A. Mostly Eastern Football and baseball developed gradually from European forebears in the 19th century; basketball, however, was invented in Springfield, MA in 1891. Baseball and football evolved along different paths. Many baseball rules were set by 1850, and recognizable baseball games were played in the 1840s and 50s. Entrepreneurs fenced in fields in order to charge admission to ball games, beginning in 1862. Overhand pitching wasn’t fully legal until 1884, a generation before a restricted version of the forward pass became legal in football. 1869 was a special year for both sports. The Cincinnati Red Stockings, with ten salaried players, compiled an amazing 58-0-1 record in 1869 and went on tour. They visited the White House, and came to California on the new transcontinental railroad to play six games in September and October 1869. Two thousand people welcomed them in San Francisco. They didn’t come to LA, which had no rail access until 1876. The team disbanded after the 1870 season. About half of them moved to Boston with manager Harry Wright in 1871, and became the Boston Red Stockings. They later became the Boston Braves, they were not the ancestors of the Boston Red Sox team, which formed in 1901 and took on the Red Sox name in 1908. The Atlanta Braves are their descendants today. Just to confuse you, the Cincinnati Reds also claim the Red Stockings as ancestors. You’d understand the 1869 game, although pitchers threw underhanded. The teams had nine positions, but note that right fielder Gerald Ellard also made the team’s baseballs.

Football started as an elite college game. Different versions developed, most emphasizing kicking and a few allowed running with the ball. The Boston Oneida Club, formed in 1861, may have been the first organized football team. They probably invented the "Boston Game," which allowed players to kick a round ball along the ground, and to pick it up and run with it. The “New York game” allowed only kicking. Princeton and Rutgers played the first college football game in November 1869, more than ten years after the first college baseball games. Each team had 25 players. They could kick the ball or bat it with hands, feet, head or any body part. They could not run with it or pass it, i.e. they followed ‘New York rules’. Rutgers won 6-4. Harvard, Columbia, Princeton, and Yale agreed to establish rules in 1876, Yale coach Walter Cap revolutionized football with several makeovers in the 1880s, including three downs to gain five yards, (served the same purpose as basketball’s shot clock) a line of scrimmage, a seven man offensive line and more. He also created and publicized an All-America team, starting in 1889. Eastern newspapers covered college football in great detail in the late 1880s and 1890s. It was a status symbol for the elites, along with golf and tennis, and newspapers pushed the idea of an All American team. Thanksgiving Day games came to be especially important; they were often followed by rowdy fan behavior in restaurants and other places.

Independent semi-pro football games between teams representing local athletic associations and businesses playing irregular schedules appeared in the 1880s. The players were supposed to be amateurs but often received expenses or trophies. The line between the colleges and the independents was fuzzy; some players played for both colleges and independents during the same season. The first truly professional football team was that of the Latrobe, PA athletic association that signed all players to season contracts in 1897. This came 30 years after the first pro baseball team, Cincinnati in the late 1860s. Neither the Cincinnati nor the Latrobe team was economically stable. Bankruptcies were the rule in the early days of pro baseball and football. That has changed dramatically. The average NFL franchise today is worth more than $1 billion, and the last NFL bankruptcy was in 1952. The NFL has been more profitable than other professional sports leagues. Its small town origin, skilled use of television and its top down control of franchises differ from other American professional sports. The last team to win an NFL championship that no longer survives was the Providence Steam Roller, 1928 champions. They played in a bicycle racing stadium, the Cycledome, which seated 10,000 spectators. The seats were so close to the field that players landed in the seats if they were knocked out of bounds. The Cycledome was demolished in 1937.

Early stadiums were wooden, privately financed and prone to fires. Harvard Stadium, built in 1903 with alumni money, was radically new, all steel and concrete, the first stadium to use vertical reinforced concrete. Older ballparks had slabs of horizontal concrete only. However, newspapers were not enthusiastic. The Boston Globe said that this “largest chunk of concrete in the world” might not work out for New England winters and the New York Times gave the new stadium only one line. This indifference may explain the delays before Harvard rivals Yale and Princeton built new concrete stadiums in 1914. The Yale Bowl had a shape unlike the Harvard and Greek Olympic stadiums. Stadiums with similar shape came to be called bowls. The Rose Bowl, built in 1922, initially had an open South End. It was enlarged in 1930 and the open end was closed, making it a bowl.

