BRAVES FIELD (1915-1952) ************************ HOME OF THE: BOSTON BRAVES This home-made ball park has been created for use with Diamond Mind Baseball v8. The dimensions and image are to depict the stadium as it looked in 1924. LFL L LFG C RFG R RFL *** *** *** *** *** *** *** DISTANCE: 402 452 497 550 489 442 402 HEIGHT: 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 1924 PARK FACTORS ***************** LEFT HANDED BATTERS RIGHT HANDED BATTERS ******************* ******************** S D T HR S D T HR *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** 102 102 102 26 102 100 100 30 SURFACE: Natural Grass FOUL TERRITORY: Large *** NOTE: Due to the monstrous size of this park (550' to center) not all of the park fits on the game screen. When Braves owner, James Gaffney constructed his new stadium he wanted it to be conducive to his favorite kind of baseball - inside-the-park home runs, and that's just what he designed. The wide open spaces of Braves Field generated plenty of triples and inside-the-park home runs, but the corollary was that hardly anyone could muscle the ball out of the park for a real honest-to-goodness Babe Ruth - type home run. In 1921, 34 of the 38 home runs hit here, were of the inside-the-park variety. On April 29th, 1922, the visiting New York Giants hit 4 inside-the-park home runs here, all in one game. It wasn't until 1928 that the fence distances were pulled in, to reflect more present day ballparks. The right-field line went from 402 to 364. The left-field line went from 402 to 320, and center-field from a whopping 550 to a much more reachable 387. Three World Series were played in this park, but two of them didn't include the Braves. In 1915, the Boston Red Sox played their World Series games here, in beating the Philadelphia Phillies, 4 games to 1. The Red Sox also played here in the 1916 World Series, defeating the Brooklyn Robins, 4 games to 1. It wasn't until 1948 that the Braves finally got to play a World Series game in their own park. Unfortunately the Cleveland Indians bested the Braves in that 1948 Series, 4 games to 2. Some other memorable moments at Braves Field, ... October 16th, 1916: In game 2 of the World Series, Babe Ruth pitches the Boston Red Sox to a 14-inning, 2-1 victory over the Brooklyn Robins. After yielding a run in the 1st inning, Ruth goes all 14-innings and gives up just 6 hits. May 1st, 1920: Joe Oeschger of the Braves and Leon Cadore of the Brooklyn Dodgers both pitch a full 26 innings of a 1-1 tie, eventually called because of darkness. The 26-inning game is still the longest game, by innings, in major league history. The above comments are from the book: "Lost Ballparks - A Celebration of Baseball's Legendary Fields," by Lawrence S. Ritter. ************************************* BRAVES FIELD IS FROM THE CREATORS OF: +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Baseball's Analytical Search Engine +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/tdmilne Ron Gudykunst - ronlg@aol.com Tom Milne - tdmilne@compuserve.com