Baseball before Memorial Stadium

Editor's note: This is a continuing series of Eastern Iowa sports history 'Time Machine” articles. Mark Dukes worked at The Gazette from 1973 to 1998, the last 14 years as sports editor.

By Mark Dukes, correspondent

Generations know only venerable Veterans Memorial Stadium as the home of professional baseball in Cedar Rapids. But for 27 seasons, a quaint plot with far fewer bells and whistles than today's stadiums was the locals' park.

Hill Park hosted the Cedar Rapids professional baseball team from 1913 until 1942, save 1918 and '19 when the city did not have a team. It was located on the corner of 13th Street and E Avenue NW, where the Roosevelt Middle School baseball and football fields now sit.

The grandstand faced E Avenue and was positioned generally across 13th Street from the current Roosevelt tennis courts. Although the listed seating capacity was 2,800, plenty of standing room areas were available. The field dimensions were 322 feet down the left field line, 350 to center and 308 to right.

The park was named for Belden Hill, certainly one of the fathers of professional baseball in Cedar Rapids.

James Plumb started the Cedar Rapids team in 1890, according to research conducted by former Gazette sportswriter and baseball historian Mike Koolbeck. The Canaries played at the Driving Park, a horse track located on the east side of town near what currently is First Avenue and 14th Street (near Xavier's restaurant). In 1890, Hill was playing his only major league season in Baltimore.

Hill came to Cedar Rapids in 1896 as a player. He took over as manager for the final eight games that season and guided the club through 1908, and then again in 1913-14. A cigar wholesaler by day, he was 831-660 as the Cedar Rapids manager.

Hill Park's forerunner for 12 seasons (1896-1909) was Athletic Park, located on the corner of 9th Street and F Avenue NW. It now is a residential area, two blocks off Ellis Boulevard. Cedar Rapids did not have a team from 1910-12 and Hill was instrumental in getting the city another club in the Class D Central Association.

Hill had helped found the Three-I League (Illinois-Indiana-Iowa) in 1901 and Cedar Rapids was a member of the league through 1909, and again for 17 seasons in the 1940s and ‘50s. Starting in October 1909, Hill and others had several meetings at the local Commercial Club to develop plans to raise money and acquire affiliation in another league. Originally, discussions for a ball park site centered around the Daniels Park and Ellis Park area.

Eventually Hill and other local people landed a spot in the Central Association for the 1913 season. The league included teams in Waterloo, Burlington, Muscatine, Ottumwa and Keokuk in Iowa, and Monmouth and Kewanee in Illinois.

The opening game at Hill Park in 1913 was scheduled for May 6 against Monmouth. But the opener had to be delayed until May 7 because two previous days of heavy rain had left the field unplayable.

Pomp and circumstance surrounded the opener in anticipation of the first pro game in Cedar Rapids in four years. Many businesses closed for the day. A parade was organized from the Masonic Temple to the ball park. T.M. Sinclair Company, forerunner of Wilson & Company, donated a five-ton truck that carried a band. Cars transported members of the two teams, the mayor, councilmen, baseball association officials and members of the Bunny Boosters to the game.

An estimated 4,000 fans turned out for the opening game, which Monmouth won, 4-0. Baseball proved very popular as large crowds regularly turned out for Cedar Rapids Bunnies baseball. A gathering of 6,000 was recorded for a July 6 game against Waterloo, then a Central Association record.

Former Chicago Cubs and Indianapolis 500 announcer Bert Wilson began his radio career working for WMT-AM in Cedar Rapids. He broadcasted Bunnies games from the rooftop of a house across E Avenue, as the club wouldn't allow him in the park because it thought the broadcast would cut down on attendance.

Wilson was inducted into the Cedar Rapids Baseball Club Hall of Fame last January. Bob Brooks, a broadcasting fixture in Eastern Iowa for seven decades, also cut some of his radio teeth working games at Hill Park.

The final game at Hill Park was Aug. 30, 1942. A track meet and an exhibition by trampoline pioneer George Nissen preceded the game. The park was demolished later that year. Several baseball greats played at Hill Park, including Lou Boudreau, Allie Reynolds and Hal Trosky Sr.

Through the years, Hill Park was also used for high school football games before Kingston Stadium opened in 1952. According to former Roosevelt teacher and coach Eric Oliver, local legends Tom Farmer of Wilson and Bill Diehl of Roosevelt were among those who played on the field. Farmer starred at Iowa and played in the NFL. Diehl was a member of the 1939 Iowa Ironmen.

Cedar Rapids was without baseball until 1949, when Veterans Memorial Stadium opened. The local club played one season in the Central Association, 12 seasons in the Three-I League and has been in the Midwest League since 1962.

Vets was demolished in 2001 to make way for a new stadium. It opened in 2002 when, like in the spring of 1913, the first game was rained out.

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