Philadelphia Weekly

Three men in a white box of a structure called "Grab the Crab" at Broad and Huntingdon in North Philadelphia busily steam and season massive lots of blue crab.

"We used to sneak into Connie Mack Stadium on Somerset Street when they would accidentally leave the gate open," says Anthony DiBenedetto, a local pastor, who lives a few blocks east of Grab the Crab. "There was a certain smell that came out of the underground tunnels coming up to the field. It was the smell of childhood."

Not far behind the Grab the Crab counter stands the spot where in late May 1935 an aging Babe Ruth bungled a flyball. Disgusted, he made his way to the centerfield clubhouse at Baker Bowl, just behind what's now a Sunoco station down the block. He took off his Boston Braves uniform and never played again.

"I didn't know that," says Dwayne Garcia, manager of Grab the Crab. "We have a lot of history we could be more aware of."

Ask anybody at the corner bars near Broad and Huntingdon about the old Baker Bowl and you'll get puzzled looks at best.

A group of men trying to escape the hot summer sun in a fan-cooled takeout joint at 15th and Lehigh try to remember what sat across the street before the Sunoco, the car wash and Grab the Crab.

They suggest asking Wayne, who's been living up the street since the '50s. "That's always been there," he says, pointing to the buildings at the intersection. "Only ballpark I know from around here is the Connie Mack Stadium."

"I've never had conversations about Baker Bowl with anybody," says Phillies chairman Bill Giles, who's been part of the club since 1969.

Eddie Joost, a former ballplayer, now 92, remembers Baker Bowl. "In 1936 I went to the major leagues for the first time," he says. "I was playing with Cincinnati. We visited Philadelphia and I was amazed to see that fence."

The rightfield fence along Broad Street was a towering 60 feet high and was emblazoned with a soap ad that read, "THE PHILLIES USE LIFEBUOY." Someone supposedly once wrote underneath, "BUT THEY STILL STINK." The distance to the rightfield foul pole at the Baker Bowl was 279 feet--more than 50 feet closer than the fence at Citizens Park. A submerged train tunnel ran underneath centerfield, leaving a slight rise in the playing field, giving the ballpark the nickname "The Hump."

Considered a marvel when it opened in 1887, the Baker was soon lampooned as a crummy ballpark with crummy tenants.

"It became very decrepit in its later years," says baseball historian Rich Wescott. "People called it the Toilet Bowl. A balcony collapsed in 1903. Twelve people were killed and 232 injured. Gamblers made up most of the crowd some days. They'd bet on anything, like, 'Ten cents this next pitch is a strike.'"

The Phillies left abruptly in the middle of the 1938 season.

"For years Connie Mack had been trying to get the Phillies to play in Shibe Park to collect rent," says Wescott. "Eventually Baker Bowl was just so run down and the Phillies had no money to maintain it. It was just a case of having to get out of this awful place."

In late 1950, after a stint as a dog track, Baker Bowl was torn down. In the years that followed, many longtime North Philly residents moved elsewhere and took their memories of Baker Bowl with them.

In the Deliverance Evangelistic Church at 21st and Lehigh hangs a picture from the perspective of a batter, a ball hurtling in his direction. Beyond the mound, all is green: grass, fences and seats in a grandstand with painted beams and girders. Inscribed below is a quote from Deuteronomy: "He brought us to this place and gave us this land."

The painting hangs between what was centerfield and second base on the field of dreams once known as Connie Mack Stadium. "Our pulpit is sitting on home plate," says Martha Addison, the church treasurer.