Baker Bowl

The right field wall at the Baker Bowl stood 280 feet from home plate at its closest point and eventually reached 60 feet high. Across it stretched a Lifebuoy soap advertisement: "The Phillies Use Lifebuoy." Fans finished the sentence — "and they still stink" — and in 1936, someone broke into the ballpark overnight and wrote it on the sign itself. The Phillies struggled through the live-ball era in an extremely hitter-friendly park, and the wall carried the joke.

What Went Under It

Before the ballpark rose, the ground around it did. In 1893, Broad Street, Huntingdon Street, and Lehigh Avenue — abutting the center and right field wall — were raised to eliminate street-level grade crossings over the Reading Railroad's tunnel, and the elevated streets ringed the low-lying field ever after; fans took to calling the place the dump on the hump. The wooden park on the site had burned down, and the Phillies rebuilt in steel and brick — the first ballpark constructed primarily of those materials to prevent future fires. When it opened on May 2, 1895, it seated 18,800. Architect John D. Allen and builder R.C. Ballinger used a cantilever design — fifteen cantilevered columns supporting an upper deck of 1,750 — that eliminated the view-blocking posts of earlier stadiums. The Society for American Baseball Research calls it the first modern ballpark.

The Pennant

The Phillies won their only pennant there in 1915, with Grover Cleveland Alexander on the mound. The World Series against the Boston Red Sox was the first attended by a sitting U.S. president — Woodrow Wilson threw out the first pitch. A young Babe Ruth grounded out as a pinch hitter in his first World Series appearance.

The name came late. The Philadelphia Inquirer coined "Baker Bowl" on July 11, 1923, after owner William F. Baker, who ran the club from 1913 until his death in 1930. The park stood from 1895 to 1938.

Reporting: SABR, Philadelphia Athletics Historical Society, Wikipedia. Park data: MLB StatsAPI and Retrosheet, via the Fever engine.