SOURCE: Red Clay, White Water, and Blues: A History of Columbus, Georgia by Virginia E. Causey, 2019.
In August 1867, the Columbus Enquirer reported on a baseball game between the Empire and Excelsior Clubs at the racetrack, and three years later, the Columbus Independents played for a prize awarded to the "best base ballists" but lost 70-12 to a team from Montgomery. Local African American teams included the Metropolitan Club, the Mutuals, and the Girard Blackfeet.
In 1888, Columbus Railroad Company president John F. Flournoy and others bought a franchise in the Southern League, winning the pennant that year. Flournoy likely hoped that people would ride the streetcar to Wildwood Park to watch, but he lost a large amount of money and quit. Columbus did not field a professional team again until 1896. In 1908, Theodore Golden of Goldens' Foundry raised $10,000 for a team in the Southern League the next year. The team was named the Electrics after the Electric City but became known locally as the Foxes after their charismatic manager, Jim Fox (pictured below), who was also the team's hard-hitting first baseman. The Foxes won pennants in 1910, 1911, and 1917 and led the league in attendance until World War I, when the league folded.
The Cincinnati Reds became the first Major League team to visit Columbus in March 1899, when they arrived for a week of spring training at Wildwood Park. They returned in the spring of 1912, prompting the Enquirer editor to quip, "When the Georgia sun gets through with the Cincinnati baseball players, they will be entitled to their sobriquet, ‘The Reds.’" In March 1913, the St. Louis Cardinals trained at Driving Park, the racetrack on the South Commons. The Pittsburgh Pirates arrived in the spring of 1917, and the Boston Braves followed in March 1919 and 1920, bringing their catcher, Hank Gowdy, MVP of the 1914 World Series and a World War I hero. In 1925, Fort Benning named its new baseball diamond Hank Gowdy Field.
On April 2, 1924, the reigning world champion New York Yankees and their star player, Babe Ruth, played an exhibition game at Driving Park. The Rotary Club hosted a pregame father-son luncheon at which Ruth spoke "on the development of the body as well as the mind;" the game itself was "listless," with Ruth walking three times and striking out once.
The Foxes formed again in 1926 in the South Atlantic League, with controversy over where they would play. The Baseball Association rejected Driving Park and persuaded the city to put a baseball stadium in Golden Park, a 125-acre recreation area on the South Commons named for Theodore Golden, the chair of the city's recreation board. Workers completed the stadium in less than two weeks, in time for the Foxes' season opener. The grandstand held a thousand spectators, with the bleachers holding an additional fifteen hundred, including three hundred seats in the Negro section, which had a separate entrance on Fourth Street. Golden regularly attended the games, winning admirers by handing out chewing gum to children. After his death, Golden's family estimated that he had given away $40,000 worth of Juicy Fruit gum.
On April 24, 1929, the Negro National League's Birmingham Black Barons, led by legendary pitcher Satchel Paige, played Fort Benning's Twenty-Fourth Infantry team, before a mostly African American crowd.
The Foxes entertained local fans until the League collapsed under the weight of the Depression early in the 1932 season. Four years later, a farm team for the St. Louis Cardinals, the Columbus Red Birds, took residence in Golden Park, winning five pennants over the next two decades. Local fans enjoyed watching players like future Hall of Famer Enos Slaughter work their way to the majors and also the big-league stars when general manager Branch Rickey brought the Cardinals to town for exhibitions.
The Cardinals farm team, the Columbus Red Birds, departed Columbus in 1955.
The New York Yankees AA team joined the Southern League and came to Golden Park from 1964-1966. The local owners were apparently concerned about the negative implications of "Yankees" to local fans, so they added a Confederate flag to team uniforms and painted one over the entrance. Fans began calling the team the Confederate Yankees. The team included several African American players, including future major leaguer Roy White, who not only had to wear the Confederate emblem but would also experience harassment and segregated accommodations that were common at the time.
The Houston Astros' AA team played in Columbus from 1970 to 1988, then competed for two more years as the Columbus Mudcats. The RedStixx, a farm club of the Cleveland Indians, played here from 1991-2002. Their name came from the Red Sticks, a rebellious faction of the Creek Indians in 1814. The last minor league team, the Columbus Catfish, a Tampa Bay Rays affiliate, departed in 2008.
At least 20 future Hall of Famers graced Golden Park. The 1924 Yankees included not only Babe Ruth, but a young Lou Gehrig, who in the 1925 season took first base away from Wally Pipp and defended it for the next 2,130 consecutive games. In addition to Enos Slaughter, the Cardinals brought Dizzy Dean, Leo Durocher, Stan Musial, Red Schoendienst, Joe Medwick, Walter Alston, and Johnny Mize for exhibition games at Golden Park in the 1930s and 1940s.
In late March 1940, the Cleveland Indians, Brooklyn Dodgers, and New York Giants played exhibition games at Golden Park, with Mel Ott, Pee Wee Reese, and Bob Feller on their rosters. The world champion New York Yankees, on their way in spring 1952 to their fourth consecutive World Series win, played an exhibition against the Columbus Red Birds, with Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, Johnny Mize, and Phil Rizutto on the team.
In 1953, the legendary Philadelphia Athletics manager Connie Mack visited the park. Harmon Killebrew and Hank Aaron played at Golden Park during their minor league years in the 1950s. In 1957, Bob Gibson, possibly the most menacing pitcher in major league history, started his career on Golden Park's mound with the Columbus Red Birds.
Twenty-seven future All-Stars played for the home teams at Golden Park, including Astros power hitter Glenn Davis in the early 1980s.
Comments