Cy Young led the Cleveland Spiders to a 12-3 victory over Cincinnati on May 1, 1891, in the opening game at League Park, home to Cleveland baseball for nearly half a century. Read our coverage of that historic game and see a League Park photo slide show
An artist's rendering of League Park about the time of its opening in 1891.
(First in a series of three stories)
Today: Pitcher Cy Young led the Cleveland Spiders to a 12-3 victory over Cincinnati on May 1, 1891, in the opening game at League Park, home to Cleveland baseball for nearly half a century.
Sunday: Game five of the 1920 World Series was a big day in Cleveland baseball history, with the Indians beating the Brooklyn Dodgers and recording the only World Series unassisted triple play, the first World Series grand slam and the first World Series home run by a pitcher. All at League Park.
Monday: Babe Ruth got his 500th home run at League Park on Aug. 11, 1929, and a local boy got $20 and the Bambino's autograph for returning the ball that was hit out of the park and onto Lexington Ave.
CLEVELAND, Ohio--Cleveland's League Park, the center of the city's baseball universe for nearly half a century, opened on May 1, 1891, when Denton "Cy" Young threw the first pitch, a strike, before a standing-room-only crowd. Young's Cleveland Spiders of the National League would call League Park home for nearly a decade.
Below is the story by the Cleveland Plain Dealer on the first game at League Park.
A Grand Opening
About Nine Thousand People See the First Game
A Tremendous Crush at the New League Grounds - Cleveland's Good Ball Club Wins from the Cincinnati Reds - Music, Flowers and Handsome Women
Cleveland 12 -- Cincinnati 3
At eight minutes past 4 o'clock yesterday afternoon Deuton Young, ex-rail splitter, put a double reef in his trousers, wet a brand new Spalding baseball with his fingers, smiled grimly and then propelled his arm through space, releasing the ball as he did it.
It sailed gently toward a rubber plate firmly fastened in the ground some feet in front of him and passed directly over the center of that plate.
Standing on one side of that piece of rubber was a young man dressed in a baggy blue flannel uniform with a great big bat in his hand. The man was "Biddy" McPhee. He made not a move when that ball passed over the plate and Umpire Phil Powers gently murmured "one strike." The base ball season of 1891 was open in Cleveland and the heart of the lover of the game was glad.
Read the rest of the story by clicking on the link below:
First-Game-League-Park-1May1891.pdf
See all of these photographs in the League Park gallery