On This Date in Sports September 18, 1963
In collaboration with the Sportsecyclopedia.com
The New York Mets lose to the Philadelphia Phillies 5-1 in the final baseball game played at the Polo Grounds. In one form or another baseball had been played at Coogan’s Bluff on the Northern edge of Manhattan since 1890, with a reconstruction in 1911 after a fire. The stadium was home to Giants from 1891-1957, the Yankees from 1913-1922 and the Mets in their first two seasons.
As the sport of baseball and the City of New York grew, there were few open spaces on the Island of Manhattan to play the game that was becoming the National Pastime. The first incarnation of the Polo Grounds had been located near Central Park and actually used for polo and was the original home of the New York Giants. As New York began constructing their street grids, the Polo Grounds was forced to move after the 1888 season, as the Giants looked for a new home, they settle on a patch of land on the northern edge of Manhattan near Coogan’s Bluff.
The new stadium had a distinctive look with short distances down the left field line and extremely deep centerfield, earning it the nick of “The Bathtub”. Originally constructed of wooden bleachers, the Polo Grounds suffered a fire in 1911. The fire only destroyed the wood and not the structure itself, as large portions of the stadium were saved. The Polo Grounds was quickly rebuilt, with concrete replacing the wooden structure.
The concrete structure brought new life to the Polo Grounds, as New York’s American League club moved in as a tenant in 1913. Previously the team that played in Washington Heights was called the New York Highlanders, but upon moving to Coogan’s Bluff became the New York Yankees. The Yankees were a sideshow to the more popular Giants until 1920 when they purchased Babe Ruth from the Boston Red Sox. The addition of Ruth made the Yankees the main attraction at the Polo Grounds, which did not sit well with John McGraw and the Giants. As a result, the Yankees were forced to leave for their own stadium a short distance away in the Bronx on the other side of the Harlem River. This was not before the Yankees and Giants played the first two Subway Series at the Polo Grounds in 1921 and 1922.
As Yankee Stadium became the state of the art stadium in baseball, the Polo Grounds with its strange dimensions seemed like a relic of the dead ball era as the first night game was played there in 1940. After the war, the neighborhood around Coogan’s Bluff began to deteriorate, as did the stadium itself. On July 4, 1950, a fan was hit and killed by a stray bullet, fired off the roof of a nearby building. The 1950’s saw some last great baseball memories like Bobby Thompson’s shot heard around the world and Willie May’s catch in the 1954 World Series, but attendance continued to suffer which led the Giants to leave New York and head west to San Francisco along with the rival Brooklyn Dodgers.
After the Giants and Dodgers left New York, Ebbets Field was quickly torn down to make way for new housing in Brooklyn. The Polo Ground had a similar fate in store, but due to the efforts to bring back the National League to New York, the Polo Grounds were given a stay of execution. This would only last until the new team’s new stadium was ready. The plan paid off as the New York Mets used the Polo Grounds for two years before moving to Shea Stadium in Queens in 1964.
The final game at the Polo Grounds saw the Philadelphia Phillies led by Gene Mauch beat the New York Mets led by Casey Stengel 5-1. The Mets lone run was a home run by Jim Hickman who hit the final home run at the Polo Grounds in the fourth inning, while Chico Fernandez singled in the ninth inning for the final hit in the old bathtub. One batter later, Ted Schreiber hit into a double play to end the game, as Chris Short got the win for Philadelphia with a complete game as Craig Anderson got the loss.