Shibe Park, home of the Philadelphia Athletics, opened in Philadelphia in 1909 and was the first concrete and steel baseball stadium. New York’s famous Polo Grounds illustrates the evolution of ballparks. The first version (1876) had no fences. The 3rd version, a wooden private stadium built in 1908, was second only in seating capacity to Harvard Stadium. It was badly damaged in a 1911 fire, followed by the fourth version of concrete and steel that later housed two NFL teams and the New York Yankees until they built their own stadium. Yankee attendance soared after they got Babe Ruth from Boston; they built the first triple decked baseball stadium, surpassing the capacity of all college stadiums. The first game in the new stadium was April 18,1923 against the Red Sox; 74,200 fans attended. The Polo Grounds was demolished in 1964, the original Yankee stadium in 2010.

New York was unique. Many other cities built large municipal stadiums in the expansive 1920s: The Rose Bowl (funded by the Tournament of Roses and given to the city of Pasadena) 1922, Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, originally larger and more expensive 1923, Philadelphia Municipal Stadium built in 1923 for the 150th anniversary International Exposition, a horseshoe stadium with 102,000 seats, and Chicago’s Soldier Field that opened in 1924 as a public, multipurpose sports venue, and was renamed Soldier Field to honor World War I veterans. More than 123,000 fans watched the 1927 USC-Notre Dame game at Soldier Field.

Cleveland Municipal Stadium, built by the city for both football and baseball, opened in 1931. Dallas built the Cotton Bowl stadium in 1932. Miami businessmen noticed the success of the Rose Festival, they started a Palm festival and got the city of Miami to build Burdine stadium, which opened in 1937 and later became Orange Bowl stadium. It was expanded to a peak capacity of 80,000 in the 1960s when the Miami Dolphins played there. Tulane University built a 35,000 seat stadium in 1926. It was used for the Sugar Bowl from 1935 (when it began) until 1975, when the game was moved and eventually the stadium was torn down. Lacking luxury seating, it could not attract games to fund its maintenance. The Houston Astrodome (1965) was the first domed stadium and had the first luxury boxes. These features were widely imitated and the old municipal stadiums came down, broken by premium seating and TV. Soldier Field remains in a shrunken state, remodeled to suit the needs of the Chicago Bears. The Cotton Bowl is on the ropes, but city of Dallas recently voted to renovate it with premium seating. It’s likely to survive. The era of giant municipal stadiums built for sports, concerts and public assemblies is over. Keith Eggener wrote a lovely essay about Baltimore Memorial Stadium, which applies to many of its older sisters. The Houston Astrodome was replaced by Reliant stadium in 2002, with a retractable roof, 75% of its cost paid for by Harris County taxpayers. Today six MLB and three NFL stadiums have retractable roofs.

B. Mostly Western, featuring Chavez Ravine California major league baseball surfaced in 1941 when the American league rejected a proposed move of the St. Louis Browns to Los Angeles. After the war, business interests began to push for a Los Angeles major league team. No team would come without a major league stadium and no one would build a stadium without a team. Many suggested upgrading Wrigley Field to 40,000 to 50,000 seats. However, this would entail condemnation of adjacent housing and businesses. The LA Times’ Ned Cronin first suggested public financing of a new stadium in Chavez Ravine in February 1955 to attract a team. A bond measure to finance a stadium was rejected by the voters later that year.

The first Wrigley field was built in Los Angeles in 1921. Chewing gum magnate William Wrigley bought both the Chicago Cubs and the LA Angels of the Pacific Coast League. He owned Catalina Island and wintered in Pasadena; his Pasadena mansion now houses the Tournament of Roses. He built a new stadium in South Central LA for the Angels in 1921. It was a modern stadium with an attractive clock tower, seating only 21,000 fans. At that time, the Chicago stadium was called Cubs Park. It became the second Wrigley Field in 1926.

Los Angeles Wrigley Field with its famous clock tower Photograph courtesy of University of Southern California, on behalf of the USC Special Collections.

Owner Walter O'Malley announced that the Dodgers would leave Ebbets Field soon in 1955. The Dodgers’ home stadium, Ebetts Field, was a renowned member of the trio of small inner city stadiums: Fenway Park ( built 1912), Ebetts Field (1913) & Chicago’s Wrigley Field (1914, first known as Weeghman Park). It held only 32,000 fans even after expansion and had terrible parking and auto access. O’Malley first attempted to buy land and construct a new domed stadium in New York City (15 years before the Astrodome). Powerful commissioner Robert Moses blocked these efforts. Had Moses been more cooperative, both the Dodgers and Giants might have remained in New York.

