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Former ballpark · 1893 – 1915

West Side Grounds

Chicago, IL

Your passport →
West Side Grounds, 1909 — Postcard showing West Side Park, home of the Chicago Cubs baseball team. The website hosting the image states that it was published in 1909 by V.O., Hammon.
West Side Grounds, 1909 · V.O., Hammon · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons · license read 2026-07-24
Opened
1893
Closed
1915
League
NL

The lore

West Side Grounds

The Chicago park that stood from 1893 to 1915, where a hospital neighbor, a 560-foot center field, and the birth of the BBWAA all shared the same block.

A Phrase and a Place

The phrase "way out in left field" is said to have originated at West Side Grounds. Cook County Hospital had a mental institution behind the left field wall, and patients could be heard yelling and screaming at fans in the seats. Whether the phrase truly began there or merely fit the place, the hospital was real, and it shared the neighborhood with the park from 1893 to 1915.

The Ground

The Cubs, then known as the Colts, opened the park on May 14, 1893, with the Cincinnati Reds winning the first National League game played there. Some sources state the club moved to this location to draw attendance from the World's Columbian Exposition, as the prior South Side Park was near the exposition transit line. The new park occupied a block bounded by Taylor, Wood, Polk, and Lincoln (now Wolcott) Streets, a few blocks west-southwest of the first West Side Park. A double-decked grandstand held about 16,000 patrons, though fans often stood along the outer perimeter of the field. Cook County Hospital was across the street to the north, behind third base. The foul lines ran 340 feet. The deepest part of center field was initially reported at 560 feet.

By 1912, a large billboard in left field obstructed the neighborhood view and also served as the new scoreboard, and billboards in dead center completed the enclosure of the park.

What Happened There

The Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance double play combination was immortalized on this ground. The Cubs appeared in four World Series at West Side Grounds from 1906 to 1910, winning titles in 1907 and 1908. During that 1908 Series, visiting press was relegated to the last row of the grandstand, and allegations arose that their seats had been filled by scalped-ticket buyers. The writers were furious enough that the Baseball Writers Association of America was formed.

After the Federal League collapsed following the 1915 season, new ownership abandoned West Side Grounds and moved the Cubs to Weeghman Park, which survives today as Wrigley Field.

Reporting: MLB.com, chicagology.com. Park data: MLB StatsAPI and Retrosheet, via the Fever engine.

By the Desk · filed 2026-07-24 — the piece reads as of its filing; the park record around it is live · every fact in this piece comes from a filed, sourced research pack and clears an independent fact-check, and nothing is edited after filing.

Where it stood

Chicago, IL. We don’t have exact coordinates for this park in the historical record — we’d rather say so than pin the wrong spot.

From the record

CHN:1893(Sun);1894-1915

Retrosheet park CHI08 · first game 05/13/1893 · last game 10/3/1915

Sources

The information used here was obtained free of charge from and is copyrighted by Retrosheet. Interested parties may contact Retrosheet at 20 Sunset Rd., Newark, DE 19711.