Jim, I visited the park just recently trying to get all possible details for the fourth edition of Green Cathedrals which will be coming out this Fall, and I have all the four surrounding streets. But I have never been able to discover the exact orientation of whether first base was north, west, south, or east, etc. If you find that please let me know.

I do know if you get off I-90 and head west on State Street and go about 5 miles, you will be in downtown Rockford. Cross the river and go about three blocks straightahead after passing the police station on your left. Turn right and head north two blocks and you will be in a neighborhood of project housing. You will find a huge public park, with a swimming pool (called an aquatic center) on the north; a Salvation Army Center and a Community Center on the south, a creek and railroad tracks on the west.

In this huge park, which is where the ballpark used to be, there are picnic grounds, a soccer field, and basketball courts.  It is not level at all, which corresponds exactly to written reports in the Rockford newspaper about how the baserunners ran downhill from third base to home plate, because home plate was down in a "big hole".

I sat there on the field for a half hour and tried and tried, unsuccessfully, to envision how the field might have been laid out back then to link the written reports and the current lay of the ground. Probably, the lay of the ground has been changed since 1871; it has been 135 years and more than a few bulldozers have probably torn up the landscape during that period of time.

Phil Lowry

 

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