were turned away. The record crowd would see the White Sox win 4-3 and draw within a game of the A's.
The Athletics would win their second pennant in 1905, and faced the New York Giants in the 1905 World Series. The Giants won the series 4 games to 1. Games 1 and 3 were held at Columbia Park, both games shutout victories for Giants future hall of famer Christy Mathewson.
As they had in September, fans swarmed Columbia Park on October 9, 1905 for game 1 of the World Series. 25,000 fans were estimated to have been admitted to the ballpark, and hundreds sat atop the four inclosing fences, on telegraph poles, stood on wagons, and from the windows and rooftops of the houses facing the park. Outside the park, those who could not gain admittance filled the streets. "Columbia avenue, Oxford street, Twenty-ninth street, and Thirtieth street were all black with surging crowds that hungered for bits of information as to how the game was going inside... Considerate fans, stationed at the top of bleachers or grand stand, passed out morsels of news to the anxious throngs without, who were thus enabled to follow the game, although prevented from witnessing it."
During the 1905 season, entrance to the bleachers cost 25 cents and the grandstand 50 cents; for the 1905 World Series, bleacher tickets were 50 cents and the grandstand $1.
The Athletics reconstructed the left and right bleachers prior to the 1906 season. The first base and left field bleachers had previously run straight from the grandstand along 30th Street up to Columbia Avenue. The seating was angled in such way that spectators at the Columbia Avenue end in left field were unable to see the infield over fans in front of them. The club rebuilt the bleachers with heavy Florida yellow pine timber in a semi-circle, the seats extending to the left field foul line at Columbia Ave and facing the infield and home plate.
The Athletics and Detroit Tigers vied for the pennant through the 1907 season. The Tigers came into Philadelphia for a three game series on September 27, 1907 in a virtual tie for first-place. Detroit took the first game 5-4 to move in front of an official attendance of 17,926, exceeding Columbia Park's capacity. Saturday's game was postponed by rain, and Pennsylvania Blue Laws precluded play on Sunday. A double-header was scheduled for Monday. Detroit's Bill Donovan had pitched a complete game in the Friday game and was slated to start both games of the double-header.
With a week left in the season, Athletics fans were eager to see the team capture the pennant. It was estimated that the team could have sold 50,000 tickets to the Monday double-header. With Columbia Park's limited capacity, an overflow crowd spilled into a roped-off area on the outfield grass. The gates were locked 30 minutes before game time with thousands of fans outside unable to gain admittance. Fans stormed the gates and climbed over the outside fence, with more than the official 24,127 seeing the game. The Philadelphia Inquirer would remark on the crowd, "Never before in the history of the national game has so great and remarkable a gathering of its enthusiastic followers been held anywhere." Fans scaled trolley and telegraph poles to watch the game. Local residents charged as much as $1 to $5 a person ($35 to $125 in 2025-dollars) to watch the game from windows. On the Twenty-ninth street side of the park, a fan in the grandstand lowered a rope up which fans scrambled from the street and into the park. Large men charged ten-cents to boost fans over the fence and into the park. Down by six in the fifth, the Tigers came into the ninth down 8-6. Sam Crawford opened the ninth with a single off of future Hall of Fame Rube Waddell bringing 20-year year old Ty Cobb to the plate. Cobb crushed Waddell's pitch, clearing the right-field fence by fifty-feet and onto 29th Street for a game-tying homerun. The teams both scored in the eleventh and would battle to a 9-9 tie in 17-innings before darkness ended the game. The Philadelphia Inquirer would call it "the most remarkable game ever played on the Athletic ground." Reflecting on his career in 1930, Cobb would tell Grantland Rice, "The biggest thrill I ever got came in a game was against the Athletics in 1907 [on September 30]..."