The West Seventh Street Park is a former minor league baseball park in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1884. Its tenant, usually called either the Apostles or the Saints, was initially a member of the Northwestern League, which struggled through the summer and disbanded in early September.
That same year, there was a league called the Union Association. This league's single year of existence and its general volatility make its claim to actual major league status fairly questionable. For comparison, think of the World Football League of the early 1970s. But the league did have some major league caliber players, so baseball historians classify the league as such.
By September, the "Onion" (as many contemporary critics called it) was disintegrating. With its weakest teams folding, the league was looking for other teams to fill out its schedule. So the Apostles signed on, looking to get a little extra cash for its players. They played 8 games before disbanding. Since all their games were on the road, the 1884 St. Paul club has the dubious distinction of being the only "major league" team never to have played a home game.
The exact site of the West Seventh Street Park is uncertain. In any case, the area is now an old residential district along West Seventh Street, a.k.a. Fort Road, with all traces of its early fling with professional baseball long since erased.
Famous quotes containing the words west, seventh, street and/or park:
“It’s a warm wind, the west wind, full of birds’ cries;
I never hear the west wind but tears are in my eyes.”
—John Masefield (1878–1967)
“Grovelling,
intimate words,
heart-stealing flattery,
a tight embrace
of my thinner-than-thin body,
violent kisses all over—
obviously,
getting angry is worth the risk,
but even still,
I’m not interested.
My lover
is dear to my heart,
so how could I be like that
on purpose?”
—Amaru (c. seventh century A.D.)
“Think of admitting the details of a single case of the criminal court into our thoughts, to stalk profanely through their very sanctum sanctorum for an hour, ay, for many hours! to make a very barroom of the mind’s inmost apartment, as if for so long the dust of the street had occupied us,—the very street itself, with all its travel, its bustle, and filth, had passed through our thoughts’ shrine! Would it not be an intellectual and moral suicide?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Is a park any better than a coal mine? What’s a mountain got that a slag pile hasn’t? What would you rather have in your garden—an almond tree or an oil well?”
—Jean Giraudoux (1882–1944)