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Philadelphia Inquirer
by Frank Fitzpatrick
A few hours earlier, the grocer had scooped them off the bloody street separating his North Philadelphia store from the third-base wall of the National League Park, the Phillies' ballpark that years later would be renamed Baker Bowl after the man who bought the club in 1913.
The hats had fallen from the heads of the several hundred spectators who dropped 30 feet into a deadly heap when a wooden balcony collapsed during the second game of a doubleheader between the Phillies and the Boston Braves.
"The balcony tore itself away from the wall and the crowd hurled headlong to the pavement," read the following day's Inquirer. "In the twinkling of an eye the street was piled four deep with bleeding, injured, shrieking humanity struggling amid the piling debris."
What followed was chaos. Rescuers worked frantically to remove the dead and injured, commandeering wagons and even some newfangled motorcars to haul them to St. Luke's, Samaritan and Jewish hospitals. Neighbors opened their homes. Pickpockets plucked wallets and watches from the helpless victims.
The collapse killed 12 fans, ranging in age from 24 to 63, and injured 232. Even today, 100 years later, it remains one of the greatest tragedies in the history of American sports.
"I can't really even think of anything that comes close," said Bob Warrington, a Philadelphia native and baseball historian who has researched the events of that grisly afternoon.
In subsequent weeks, lawsuits were filed against the Phillies and their former owners. Investigations were begun, and inquests held. Ultimately, the disaster led to the end of wood as a major building material in ballparks.
In 1887, four years after the Phillies had arrived here from Worcester, Mass., owners Al Reach and John Rogers built them a new ballpark bounded by Broad and 15th Streets, and Lehigh and Huntington Avenues.
The Philadelphia Base Ball Park held 12,500, was constructed primarily of wood, and burned to the ground on the morning of Aug. 6, 1894.
A new stadium, constructed of brick, steel and wood and ballyhooed as the greatest ever built, rose on the same site. Opened in 1895, the renamed National League Park held 18,500.
The 1903 Phillies would finish with a 49-86-4 record. Even though they were 29 games below .500 on Aug. 8, a much-better-than-average crowd of 10,000 turned out for the doubleheader with Boston.
The Braves beat the Phillies, 5-4, in the opener.
"Then, in the fourth inning of the second game, the teams were tied at 5-5 and Boston's Joe Stanley was at bat," said Warrington, who now lives in Burtonsville, Md., and works for the Central Intelligence Agency.
Just then a large number of fans along the third-base line became interested in something happening off the field.
Below them on 15th Street, several neighborhood children had been teasing two drunks as they staggered from a neighborhood tavern toward Lehigh Avenue. Suddenly, one of the men reacted angrily, turning and grabbing the hair of a 13-year-old girl, later identified in newspaper accounts as Maggie Barry.
Her high-pitched squeals drew the attention of fans. An estimated total of 300 of them rushed to a wooden balcony that jutted out several feet from the grandstands above the corner of 15th and Lehigh.
The weight was too much for the makeshift structure. The wooden supports gave way, and wave after wave of spectators plummeted to the street below.
"There must have been one hundred men and boys, and every one of them was covered with blood," a police officer told The Inquirer. "Some of them had their clothing almost torn from their bodies, while others were so bespattered with blood and mud as to be almost unrecognizable."
The game was halted and eventually canceled. The remaining fans, fearful that the rest of the ballpark might tumble down, rushed onto the field.
"Some players armed themselves with bats to keep from being overwhelmed by the wild stampede," Warrington said.
The Phillies ordered the debris removed immediately. The following day, Phils business manager Bill Shettsline attempted to absolve his club, which had been sold to a group headed by James Potter in 1902. Shettsline blamed the calamity on the "overanxiety" of the fans.
"The accident was in no way due to any lack of proper precautions or neglect on the part of officials of the club," Shettsline said. "When the present management assumed control of the grounds, the pavilion and stands were in perfect condition, and, for the purposes intended, were safe and reliable, but the simultaneous rush of several hundred persons to one concentrated point weakened the structure and precipitated several hundred unfortunate persons to the street below."
That began an orgy of finger-pointing.
The old owners blamed the new, and vice versa. Both parties said the fault was in the original construction, a charge that the contractors, R.C. Ballinger & Co., vehemently denied. Even Philadelphia's mayor, John Weaver, chimed in.
"Rotten timbers!" he told The Philadelphia Inquirer. "I am not a builder, but it looks to me as if the construction of the balcony was faulty."
More than 80 lawsuits were filed by the injured and the families of the dead. All were eventually dismissed, even though a panel of six builders ruled after several days of hearings that rotting hemlock timbers were to blame and that the former owners, Reach and Rogers, were responsible. The courts determined that it was the rush of spectators, and not the faulty timber, that caused the collapse.
The Phillies wanted to rope off the affected area of the grandstands and resume their season. The city said no, and the team was forced to share Columbia Park, at 29th Street and Columbia Avenue, with the American League Athletics until repairs were made.
Ominously, rain postponed the Phils' first nine games at Columbia Park, which is still the longest such streak in team history. They would play 16 games there, going 6-9-1.
The ballpark was repaired, but in 1927 a section of the first-base stands collapsed. This time, only one person died, but 50 were hurt. Eleven years later, the Phillies finally abandoned their rickety ballpark for good. Once again, they moved in with the A's, this time at Shibe Park, six blocks farther up Lehigh Avenue.
"Maybe the most lasting impact of the disaster was pointed out in the official program from the opening of Shibe Park in 1909," Warrington said. Shibe Park was the first steel-and-concrete ballpark.
"In the construction of the seating provisions of previous ballparks, the use of wood was general," the program said. "Several unfortunate accidents called serious attention to the need of something more durable than wood for the safety of the enormous crowds which thronged parks where winning baseball was being played."
By nightfall of that fateful August day a century ago, a few of the hats were claimed from the 15th Street grocer's window as the injured returned from nearby hospitals.
"But," Warrington said, "many, many more never were."
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