South Side Park

Infobox Stadium|
stadium_name = South Side Park
nickname =


location = Chicago, Illinois (now demolished)
owner =
broke_ground = 1890
opened = 1890
closed = 1940
demolished = 1940
tenants = Chicago White Stockings (MLB) (1891-1893)
Chicago White Sox (MLB) (1901-1910)
Chicago American Giants (Negro League baseball) (1911-1940)
seating_capacity = 15,000 seats

South Side Park was the name used for three different baseball parks that formerly stood in Chicago, Illinois at different times, and whose sites were all just a few blocks away from each other.

The first South Side Park was somewhere in the neighborhood of 39th Street and South Wabash Avenue, and was the home of a short-lived entry in the Union Association of 1884.

The second South Side Park was at 35th Street and South Wentworth Avenue, just east of the eventual Comiskey Park. It was first the home of the Chicago entry of the Players League of 1890 (whose roster included Charles Comiskey), and then was the home of the National League team now called the Chicago Cubs during parts of 1891-1893.

as a major league team.

The team abandoned the wooden ballpark, with its capacity of 15,000, in the middle of the 1910 season after their new steel-and-concrete, and much larger Comiskey Park was finished, just three blocks north of the old park (corner to corner), where they began an 80 1/2 season run. Meanwhile, South Side Park became the home of the newly-formed Negro League baseball team called the Chicago American Giants in 1911. It was renamed Schorling's Park for team owner Rube Foster's white business partner, John C. Schorling, a south side saloon keeper who leased the grounds and happened to be Comiskey's son-in-law.

The American Giants played their games there through the 1940 season. Then on Christmas Day of 1940, Schorling's Park was destroyed by fire. The American Giants would play their remaining 10 seasons at Comiskey Park. Today, the Chicago Housing Authority's Wentworth Gardens housing project occupies the site.

The South Side Park/Schorling's Park/Wentworth Gardens site is located across Pershing Road from a junkyard site which was named a Superfund site in the late 1990s.

Other South Side Parks

*The ballpark used by the Winston-Salem minor league baseball team, prior to the opening of Ernie Shore Field in 1956, was called South Side Park.

ources

"Green Cathedrals", by Philip J. Lowry. [http://chicago.whitesox.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/cws/history/ballparks.jsp White Sox Ballparks] .

External links

* [http://www.ballparks.com/baseball/american/sthsid.htm Ballparks.com]
* [http://projectballpark.org/history/ua/southside3.html Project Ballpark]
* [http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpcoop/ichihtml/cdnhome.html Searchable collection of Chicago Daily News photographs (includes many of South Side Park)]

succession box
title = Home of the
Chicago Cubs
years = 1891 – 1893
before = West Side Park
after = West Side Parksuccession box
title = Home of the
Chicago White Sox
years = 1901 – 1910
before = first ballpark
after = Comiskey Park