As efforts by the St. Louis Browns, Washington Senators, and Kansas City Athletics to move to Los Angeles faded, O’Malley contacted Los Angeles representatives and encouraged Horace Stoneham, New York Giants owner, to think of San Francisco rather than in Minneapolis. O’Malley assumed that the other team owners, worried about travel expenses, would not approve a single West Coast move—but might approve two in tandem. The Giants proclaimed their move to San Francisco in August; LA city officials began discussing ways to upgrade Wrigley Field and condemn nearby buildings. O’Malley gave New York officials six months to develop an new stadium plan for the Dodgers in February, 1957 and then bought Wrigley Field, the Los Angeles Angels, their territorial rights and Pacific Coast League franchise for $3,000,000 plus the Fort Worth franchise of the Texas League. The Dodgers announced their move to Los Angeles on October 8, 1957. The LA City Council had approved transfer of property in Chavez Ravine to the Dodgers in exchange for the Wrigley Field property the day before. The Dodgers would play in Wrigley Field, the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum or some combination of both. O’Malley did not anticipate the need for voter approval of this deal.

The Dodgers first said that they might play weekend and holiday games in the Coliseum and weekday night games at Wrigley Field. Wrigley Field might be enlarged. Negotiations with the Coliseum were difficult. O'Malley visited Los Angeles; he toured the Rose Bowl and Wrigley Field and made a new proposal to the Coliseum Commission. Wrigley Field did not please him; too small, terrible parking, poor public transportation, and he disliked the South Central Los Angeles neighborhood.

The Dodgers announced in December that they were near to a deal with the Rose Bowl. However, the threat of a lawsuit by Pasadena residents soon stalled their plans for the Rose Bowl. Ford Frick, Baseball Commissioner and a proponent of the Coliseum, called Wrigley a "Cow Pasture” and discouraged Rose Bowl negotiations. Soon the Dodgers reported that cost estimates for converting the Rose Bowl for baseball were too expensive, they could play at Wrigley. Mayor Poulson now interceded and a two year agreement was reached with the Coliseum Commission in January, 1958, three months before opening day. Then came the referendum.

Proposition B The June 3, 1958 ballot included a referendum: Los Angeles voters could approve or reject the deal made with Dodgers owner Walter O'Malley to trade his property at Wrigley Field for about 300 acres at Chavez Ravine as well as millions for roads and streets to serve the new park. O'Malley was also supposed to also build a recreation center near the area. A group of city commissioners, including Edward Roybal, urged a NO vote on the proposition, saying, VOTE NO on "B" - Unless you want to GIVE MILLIONS OF YOUR TAX DOLLARS... and MILLIONS OF DOLLARS OF CITY OWNED LAND ... to a private commercial team for BARS, HOTELS, RESTAURANTS, AMUSEMENT PARK, APARTMENT HOUSES, STORES, SHOPPING CENTERS, -- as well as baseball. They were not against baseball and noted that the Dodgers were already here in Los Angeles, playing at the Coliseum.

As support for the deal fell in the polls, the Los Angeles Times and Los Angeles city government ramped up a strong campaign supporting proposition B, “if we don’t pass Proposition B, then the Dodgers will find another city more willing to accommodate their interests and leave." They brought in many heavies, including Ronald Reagan, Dean Martin and other celebrities. National League President Warren Giles announced that he would study ways to move the Dodger franchise elsewhere if the referendum failed. These measures were used very skillfully by the NFL in subsequent negotiations with various local governments over NFL franchises and stadiums.

Proposition B won in 9 of 15 council districts, including Roybal’s own East Side district. The vote was 351,683 for and 325,898 opposed. The city evicted the final Chavez Ravine holdouts, Manuel and Abrana Arechiga, from their Chavez Ravine home on May 9, 1959 and ground-breaking for Dodger Stadium came in September. Chavez Ravine had once housed a large Mexican-American community. The city of Los Angeles designated it as a slum and used eminent domain to buy those homes with federal money for a public housing project in 1951. The project was called Elysian Park Heights. Most properties were bought, but no public housing was built. Norris Poulson was elected Los Angeles mayor in 1953, on an anti-public housing platform strongly supported by the Los Angeles Times. He promised to end “un-American socialist housing projects.” O’Malley received 315 acres of land close to the civic center, much of which had been bought with federal funds in return for Wrigley Field and 9.8 acres of land in South Central LA. He got half of the oil and mineral rights and agreed to build a 40 acre recreation center, touted as a measure to combat juvenile delinquency. The Dodgers probably made $30-60 million on this deal. Now owned by the City of Los Angeles, Wrigley Field could still be used for various sporting events and other functions. The LA Coliseum was very busy: it was used for the Dodgers, Rams, Chargers, USC, and UCLA in 1960. The 1960s--Major League Baseball, Decline and Demolition In October 1960, the American League announced an expansion including a new LA franchise, the Los Angeles Angels. As part of the agreement the Angels were to play in Wrigley Field for one year and then move to the new Dodger Stadium on a four-year lease. The Angels moved to Anaheim in 1966 and Wrigley Field was demolished. Ebetts Field had been demolished in 1960.

