Repository: UIHistories Project: Dedication - Memorial Stadium Drive Book #2 [PAGE 6]

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ILLINOIS FIELD IS A BATTERED VETERAN, GRACEFULLY RESIGNING

I

T IS hard to say when the first game of baseball was played on the old fair grounds between First, Fourth and John Streets and Armory Avenue, but it must have been a long, long time ago. We do know, however, t h a t in the old days, up to 1888, Illinois teams played baseball there and that track meets were held there and t h a t the first football game ever played by the University and the first game ever played in the Twin Cities was played there. And then in 1888, when baseball and oratory were the only fields of contest among colleges, a baseball game was played on what is now Illinois field. The diamond was located in the northeast corner of what is now the football gridiron. There were no fences and there were no tickets of admission. You wore a tag and they let you in; Proudly the students trooped to the games in those days, several hundred strong, feeling t h a t with the overwhelming might of their numbers they would inspire their team to victory. Still more proudly did they march in the spring of 1891 into the first athletic field, a tiny field compared with Illinois Field of today, a field whose south boundary was just south of the big tree on the present field and whose north boundary was 150 feet south of University Avenue, a field on which still stood the ruins of the first building of our University. They used the stones from this ruin as a basis for the new baseball diamond by spreading six inches of earth over them. W h a t a great project it was in those days to build that first athletic field! How7 important the wooden palings seemed, at $8 a thousand feet! The lumber was bought; and merchants, students and faculty united enthusiastically to raise the money. The grandstand, seating 300 people, was the pride of the undergraduate body. And then William B. McKinley donated some money and a track was built! Mr. McKinley owned the waterworks and allowed the committee, of which G. Huff was a member, to take cinders, and from these cinders was made the track which made history in the annals of American athletics. How surprised everyone wras when this field with its fine grandstand and its track proved inadequate. How anxious everyone was about enlarg-

" The grandstand,

seating 300 people, was the pride of the undergraduate body"

ing it, and how pleased they were when the north fence was extended to University Avenue. And yet it was not large enough. Finally, in 1905, the field was extended to Springfield Avenue, the bleachers were consecrated for baseball games, a new gridiron was installed, and the first football bleachers were built. In 1914, our football bleachers could seat 4,000 people. But even that was not enough, and twice they have been enlarged. Since then, standing-room platforms have been built at the south end of the field. The present capacity of Illinois Field is 17,000. Standing room at the south end adds 3,000, which makes a total of 20,000; and t h a t number of people attended the Ohio State game—a game which more than 50,000 people wanted to see, and would have seen if there had been room for them. It is a long time since a handful of students watched Scott Williams' first football game, when he played wearing a derby h a t (at first), until

. . . . "A tiny field compared with Illinois Field of today"