West Side Park - The First West Side Park (1885-1891)

The First West Side Park (1885-1891)

The first West Side Park was the ball club's home from 1885 through 1891, and succeeded Lakefront Park. Although the park's useful life turned out to be as short as the ball club's stay at the Lakefront (seven years), it was also memorable, as the team won the National League pennant in each of their first two seasons there.

The park was located on a small block bounded by Congress, Loomis, Harrison and Throop Streets, with the diamond toward its western end. The elongated shape of the block lent a decidedly bathtub-like shape to the park, with foul lines reportedly as short as 216 feet. The park held roughly 10,000 fans. In addition to the diamond, the park held a bicycle track which encircled the playing field, at the height of the contemporary bicycle craze.

The Cubs (then known as the White Stockings) had had to secure a new property after 1884, and it took longer than anticipated. The season began on April 30, a month later than present day, in a 112-game schedule, 50 fewer games than today's major league schedule. The club spent the first five-plus weeks of the 1885 season on the road and the park was finally opened on June 6 with a victory over the St. Louis Maroons, late of the Union Association. Despite being "wanderers" early in the season, the powerful Chicagos under player-manager Cap Anson, came home already sitting at 18-6. They would sweep a four-game set in their first homestand and fairly romp through the league schedule, finishing at 87-25 in the 112 game season. The only club that gave them any problem was the New York Giants, who took 10 of the clubs' 16 meetings and finished just 2 games behind them. If projected to a modern 162-game schedule, that translates to 125 and 123 wins, respectively, in a very lopsided league (the third place club finished 30 games back).

Chicago captured the National League pennant that season and also went on to lose the league crown in 1886 to the St. Louis Browns. The site also saw post-season action those two years, as the White Stockings squared off in 19th Century World Series play against the St. Louis Cardinals, who were then in the rival American Association and were known as the St. Louis Browns. The Series' of the 1880s were less formal affairs than now, exemplified by that 1885 Series, which ended in dispute with no clear winner. The 1886 Series was held more conventionally, and went in the Browns' favor. Those fiercely-contested matchups were the first on-field confrontations of those two clubs, which remains one of baseball's strongest rivalries today.

The site also saw some "bonus baseball" in 1887, as a neutral site for Game 14 of that year's unique 15-game "traveling" World Series between the Browns and the Detroit Wolverines.

In 1891 the team split its schedule between West Side Park and South Side Park. The first West Side Park was abandoned after the 1891 season, with the team playing at home exclusively on the South Side in 1892.

The site of the first West Side Park is now occupied by the Andrew Jackson Language Academy, whose address is 1340 West Harrison.