1915 Toronto Island/Hanlan's Point Stadium Opening Day photos
 

Picked up these on EBay last week. Great addition for my Toronto baseball collection. 3 images of "Opening of Baseball Season - Toronto Island Stadium - 1915 and 2 pics from "Sports Day Island Stadium".

The stadium was originally built on the site in 1897 and twice destroyed by fire and rebuilt (1903 and 1909). This 17,000 seat version of the ballpark opened in 1910 and the International League's Leafs defeated the Baltimore Orioles to open the season on May 9, 1910. The stadium played host to Babe Ruth's first pro home run on Sept 5, 1914; mere months before the images were captured.

Can anyone point me to a site that would indicate the date of the 1915 season opening contest, the visiting team and perhaps the score?

Thanks!

http://i1166.photobucket.com/albums/...ps227a232d.jpg

http://i1166.photobucket.com/albums/...ps1392242b.jpg

Those are really nice photos. Sorry I cannot help, but would like to find some from Minneapolis like that

Thanks Jason! Appreciate you having a look.

Nice!

I'm suspecting newspaper archives will be your best bet.

Rob M.

This is probably your best bet. Not free but 110 years of Toronto news.

http://www.pagesofthepast.ca

Thanks! Hadn't realized that the Star had digitized their archives. Appreciate the info.

Cool pics! I also collect Toronto Baseball History Memoribilia. I just started so my collection only consists of a few postcards of the old Hanlans Island Stadium lol.
The city of Toronto Archives has some great picture of baseball in the past if you search http://gencat.eloquent-systems.com/toronto.html

Thanks! Pls post or email pics of your stadium postcards some time. Would love to see them.

Thanks to a great suggestion from "MooseDog" I reviewed the digitized archives of the Toronto Star to find that the home opener was played on Monday, May 17 in poor weather (typical Toronto springtime). The game was a slugfest with 4 homeruns landing in the bleachers and a seesaw battle - with Toronto up 5-0 after 2 against Richmond only to lose in 10, 11-8.

http://i1166.photobucket.com/albums/...psff8f36c8.jpg

For fun, I dug up the report of the Babe's first prof HR game from Sept 5, 1914 (as reported on Sept 7). It includes mention of Ruth's mastery on the mound and that Boston was ponying up bucks for him, but not his dinger.

http://i1166.photobucket.com/albums/...ps0e224fb8.jpg

Awesome link MooseDog! Also great photos Chris!