Play Ball!

In this two part podcast series, I’ll take you on a trip through the history around Mayo Island and the Mayo Bridge, from its early beginnings to what the future holds for this historic part of the Richmond Landscape. 

In this episode of the series, we’re checking out how Mayo Island was used for recreation, from boat clubs to baseball games and how transportation on and near the island played a part in its history. 

New episodes will try to drop each week but, as a freelance reporter, I could surely use some help with you subscribing and supporting this podcast. And if you’re a sponsor who may be interested in helping, then please do reach out. Heck, you could even Venmo me a few dollars to help. See below for links.

Be sure to check out my other podcast, called The Mechanics of Transportation in which I talk to local Richmond and national experts about all things transportation—including topics on cargo bikes, multi-use trails and more.

And, if you like music, check out Ian’s World O’ Music Show on Mixcloud. For 17 years, I had a world music show on a local public radio station, where I also happened to report on transportation topics.

History Reinvented is a Big Soap Production.

Transcript

Episode 2 Title: Play Ball!

When you drive, or take your chances biking or walking across the Mayo Bridge, you can sort of get a glimpse of Mayo Island or Mayo’s Island, depending on your preference. Maybe you see the overgrowth of trees or maybe you don’t realize the abundant amounts of asphalt located on parts of the island. 

Well, let’s dial the clock back a 100 plus years and see how the island looked.

Drayer: Our waterfront in the city was a working industrial waterfront. And it seems that the island was pretty caught up in that. 

That’s Jaqueline Drayer, historian with the Valentine Museum in Richmond. Because it was an industrial waterfront, it wasn’t really a place for the public to go, you know, hangout at. 

Drayer: When the city of Richmond was laid out. We don't see the large swathes of land designated for public use for public recreation the way some other cities do, at a similar time. 

However, Drayer says near the turn of the century, parts of the island do open up for public use—which is where episode two takes us next. 

I’m Ian Stewart and this is History Reinvented. 

In this two part podcast series, I’ll take you on a trip through the history around Mayo Island and the Mayo Bridge, from its early beginnings to what the future holds for this historic part of the Richmond Landscape. 

In this episode of the series, we’re checking out how Mayo Island was used for recreation, from boat clubs to baseball games and how transportation on and near the island played a part in its history. 

Metz: Yeah, the baseball fields actually one of my favorite episodes, because from what I understand, it's the beginnings of baseball or professional baseball, organized baseball in the city of Richmond. 

That’s John Metz with the Library of Virginia. He’s the Deputy for collections and programs. And is a trained historian and archivist librarian.

Metz: So, Tate Park, which was out there, opened in 1890. The opening game was between the Richmonders and the Baltimore Orioles. And so by 1894, the team becomes the Richmond Colts, and they play ball there until 1940. There are pictures, I believe, in the collections of the Valentine that showed the park and it's a pretty substantial wooden stadium with grandstands, and that that burned partially in 1924 they rebuilt it and burned again for the final time in 1940.

Boating was also a popular activity, says Metz.

Metz: More firmly 20th century from what I understand, probably after it ceased be used as a, you know, a fairground baseball stadium sort of, sort of place. And I know that there was a private boat club there into the 1970s. 

We’ll hear more about that boat club in a bit. Let’s hear more about that baseball park from The Valentine’s Jaqueline Drayer. 

Drayer: So there's a baseball park for close to 50 years, and a few different teams play there over time. So you've got University of Richmond Spiders football team plays there. A minor league football team called the Richmond Rebels plays there. And the Richmond Colts, which is our minor league baseball team, plays there. And while games are being played there, two much bigger names come to Mayo's Island and those are Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth, and they each play games on Mayo’s Island at this Tate Field ballpark. 

There's a whopper of a baseball story involving those two giants, but let’s take a left turn and hear a bit about how Richmonders got to the park.

Drayer: And a cool thing that's happening at the same time is that because by the 1900s, the electric streetcar is running along Mayo bridge and crossing the island. There is streetcar service for people who are attending baseball games, which is something that we're all still familiar with today that you might have public transit that's associated with major recreation areas. And because the baseball field was in the middle of the streetcar line and not at the terminus, timing cars to run past the field in conjunction with the end of the game was done with the job of a spotter, the spotter would be positioned at a telephone line near the ballpark. And near the game's end, the spotter would call the streetcar dispatcher so that extra cars could be sent from the car barn to a nearby stop. 

I guess you could call what the spotter did a form a crowd control.

Drayer: So by doing that, you don't crowd the rails of the streetcar line early by flooding it with these extra cars. But at the same time, by getting the cars there on time when people are leaving the baseball park, now you're not flooding the regularly scheduled cars with the fans of the baseball or the football game. And so that I think is a really fun thing that we have actual evidence of having happened. 

