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:
“Faithfulness to the past can be a kind of death above ground. Writing of the past is a resurrection; the past then lives in your words and you are free.”
—Jessamyn West (1902–1984)
“Tired,
she looked up the path
her lover would take
as far as her eyes could see.
On the roads,
traffic ceased
at the end of day
as night slid over the sky.
The traveller’s pained wife
took a single step towards home,
said, “Could he not have come at this instant?”
and quickly craning her neck around,
looked up the path again.”
—Amaru (c. seventh century A.D.)
“I, with other Americans, have perhaps unduly resented the stream of criticism of American life ... more particularly have I resented the sneers at Main Street. For I have known that in the cottages that lay behind the street rested the strength of our national character.”
—Herbert Hoover (1874–1964)
“Therefore awake! make haste, I say,
And let us, without staying,
All in our gowns of green so gay
Into the Park a-maying!”
—Unknown. Sister, Awake! (L. 9–12)