page_title: Griffith Stadium
section_title: Expansion and changes
hierarchical_section_title: Griffith Stadium / Field design / Expansion and changes
caption_attribution_description: Ty Cobb safe at third after making a triple, 8/16/[19]24. 1 negative&#160;: glass&#160;; 4 x 5 in. or smaller. This is a cropped version of File:Ty Cobb sliding2.jpg
context_page_description: Griffith Stadium stood in Washington, D.C., from 1911 to 1965, between Georgia Avenue and 5th Street, and between W Street and Florida Avenue NW.
  An earlier wooden baseball park had been built on the same site in 1891, called Boundary Field, or National Park after its occupant's nickname. This was destroyed by a fire in 1911 and replaced by a steel and concrete structure, also at first called National Park and then American League Park; it was renamed for Washington Senators owner Clark Griffith in 1923. The stadium was home to the American League Senators from 1911 through 1960, and to an expansion team of the same name for their first season in 1961.
  The venue hosted the All-Star Game in 1937 and 1956, as well as World Series games in 1924, 1925, and 1933. It served as home for the Negro league Homestead Grays during the 1940s and as such hosted both the 1943 and 1944 Negro World Series. It was also home to the Washington Redskins of the National Football League for 24 seasons, from the time they transferred from Boston in 1937 through the 1960 season.
  The ballpark was demolished in 1965 and Howard University Hospital now occupies the site.
context_section_description: In the early 1920s, a trend began of fans flocking in great numbers to the stadium to see baseball's rising stars from opposing teams; when the New York Yankees came to Washington, the chance to see Babe Ruth brought large crowds to the ballpark. Clark Griffith took advantage of this trend by making small improvements in the stadium in 1920 and 1921. These improvements included changing the main entrance of the park from Georgia Avenue to a refurbished one on Florida Ave., and spending $3,200 to build an office for himself beneath the grandstand. After various other small improvements, on August 21, 1923, Griffith announced plans to greatly expand and refurbish the ballpark. Following the trend of ballparks being named for their teams' owners, that August announcement included renaming the venue from American League Park to Griffith Stadium. The stadium, built in 1911, had been hastily constructed and provided minimal seating and other features when compared with other ballparks. The planned expansion was reported to cost $100,000, and expanded the seating capacity to "about 35,000", a number that wound up being 32,000. The new seating came from the complete rebuilding of the left-field grandstand into a double-decked tier. The new upper section was wider than the old, resulting in a roofline that was considerably higher than the roof of the main grandstand, leaving a visible 15-foot (4.6 m) gap between the two. At that point the wooden left-field bleachers were also replaced, by a large concrete deck that ran from the foul pole across left field and into center field. The first-base pavilion remained single-decked. The first attempt at a high wall was constructed across right field.
  By the time of the 1925 World Series the right field pavilion had also been double-decked, and the angling right field wall and its scoreboard were reconstructed to align with the low right field wall, about 8 feet (2.4 m) inside of it. This also resulted in the unique inward-pointing 90° angle in center field. Both versions of the tall fence had the effect of keeping the neighbors in the adjacent row houses from watching the games for free.
  Lights were installed for the 1941 season. The Senators played their first home night game on May 28.
  The right-field fence was originally covered in various billboard advertisements, but in later years was painted a solid dark green. A bullpen area was built in right center field behind a short fence, providing a new target for left-handed batters. In the mid-1950s, an inner fence was erected across left and center field, to reduce the home run distances by 10 to 20 feet (3 to 6 m). This inner fence stayed in place through the ballpark's final season, 1961. By 1961, the left-field bleachers had been removed.
caption: Concrete bleachers in background as Ty Cobb slides into third base in 1924
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