It was still primitive at the time, an area of "high clay bluffs, rain-washed gullies, quagmires, open fields, even ponds"[6] where chickens pecked and pigs rooted.

The area was already served by public transportation: trolleys ran up and down Broad Street and back and forth along Lehigh, and both the Pennsylvania and Reading railroads had major stations nearby.

Shibe quietly assembled title to his square block of land early in 1907, picking up parcels "through a complicated series of acquisitions, preventing price inflation by masking his intentions,"[7] even using straw buyers to keep his name out of the dealings.

The grandstand walls were to be of red brick and terra cotta and featured elaborate decorative friezes with baseball motifs, while cartouches framed the Athletics' "A" logo at regular intervals above the entrances.

"[16] In more recent times, baseball author David M. Jordan wrote that it was "a splendid forerunner of others like it ... Ben Shibe and the Steeles initiated 'the golden age of ballparks'.

The presentation of young Richardson Dilworth, future mayor of the city, carried the day: the A's won the case and the light towers went up in time for the 1939 season.

20th Streeters, accustomed to the income but now suffering from the tough economy like everyone else, sent reps to the lines – such as they were – at the park box office to offer discount seats and poach customers from the ball club.

[38] It dogged them when they played the field, too: its rippling corrugations made caroms unpredictable, with some balls dropping straight down, others bounding all the way back to second base and some bouncing radically to one side or another, sometimes into the bullpen.

[45] Carpenter Sr. gave the club presidency to his son, Bob, Jr. – a 28-year-old Delawarean whose mother was a DuPont and who was himself part-owner with Connie Mack of the Wilmington Blue Rocks minor league team.

He upgraded his staff with professional administrators who modernized operations,[47] while spending time in Mr. Mack's plush tower office listening to The Grand Old Man of Baseball.

[66] In early August, Chicago businessman Arnold Johnson stepped forward with a complicated $3.375 million plan to buy the Athletics and move them to Kansas City.

He owned Blues Stadium, home to the New York Yankees' top minor-league affiliate, but intended to sell it to the city for upgrading to major league standards.

[67] Very little of Johnson's own cash would be involved: the deal depended on real estate and the eagerness of Kansas City town fathers to take on debt for a major league franchise.

[73] When the stadium opened for the 1955 season, Carpenter's first, advertising billboards first appeared on the walls and roofs of the outfield: Foremost dairy, Goldenberg's Peanut Chews, Philco, Cadillac, Alpo, Coca-Cola and Martz Tours signs became familiar sights to stadiumgoers and to fans watching on television.

On April 16, 1957, it was unveiled across Lehigh Avenue in Reyburn Park – named after the mayor who threw out the first ball at Shibe back in 1909 – as part of the Opening Day ceremonies for the 1957 season.

[83] Carpenter also investigated land tracts first in West Philadelphia, then in the Torresdale section of the city, as well as nearby suburban Cheltenham and farther-flung Camden, across the river in New Jersey.

[86] Then in May 1964, Jerry Wolman, who had just bought the Philadelphia Eagles in February, brought the stadium ownership back to town, paying $757,000 for it as part of a larger real estate deal.

[87] Wolman's motivations for the purchase are in dispute[87] – all the mortgage shuffling did not slow the decay out at the park – but he claimed he wanted to help the Phillies; the move also put him at the very center of the emerging fight over a new stadium in Philadelphia, which would likely affect his Eagles.

The plan that came closest to fruition was a complicated 1964 package that called for a new stadium with parking for 7,000 cars to be built "on stilts" over the vast railroad yards near 30th Street Station.

This plan had considerable backing from city politicians and businessmen,[87] but it too eventually unraveled when federal urban renewal funds did not come through and extended wrangling between Wolman and everyone else involved brought it down.

[90] Over its 62 seasons of operation, Shibe Park was home to some of the best teams of their eras – and to some of the worst: the A's and the Phillies won eight of their leagues' pennants, bringing eight World Series to 21st and Lehigh.

The day before, Boston manager Joe Cronin gave left fielder Ted Williams the option of sitting out the final two games, because his .3995 average would round up to .400.

[116] The longest strike ever hit there is said to be Ted Williams's prodigious foul ball blast that cleared the high roof at the right field line, passed over 20th, over Opal, over Garnet, and came down on 19th Street.

[137] At first, groundskeepers set the ring up over the pitcher's mound, but soon this changed to the area over home plate with the baseball backstops dismantled; spectators sat in the main grandstand for the fight.

[140] The Ringling Brothers circus set up shop at Shibe in 1955 when they were denied occupancy at all their regular Philadelphia venues, and evangelist Billy Graham had many successful crusades there.

[142] The largest single-day baseball crowd came on May 11, 1947, when Jackie Robinson made his Philadelphia debut; the Phillies beat the Brooklyn Dodgers in both ends of their doubleheader that day as 41,660 looked on.

The Athletics' best single-day turnout was also for a doubleheader, with the Washington Senators, on August 3, 1931, as the Second Dynasty team was closing in on its third AL pennant in a row; they swept both games before a crowd of 38,800-plus.

That same day, while an evangelical revival group was setting up its tent, two stepbrothers, aged 9 and 12, sneaked into the park and started a small fire[147] that grew into a 5-alarmer, burning through much of the original upper deck, collapsing the roof and leaving twisted steel supports visible from the streets.

[150] The corner tower and its domed cupola, Connie Mack's original office, was the last segment of the ballpark demolished, on July 13, 1976[151]—the same day as the 47th MLB All-Star Game, played at Veterans Stadium.

Although Wolman was in default on the mortgage and there were many liens against the property – the most recent being the $100,000+ demolition tab from Geppert Brothers – he continued to own it until 1981, when he sold it to Deliverance Evangelistic Church, a nondenominational evangelical Christian congregation.