Who Am I? & The Dedication & Re-creation of Butterball Field

[Zvon]

batmagadanleadoff wrote: Rod Kanehl at Butterball Field, pre-cage.

batmagadanleadoff wrote: Chris Cannizzaro on the mound at Butterball Field. The parking lot is there, even though the picture is pre-cage and old side fence without the middle beam/pipe.

Awesome pictures.

batmagadanleadoff wrote: batmagadanleadoff wrote: A Toppless Met. Butterball Field. A The Man From Topps photo. He never broke into a Topps set - not with any of the four teams he played for. But maybe one day, he'll wind up in the Citi Field Topps Historical Mets Exhibit. Who is he? bump

That's Tommy Moore.

[Zvon]

batmagadanleadoff wrote: Zvon wrote: This is a recreation of how the field looked round 66-74. I have found some pics that confirm certain things and show other things to be incorrect. But this is done. I might make an alternate to reflect the actual name of the fields, lake, tree (yea, that tree has a name) and other stuff. I thought the fields would line up perfectly put they didn't. They just couldn't without changing the parking lot. I may even have the top field a little too close to the corner. But it makes sense, and if you follow the right field foul line of the bottom field, that could be that strip where the grass didn't grow on other pics, like Botz. This is really coming along. Excellent work! That orange outfield fence is new. I'll post pictures of that fence during the Mets era later on. I thought the Sadecki spot was a lot closer to the cage.

The orange fence thing is just the existing outfield fence mirrored to fit there. Wasn't sure what was there. Those rows of trees? A fence--I can tell now which pictures are that area in the background. I've got a much better idea what is over in that direction now. It should not be that fence and warning track.

This is another view of how it looked in 2008.

I'm looking for a picture of the place when both fields were there. They appear to be very rare.

[Zvon]

This is the view Casey had from the bench.


This is 1967.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Harrelson's 1977 Topps card i/f/o cage.

Edited September 29, 2013 by Guest

[batmagadanleadoff]

Charley Neal. Butterball Field. The clubhouse. The water fountain. But no cage.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Swoboda (his body blocking the clubhouse), the cage and the stands.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Who am I? Tough.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Zvon wrote: batmagadanleadoff wrote: batmagadanleadoff wrote: A Toppless Met. Butterball Field. A The Man From Topps photo. He never broke into a Topps set - not with any of the four teams he played for. But maybe one day, he'll wind up in the Citi Field Topps Historical Mets Exhibit. Who is he? bump That's Tommy Moore.

[batmagadanleadoff]

I think that Butterball Field was closer to the lake bank or edge. Do you?

Is that a road running alongside old BB Field? And does it go under the field?

[Guest themetfairy]

batmagadanleadoff wrote: Who am I? Tough.

Bud Harrelson

[batmagadanleadoff]

themetfairy wrote: batmagadanleadoff wrote: Who am I? Tough. Bud Harrelson

[batmagadanleadoff]

This ex-Met is posing in a first baseman's stance on the third base bag at Butterfield Ball. Figures. At least his foot's touching the bag. Notice the back fences separating the field from the lake -- the same fences that would be there when the Mets took over Miller-Huggins Field.

Who is he?

Edited September 29, 2013 by Guest

[dinosaur jesus]

This is really great. If you put your findings out in a pamphlet, I would seriously buy it. Though I guess picture rights would be a problem.

I'm curious what Buddy sounded like singing. He sure looks country. Does anyone know where to find recordings of? Or has anyone ever heard him? All I can find are videos of Woody Harrelson singing, which isn't that intriguing somehow.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Is that a door in the fence in between Zimmer's legs?

[batmagadanleadoff]

dinosaur jesus wrote: This is really great. If you put your findings out in a pamphlet, I would seriously buy it. Though I guess picture rights would be a problem. I'm curious what Buddy sounded like singing. He sure looks country. Does anyone know where to find recordings of? Or has anyone ever heard him? All I can find are videos of Woody Harrelson singing, which isn't that intriguing somehow.

Pamphlet? Pffft. Me and Zvon are gonna shop the movie rights. You know anyone who can play Joe Moock?

[batmagadanleadoff]

dinosaur jesus wrote: I'm curious what Buddy sounded like singing. He sure looks country. Does anyone know where to find recordings of? Or has anyone ever heard him? All I can find are videos of Woody Harrelson singing, which isn't that intriguing somehow.

Buddy must be country. 'Cause I heard that he does a mean cover of I Never Promised You a Rose Garden.

[Zvon]

batmagadanleadoff wrote: This ex-Met is posing in a first baseman's stance on the third base bag at Butterfield Ball. Figures. At least his foot's touching the bag. Notice the back fences separating the field from the lake -- the same fences that would be there when the Mets took over Miller-Huggins Field. Who is he?

At least he could do at least one thing right. Sign his name.

Marvelous Marvin Throneberry

[Zvon]

batmagadanleadoff wrote: I think that Butterball Field was closer to the lake bank or edge. Do you? Is that a road running alongside old BB Field? And does it go under the field?

If it was, and I do think you are right, I'd have to swivel Butterball Field even more. Or else right field disappears into the lake. Which is certainly possible, though I thought unlikely.