Years later, Peter O’Malley, Walter’s son saw a chance to cash in after Los Angeles and Anaheim lost their professional football franchises to Oakland and St. Louis. He would build a second stadium on Dodger property, a stadium able to house an NFL franchise. However, Los Angeles city politicians were uncooperative; they told O'Malley that any future NFL franchise in L.A. would play its games in the hallowed Memorial Coliseum, home of the 1932 and 1984 Summer Olympics. So O’Malley sold the Dodgers to Frank McCourt.

The lowbrow sport (baseball) has less appeal on the small screen; it lost ground to football. Now it’s celebrated as an intellectual game (think George Will). Television helped the elite sport morph into an economic powerhouse, a spectacle for the common man. The low status “Sunday game” (pro football) has been fabulously successful in economic terms, but 4,000 former players are suing the NFL because of the problem of traumatic brain injury, a problem that won’t go away. The last major league baseball bankruptcy involved the Texas Rangers, who went bankrupt in 2010 but played in the World Series that same year. The last NFL bankruptcy was in 1952 (The Dallas Texans folded in their first year). Baseball started first but now lags behind.

Four stadiums are recognized National Historic Landmarks: Harvard stadium, the Yale Bowl, the Rose Bowl and the LA Memorial Coliseum. Soldier Field lost its NHL status when it was gutted for the Chicago Bears. NHL status marks these stadiums as cultural icons, but doesn’t pay the bills. Harvard and Yale have some premium seating and commercial events, they remain college facilities and they will survive for the next 25 years. How has the Rose Bowl survived? It survived because of its links to the Rose Parade, far more successful than any of its imitators such as the Orange Parade, and because its sibling, the LA Coliseum, posed no threat (no premium seating). The Rose Bowl acquired a strong college link in 1982 when UCLA moved out of the Coliseum. They might have stayed if the Coliseum had premium seating, with its potential profits. The UCLA contract runs until 2042, there is no need for hasty action no matter how many premium seats and luxury features appear at new Los Angeles stadiums. The world of organized sports and stadiums will be quite different in 2042, but we can’t predict how it will change.

Most early post-season games flopped; The Tournament of Roses association could find no West Coast university willing to play for its 1903 festival, so they chose polo, which drew only 2,000 fans and no enthusiasm. The second football game in 1916 lost money, but by now the Rose Parade was on the national map, with floats representing large New York and Chicago hotels. The third Pasadena football game made money and the Rose Parade and Rose Bowl were entrenched, unique like Notre Dame football, which also bloomed in the 1920s. There is reason to worry about the Coliseum’s future. It may become a drain on the city of Los Angeles, whose finances are shaky and were made worse by the AEG stadium deal (see topic III and Fleming’s analysis).

In summary, Los Angeles voters rejected financing a baseball stadium for an unspecified team. They narrowly passed proposition B in 1958, giving millions of dollars to the Dodgers. If Professor Fleming is correct, as I believe, the city again gave money to a sports mogul for the Farmer’s Field project, but not as much as they gave to the Dodgers. The combination of the mayor, chamber of commerce, LA Times and movie stars narrowly prevailed. Is LA worse than cities such as Chicago, Miami, Houston and Dallas in shoveling public money to pro sports? Probably not- see http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brian-frederick/miami-marlins-stadium_b_2137937.html for details about how the new Marlins stadium will cost Miami-Dade County taxpayers $2.4 billion over the next 40 years. Is the current Dodger ownership interested in a football stadium on their property? Time will tell.

Eggener, The Demolition and Afterlife of Baltimore Memorial Stadium, http://places.designobserver.com/feature/demolition-and-afterlife-baltimore-memorial- stadium/36278/ Frank & Steets (editors), Stadium Worlds. Football, Space and the Built Environment Routledge, 2010 includes a famous chapter by Michael Zinganel “The Stadium as Cash Machine” ...