---

44th and Parkside Ballpark

---

The P.R.R. YMCA Athletic Field, also known as Penmar Park and commonly referred to in the 1930s and 1940s as the 44th and Parkside ballpark, was an athletic field and ballpark in West Philadelphia from 1903 to the early 1950s. It was built by the Pennsylvania Railroad YMCA. It was the home of the Pennsylvania Railroad YMCA of Philadelphia football club, often called the "Railroaders", from 1903 through 1905,[1] and the Philadelphia Stars Negro league baseball club from 1936 until 1952. The field was also used as a multi-sport athletic field used by the local community. During the 1930s the field was the site of home football games of Overbrook High School and St. Joseph's Preparatory School. Overbrook also played their home baseball games there. For example, the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy held 1906 Commencement Week "Athletic Games" at the field.[2] The independent Norfolk Black Bombers all-black barnstorming football team played the Washington Willow Trees on Thanksgiving Day 1942 at the park.[3] Stars co-owner Eddie Gottlieb organized a semi-professional baseball team called the "All-Phillies" which played at the field in its later years.[4] The field first opened on May 3, 1903.[1] The ballpark itself was erected in the 1920s. Lights were added in 1933 to allow for night games.[5] Behind the park's right-field fence stood the roundhouse of the main yard of the Pennsylvania Railroad.[6] Stars player Stanley Glenn would later recount how smoke and soot from the coal-powered trains would waft into the ballpark. Glenn recalls that the Stars would often stop their games until the smoke had cleared from the field.[7] Players recalled the field being rarely manicured resulting in the grass growing high.[8] Ballpark capacity is said to have been 5,000[4] to 6,000 people. Overflow crowds would bring attendance up to 10,000.[9]

PRR Football

The Pennsylvania Railroad supported its employees through its sponsorship of the Pennsylvania Railroad Philadelphia's Pennsylvania Railroad YMCA building was located at 41st Street and Westminster Avenue in West Philadelphia and was dedicated in 1894. Also that year, the YMCA began to sponsor the Pennsylvania Railroad's employee football team which had existed since 1886. This Railroad-YMCA team played against local college and athletic club teams. Players were former college players employed by the Railroad. (A similar club composed of players who worked for the Pennsylvania Railroad's "Panhandle Division" in Ohio would enter the National Football League as the Columbus Panhandles.) The "Railroaders" played home games until 1902 at a field at 52nd and Jefferson Streets. The YMCA opened their new field at Belmont and Parkside Avenues on May 2, 1903.^[1]

Philadelphia Stars Baseball

Philadelphia Stars Negro National League 1938 cap logo.

Biographer Mark Ribowsky documented that Pittsburgh Crawfords catcher Josh Gibson hit a long home run in a game against the Stars early in the 1936 season that flew out of the ballpark.^[11] The ballpark was home to another famous incident, in which Satchel Paige was working on a perfect game through eight innings. In the ninth, after three intentional walks, Paige was so sure of himself that he told his seven fielders to lie down on the field. Paige struck out the side on nine pitches.^[5]

Negro League World Series games were often played at neutral game-sites to attract larger crowds. The Cleveland Buckeyes beat the Homestead Grays in game 4 of the 1945 Series at 44th and Parkside. Game 3 of the 1947 Series was also played at the Park in which the Buckeyes faced the New York Cubans.

Amazingly, the ballpark remained sturdy despite a woman named Miss Hattie Williams chopping wood from the grandstand with a hatchet most days. She used the wood as firewood to heat the washtub where she cooked the hot dogs for her concession stand behind home plate.^[5]

Negro League Memorial Park and Mural[edit]

Today at 44th and Parkside is the Philadelphia Stars Negro League Memorial Park. In 2004, West Philadelphia's Business Association of West Parkside led a coalition of local groups in building the park. The Philadelphia Building Trades Council donated $150,000 in labor for construction.^[12] A black-tie dinner was held on September 2, 2004 at the Mann Center for the Performing Arts, near the site of the ballpark, to raise money for the Memorial Park. The dinner honored former players Bill Cash, Stanley Glenn, Harold Gould, and Wilmer Harris.^[13]

"African American Baseball in Philadelphia", Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, (1998) at Belmont and Parkside Avenues, Philadelphia, PA 19131 photographed May 24, 2011.

At the site of the Park are three tributes to the Philadelphia Stars and Negro Leagues' baseball in Philadelphia. There is a Pennsylvania Historic Site marker, a Negro Leagues Memorial Statue, and Philadelphia MuralArts program mural celebrating the Stars. The Stars Memorial Park and the Stars Mural straddle either side of Belmont Avenue as one crosses Parkside Avenue traveling west.

