TheBank Street Grounds was abaseball park located inCincinnati. The park was home to three major league baseball teams. The National LeagueCincinnati Stars club in1880, the currentCincinnati Reds franchise from1882 to1883 and theCincinnati Outlaw Reds of theUnion Association in 1884. It succeeded theAvenue Grounds as the home site for professional ball in the Queen City.
A newNational League entry, theCincinnati Stars, formed for the 1880 season, but the new franchise was short-lived. The club was expelled from the league for sellingbeer and renting out its ballpark on Sundays, violating its self-instituted "blue law", the club was disbanded.
A newReds franchise was formed as anAmerican Association club in1882. This club is the same Reds team that exists today. The AA had no such rules against Sunday play or beer sales. Indeed, the American Association was known informally as "the beer andwhiskey league".
According toLee Allen, Cincinnati writer and eventual director of theBaseball Hall of Fame, theWorcester club had been especially instrumental in having the Reds expelled after 1880. In his 1948 book,The Cincinnati Reds, Allen took some satisfaction in pointing out that when the Reds re-formed in 1882, it was the same year that Worcester's days as a major league franchise, as well as its influence, came to an end.
The Reds won the inaugural season of the AA, and as such participated in aWorld Series, of sorts, with the NL champions, theChicago White Stockings. The exhibition Series was informally arranged, and ended after two games with each team having won one. Both games were staged at the Bank Street Grounds, or "Bank-Street Grounds" as the local papers stylized it.
In1884, a former prominent member of the Reds front-office, a man named Justus Thorner, invested in the newUnion Association club. He secured the Bank Street Grounds for his team, and the Reds had to look elsewhere.[1] The Reds eventually settled on a site three blocks south, an asymmetrical lot bounded by McLean, York, Findlay and Western, opening the site that would eventually become Crosley Field, the home of the Reds until partway into the 1970 season.
During the 1884 season, the ballpark was dubbedUnion Athletic Park in the local newspapers.
Although the Union Association was dominated by theSt. Louis Maroons, the Cincinnati Unions or "Outlaw Reds" had a strong club that could hold its own against the Maroons, and drew well at the gate, eroding the "real" Reds' fan base. However, the "Onion League" folded after just one season.
The Reds moved from the American Association to the National League for the 1890 season. A year later, some legal issues arose over the sale of the club to a new owner, and the rights to Cincinnati Park (as the ancestor to Crosley Field was then known) were part of that litigation. To hedge their bets, the new owners turned their attention to the Bank Street Grounds property and secured a lease on the lot.[2] Once the legal issues were settled, the Reds opted to stay at Findlay and Western.
In the fall of 1893, the Reds had decided to build a new grandstand.[3] On December 5, theEnquirer reported that the Reds had designed a new "League Park" to be built on the old Bank Street site. TheEnquirer for December 19 had an architect's drawing of the new design, and reported that whether to build it at Findlay and Western or at Bank Street would be decided very soon. Ultimately the Reds again decided to stick with Findlay and Western, and Bank Street was done with professional baseball.
During the summers of 1886 through 1891, the property was used by the local chapter of theOrder of Cincinnatus, who staged plays there.
The ballpark was located northwest of the intersection of Bank Street and McLean Avenue, just three blocks north on McLean from the future site ofCrosley Field. Its location has typically been described as "the foot of Bank Street." Contemporary maps which include a rough diagram of the ballpark clarify its location and orientation: Bank Street (south, third base); houses and McLean Avenue transitioning to Spring Grove Avenue (southeast, home plate); Duck Street (southwest, left and center fields); McDermott Street (northwest, center and right fields); houses and Western Avenue (northeast, first base).[1] Once the park was abandoned, Dolph Street was run through the property to extend to Bank, paralleling Western.
Many of the streets in that part of the city have since been renamed, rerouted, or eliminated. The original location can be inferred from the remaining streets. In current terms, the site is northwest of the point where Bank Street turns from an east-west street to a north-south street (the former McLean Avenue). The ballpark site is now occupied by a parking lot for theSouthwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority ("SORTA") andCSX Transportation.
| Preceded by None | Home of the Cincinnati Stars 1880 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Home of the Cincinnati Reds 1881 - 1883 | Succeeded by |
39°07′13″N84°32′17″W / 39.120281°N 84.538187°W /39.120281; -84.538187