page_title: Cramton Bowl
section_title: Baseball
hierarchical_section_title: Cramton Bowl / Baseball
caption_attribution_description: English: Aerial view of Cramton Bowl in Montgomery, Alabama, during a baseball game.
context_page_description: Cramton Bowl is a 25,000-seat stadium located in Montgomery, Alabama. Cramton Bowl opened in 1922 as a baseball stadium and has been home to Major League Baseball spring training and to minor league baseball. Today, however, its primary use is for American football.
  It is the host of the annual Camellia Bowl for the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision; the FCS Kickoff, an annual season-opening game in the Division I Football Championship Subdivision; and of Montgomery's five high school squads. It was previously home to the former Blue–Gray Football Classic, a collegiate all-star game usually played on Christmas Day, the Alabama State Hornets football team, and hosted the first ever football game played under the lights in the South.
context_section_description: The first baseball game played on the new field was in May 1922 between Auburn University and Vanderbilt University.
  Shortly after its completion in 1922, the Philadelphia Athletics decided to move their spring training operations from Eagle Pass, Texas to Montgomery. They used the facility for their 1923 and 1924 spring training and exhibition games before moving to a newer stadium in Fort Myers, Florida.
  After the departure of the Philadelphia Athletics spring training, Minor League Baseball's newly formed Southeastern League placed a team in Montgomery which became known as the Montgomery Lions. The Lions played in Cramton Bowl from 1926 to 1930. There was no team from 1931 to 1936 due to problems within the Southeastern League and the ongoing negative economic effects of the Great Depression. The team returned for the 1937 season as the Montgomery Bombers and garnered their first major league baseball affiliation with the Cleveland Indians. The Indians pulled out for the 1938 season and were replaced by the Philadelphia Phillies. After one season the Phillies dropped their affiliation; the team became a co-op franchise and were renamed the Montgomery Rebels. In 1943, the Rebels would disband due to the manpower shortage caused by World War II. On July 11 of that year, the Chattanooga Lookouts moved their home games to Cramton Bowl to play out the rest of the season. The Lookouts managed to move back to Chattanooga and reverse the trend of declining attendance sometime later in the 1940s. The Rebels returned in 1946 through 1949 before moving to the newly constructed Paterson Field located just across the street.
  The eighth and deciding game of the 1943 Negro World Series was held at the Cramton Bowl, with the Homestead Grays defeating the Birmingham Black Barons, 8-4.
caption: Cramton Bowl during a baseball game in the 1920s or 1930s
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