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In an earlier history of Mayo Island, as a refresher from episode 1, the land was industrial and housed sawmills there. Here’s Parker Agelasto, former Richmond City Council person and current executive director at the Capital Region Land Conservancy which had a big stake in what’s coming up in the future of the island. 

Agelasto: But the Mayo’s put these three islands together and made one big island that we know today. And it operated it continued to have sawmills they put in a pier on the eastern side, so that seafaring vessels could arrive there and expand the port operations. And probably most notably, was the fact that they had a boat club that operated on the southern side of the island, looking back at Manchester, and that boat club started in the 1870s. And continued for about 100 years, right up until the 1960s. I think. Well, the Boat Club was there and as the evolution of the island came about, you ended up with baseball. You know, this was kind of a park environment. It was, yes, it had some industrial uses, but it was still somewhat of a natural space, and you had the boat club. 

In our last episode, Agelasto also talked about how the island was raised up to try and prevent flooding.

Agelasto: And all that fill came right about the turn of the century, when the baseball diamond that was there, was being erected. And it's about 20 feet. Right, they raised the level of the island about 20 feet. This is before the Mayo’s Bridge that we know today, that feels like you're just going at grade. 

The baseball field, like the island, went by many names. 

Agelasto: So they raised it, then they put the baseball, it was called Moore's Field at the time, and Moore's Field operated until the night team wanted to write about 1940. And because of flooding, and other things, they then built a new ballpark at Parker Field, which is basically where the diamond is today. So where we see baseball today is a direct, offshoot of Mario's Island.

If you’re familiar with fishing lore–you know, how the big one got away or how the size of the fish caught grows w/ every story, then you’ll love what Agelasto says about some legends who came to play ball in Richmond. 

Agelasto: And the story is about Mayo’s island in the history of baseball down there are legendary. There was a story in what was the predecessor of the Richmond Times Dispatch, that said, Lou Gehrig had hit a homerun he did play there. And the story was that he had hit a homerun and that people on the bridge could see his ball bobbing in the river, that it had knocked it out of the park.

Agelasto: And perhaps not necessarily factual. Right. But great urban lore is a homerun that Babe Ruth had apparently hit. And this is, yes, he did play on Mayo’s Island at Moore's field. And the legend goes that he hit the home run and it landed in a coal box that was transporting coal on the railroad. And it got all the way to Baltimore, and that it was the furthest home run that had ever been hit in the United States because it, you know, got into a train and kept going. So you gotta love these urban legends. They all come from Mayo Island and how people related to Mayo. 

Mayo’s island then morphed yet again, going from baseball games back to industrial use.

Agelasto: After Moore's Field shut down, the island really became a trucking depot. And, you know, we see a lot of these major supply chain construction projects all over Virginia now where they're concentrating their supply chain. I think about some of the projects that you can see kind of near the Port of Virginia today. And that was what was on Mayo Island back in the 1940s and 50s and 60s. The explosion of the interstate system, right and more trucking versus rail or shipping. And so the trucking depots kind of took over mayo and paved it over.

 So today there's about seven and a half acres of asphalt on the island. But from a transportation perspective, this was the home of overnight trucking. In Hardwood Cochran, which overnight's main headquarters was then built over off of Semmes Avenue in Manchester, and in sold to UPS freight. Right. So massive company that had its founding on Mayo Island. Estes trucking, spent some time on Mayo Island. Two other trucking companies have spent some time on Mayo Island, and you sit there and think it was the home of the original kind of supply chain when the interstate system exploded. And it made a lot of sense. It was close to the port, it was close to where all the commerce was coming. And it had easy access to the interstate system. 

But again, weather plays an important part in the area’s history.

Agelasto: But then, of course, you had the flooding that came with Camille and Agnes and an unnamed storm in the 1980s. And the flooding basically made Mayo do something that didn't seem desirable for trucking, didn't seem desirable for having a lot of inventory and moving commerce, certainly not suitable for residential use. 

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Coming up on the next episode of History Reinvented, What’s next for Mayo’s Island?

Agelasto: For the last 40, some years, the city's master plan had called for Mayo to be used as a public park as a public space and challenges is it’s privately owned, how do you get a private owner to work with somebody from the city for public benefit, and you just have to compete in the private market. 

New episodes will try to drop each week but, as a freelance reporter, I could surely use some help with you subscribing and supporting this podcast. And if you’re a sponsor who may be interested in helping, then please do reach out. Heck, you could even Venmo me a few dollars to help. 

Be sure to check out my other podcast, called The Mechanics of Transportation in which I talk to local Richmond and national experts about all things transportation—including topics on cargo bikes, multi-use trails and more. And, if you like music, check out Ian’s World O’ Music show on Mixcloud. For 17 years, I had a world music show on a local public radio station, where I also happened to report on transportation topics.

History Reinvented is a Big Soap Production.