Read a story where Babe Ruth was playing right and came in to the dugout in the middle of an inning. Huggins said "What are you doing?" and Ruth said, " I'm not going back out there. An alligator came out of that lake."

So it's certainly possible that a portion of right field ran right into the lake, before fences, and the field can be moved without having to swivel it.

More recent pictures also have me questioning the fields position between its third base line and the cage. Also, the cage's actual position, which may have been a little more back towards the home plate area along that fence.


This pic makes the cage look like it goes back further than I thought.

[Zvon]

batmagadanleadoff wrote: batmagadanleadoff wrote: Who am I? Tough. Bud Harrelson

The last time I spoke to Bud he was managing the L.I. Ducks and I asked him if he still played guitar. He says, "Yea! You wanna jam?"

[Zvon]

This, I think, is a view of Huggins field from under my water tower. 1920's, no specific year given.


You can see the lake out there. That's Crescent Lake. Before they lured the Yankees & Ruth there (and for a short time later, until renamed Miller Huggins Field) it was known as Crescent Lake Field.

[Zvon]

Many pictures out there like this, that show the old lay of the land, in this case the Huggins Field outfield area, left to center.

[Zvon]

This is a neat lil news segment about the park.
Why do they call it that? Huggins-Stengel Field: Baseball history still standing in St. Pete with Yankees, Mets, and more
http://www.wtsp.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=302730

[Zvon]

batmagadanleadoff wrote: Is that a road running alongside old BB Field? And does it go under the field?

I forgot to address this. That's a cement path that runs outside the outfield. Placing the new field, which was a copy and (then flipped and manipulated) paste of Higgins, cut off the path and I just left it that way. If I was to update the big picture (btw, the original of the recreated field is a HUGE image) I would remove all that, including the current outfield wall. My main priority was to see how both fields looked in place.

I hope to find more pics with details and we are doing great in the finding part. The stuff you come up with, it's amazin' I haven't run across those photos in my searches. That's making this loads of fun, all these rare pics.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Here's a shot of the black tarp-like background slash batter's eye at Miller-Huggins in a The Man From Topps shot.. I've seen that black thing in more photos than I can remember, but until this thread, could never quite place it. I just lumped it all somewhere into the vast undefined sprawling forbidden zone forest of a spring training complex that I understood Miller-Huggins to be. But based on the evolution of this thread, I now think that the black tarp is in right/right-center Butterball Field, or even along the first base line -- consistent with the Liefer photo you posted below, and that the Met (Who is he?) is standing in short left, Butterball Field.

[Zvon]

batmagadanleadoff wrote: Here's a shot of the black tarp-like background slash batter's eye at Miller-Huggins in a The Man From Topps shot.. I've seen that black thing in more photos than I can remember, but until this thread, could never quite place it. I just lumped it all somewhere into the vast undefined sprawling forbidden zone forest of a spring training complex that I understood Miller-Huggins to be. But based on the evolution of this thread, I now think that the black tarp is in right/right-center Butterball Field, or even along the first base line -- consistent with the Liefer photo you posted below, and that the Met (Who is he?) is standing in short left, Butterball Field.

Yea, some of these I thought were from a different field down there.

If you mean the Met in the recreation, who else would it be?

[batmagadanleadoff]

Zvon wrote: If you mean the Met in the recreation, who else would it be?

I meant, who is this guy?



The Mets doing push-ups in the Leifer shot below -- where do you think they're facing? I think they're facing home plate at Butterball Field.

[Zvon]

I meant, who is this guy?

Oh, sorry. I want to say Harvey Haddox.


This is the recreation with actual names I have discovered. Calling the field close to the lake Stengel Field is my assumption.


No official name for the water tower. The mural painted on it is by a local artist named Tom Stovall.

From this link: http://www.crescentlake.net/water-tower.html

The 1923 water tower is 100 feet high, holds 500,000 gallons of water, and is still in use. It is the only remaining historic water tower in the City of St. Petersburg and was recently repainted as a giant salt water aquarium by local muralist, Tom Stovall. The streets in this historic neighborhood dead-end unexpectedly, change names in the middle of the block, and skip numbers. But it's impossible to get lost. Just look up for the water tower.

[Zvon]

The internet is a wonderful thing. It's like having a gigantic library that takes weeks to search through on your lap. From Baseball Fever.com in a thread about all the fields Babe Ruth played on.
Stengel Huggins Field 1956 and 2008

Fuzzy but it has both fields

[Zvon]

I've been searching through google. I found this through bing. Googles always been good to me but bing is coming on strooong.

No caption or year with the picture.
So the field was swiveled around more. That's pretty nutty. This shows it all. That might even be the cage down there, I can't tell. There's definitely something there in that spot. I don't see the black batters eye thing in the outfield. It could be that last section. First base fence of Butterball Field has the middle bar. Still, hard to put an exact year on that. That is an amazin' picture. I'll make an image of this and the recreation with it side by side when I can. Man, I was close. Wasn't planning on updating the remake without more info, but should I? I was doing it because I couldn't find a picture. This ones awesome.

[Zvon]

Damn. Picasa has been shrinking my pictures on me. This is the same picture posted from my photobucket.

I wanted a record of how the field looked, and this is perfect.