Baltimore Memorial Stadium

About

Baltimore Memorial Stadium was a multi-purpose stadium in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, that formerly stood on 33rd Street on an oversized block officially called Venable Park, a former city park from the 1920s. The site was bound by Ellerslie Avenue to the west, 36th Street to the north, and Ednor Road to the east. Two stadiums were located here — a 1922 version known primarily as Baltimore Stadium or Municipal Stadium; and a rebuilt, double-deck, multi-sport stadium, completed in mid-1954, and rechristened Baltimore Memorial Stadium — Memorial Stadium for short.

Memorial Stadium was launched as Municipal Stadium, also sometimes known as Baltimore Stadium or Venable Stadium. Designed by Pleasants Pennington and Albert W. Lewis, it was built in 1922 over a six-month period at the urging of the Mayor, William F. Broening in a previously undeveloped area just north beyond the city's iconic rows of rowhouses. The stadium was constructed in what was formerly Venable Park and was operated by the city's Board of Park Commissioners. It was primarily a football stadium, a large horseshoe with an earthen-mound exterior and its open end with a large stone gateway of a Greek/Roman colonnade and porticoes on the open-faced south side facing the new 33rd Street boulevard/parkway which had just recently been cut through east to west. In this configuration, it seated anywhere from 70,000 to 80,000 people. In its early years it hosted various public and private high school and college-level games, including the annual "Poly-City Game" on Thanksgiving Day where the "Collegians" (later known as the "Black Knights") of Baltimore City College opposed its rival Baltimore Polytechnic Institute "Engineers" (1889), along with the Roman Catholic high schools' "Loyola-Calvert Hall Game" pitting the Cardinals of Calvert Hall College against Loyola High School at Blakefield's Dons. Home games for the University of Maryland at College Park's Terrapins football and the United States Naval Academy Midshipmen were sometimes held at the stadium, attracting a national audience and media coverage.

In July 1944, Municipal Stadium was pressed into service as a baseball park by the Baltimore Orioles of the International League, when their previous home, "Oriole Park," located in the Abell neighborhood to the southwest, was destroyed by fire. The minor league Orioles went on to win the International League championship and the Junior World Series that year. The large post-season crowds in attendance at Municipal Stadium, which would not have been possible at Oriole Park, even surpassing the attendance of Major League Baseball's 1944 World Series, caught the attention of professional team owners, and Baltimore suddenly became regarded as a viable option for teams looking to relocate.

Further momentum for sports in Baltimore was spurred when the failing Miami Seahawks franchise of the fledgling All-America Football Conference (AAFC) was relaunched in the fall of 1947 as the Baltimore Colts. The presence of professional football and the prospect of professional baseball spurred the city to rebuild Municipal Stadium into a facility of "major league caliber." This reconstructed stadium was to be renamed Baltimore Memorial Stadium in honor of the thousands of the city's dead of the recently concluded World War II. Baltimore mayor Thomas D'Alesandro Jr. championed the new stadium project and overcame various legal and political hurdles which delayed progress on the project. The initial plan called for a single, horseshoe-shaped deck to be built, with the open end facing north, and was designed to host football as well as baseball. It was engineered with enough strength to eventually support a second deck and a roof. The lower deck reconstruction began in the spring/early summer of 1949 and was done in stages, first at the previously open south end of the stadium, and slowly obliterating the old Municipal Stadium stands, even as the International League Orioles continued playing on their makeshift diamond, along with the new Baltimore Colts of the former All-America Football Conference merged with the reorganized National Football League. The old seating at the north end was retained for the pro and college football seasons that fall. By year's end, the horseshoe was sufficiently completed to allow the baseball infield to be relocated from the northwest corner of the field to the south end, and the Orioles opened the 1950 season at the newly oriented diamond. Construction continued on the single deck, until finally all the remnants of the old stadium were gone. The new facility could seat around 31,000. During the 1950 season, the Baltimore Elite Giants of the Negro American League hosted four games at the venue, including their season opener on May 12, a 4-3 victory over the Philadelphia Stars in front of more than 10,000 fans.

Adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA). Photography via Wikimedia Commons.