Baker Bowl: Philadelphia's Lost Baseball Palace

For over fifty years, the Philadelphia Phillies called Baker Bowl home. It opened in eighteen eighty-seven, was rebuilt after a fire in eighteen ninety-five, and was hailed at the time as the finest stadium in the country. Several historic firsts took place here: it hosted the first World Series attended by a sitting United States President, in nineteen fifteen, and the Negro League World Series in nineteen twenty-four, nineteen twenty-five, and nineteen twenty-six.

Babe Ruth played his last major league game here in nineteen thirty-five, going out not with a bang but a quiet ending. The Phillies moved to Shibe Park in nineteen thirty-eight, and Baker Bowl was razed in nineteen fifty. Today the site holds a bus terminal. It is one of those Philadelphia addresses that carries invisible history, a century of baseball played on ground where most passersby have no idea anything remarkable ever happened.