A Pennsylvania Historical marker was dedicated at Belmont and Parkside Avenues on April 25, 1998. The marker is titled, "African American Baseball in Philadelphia" and the text reads,

For 85 years, starting with the Pythians and Excelsiors in 1867, Black ball clubs were a significant part of the Philadelphia scene. The Giants, formed 1902, were soon "World's Colored Champions." The Hilldales, Eastern Colored League Champions, 1923-25, won the Colored World Series, 1925. The Philadelphia Stars from 1933-52; they were in the Negro National League, 1933-48, & many of their games took place at this site.^[14]

Memorial Statue

A 7-foot high statue featuring a ballplayer following through on his swing stands in the Memorial Park. The Phillies hosted the dedication of the statue on June 18, 2003 at Veterans Stadium. Mayor John Street and Phillies shortstop Jimmy Rollins attended the unveiling of the statue, along with the then living members of the Stars, Bill Cash, Mahlon Duckett, Stanley Glenn, Harold Gould, and Wilmer Harris. The Phillies committed to pay for the maintenance and upkeep of the statue for a period of 10 years.^[15]

The statue was unveiled and placed upon its pedestal at 44th and Belmont Avenues on April 15, 2005. Cash, Duckett, Gould, and Glenn all attended the ceremony. Wilmer Harris had died in December 2004. Phillies hitting coach Milt Thompson, whose father and grandfather played in the Negro Leagues, attended as did Rollins and former Phillies player Garry Maddox.^[16]

The statue was sculpted by artist and Philadelphia native Phil Sumpter. Sumpter also designed the statue which stands at Third and Erie Streets in Philadelphia.

• Philadelphia Stars
• Hilldale Park

References

Coordinates: 39°58′38″N 75°12′47″W� / �39.9773°N 75.2130°W� / 39.9773; -75.2130

External links

• philastarsmemorialpark.org
• Business Association of West Parkside/Philadelphia Stars Negro League Memorial Park
• Photograph of mural, "Negro Baseball League", at 4304 Parkside Ave.
• Gallery of photographs of mural and statue at 44th and Parkside Avenues.
• Review and Photos from BallparkReviews.com

Article from Phillyvoice.com

44TH AND PARKSIDE BALLPARK

At the 44th and Parkside ballpark in West Philadelphia, players would lose fly balls in the coal smoke billowing from the trains in the neighboring Pennsylvania Railroad train yard – and sometimes conditions got so bad that games had to be delayed.

Philadelphia Stars catcher Stanley "Doc" Glenn wrote in his autobiography about how much he disliked playing at the Stars' home field in the smoky conditions:

"It was filthy. Coal-powered trains used to pull in nearby at Belmont and Girard avenues for cleaning, then roll back downtown to the main station at 30th Street. Smoke and soot used to waft right into the ballpark. Why, if you went outside with a white shirt on, 20 minutes later that shirt would turn black!"

The field's location was not by accident. Pennsylvania Railroad's management built the stadium in 1906 for its YMCA-sponsored employee football team, the Railroaders, but it was best known as the home park for the Stars, who played there beginning in 1936.

Philadelphia has a rich history of professional black baseball, and the Stars were one of the city's most popular teams following their formation in 1933. In 1934, the Stars joined the Negro National League. They won the Negro League Championship that year.

Some of the Negro League's greatest players, like Josh Gibson, Cool Papa Bell and Satchel Paige, took the field at 44th and Parkside. In 1947, Paige legendarily pitched eight perfect innings. Then, in the ninth, he intentionally walked the first three batters, instructed his fielders (except the catcher) to sit down and proceeded to strike out the next three batters on nine pitches.

The 44th and Parkside ballpark also was known as Penmar Park and the PRR-YMCA Athletic Field.

Courtesy of the Special Collections Research Center/Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia, Pa.

In this photo taken in the 1940s at the 44th and Parkside ballpark in West Philadelphia, a band performs while players from the Philadelphia Stars of the Negro National League stand with their hats over their hearts.

Thom Carroll/PhillyVoice

A historical marker and a mural created by the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program – seen in the background of this photo – show the location of the old 44th and Parkside ballpark in West Philadelphia. The stadium was the home field of the Philadelphia Stars and other Negro Leagues baseball teams.

Courtesy of the Special Collections Research Center/Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia, Pa.

This undated photo taken in the 1940s at the 44th and Parkside ballpark shows an unidentified batter for the Philadelphia Stars of the Negro National League just after hitting a pitch.

Thom Carroll/PhillyVoice

A bronze statue of a Philadelphia Stars player stands near Belmont and Parkside avenues in West Philadelphia. The statue is in Philadelphia Stars Memorial Park, which is located on part of what was the 44th and Parkside ballpark.

Courtesy of the Special Collections Research Center/Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia, Pa.

This photo taken in 1944 at the 44th and Parkside ballpark in West Philadelphia shows the players of the Philadelphia Stars of the Negro National League. The team's owner, Ed Bolden, dressed in a suit, can be seen near the center of the image. Bolden also owned the Hilldale Daisies who played in Yeadon, Delaware County, and founded the Eastern Colored League.