Detroit Baseball Club - litigation in 1885 and Recreation Park

A lawyer, Randy Maniloff, published an interesting essay in yesterday's Wall Street Journal about baseball in Detroit. Unfortunately you need a subscription to download his essay.
Detroit was a National League City in the 1880s with home games played at Recreation Park. A Michigan Historic Marker stands on the Detroit Medical Center campus at the location of that baseball park.
In 1885, owners of the Detroit Wolverines were upset that a John Deppert who owned an adjoining property put bleacher seats on the roof of his building and charged spectators to sit there for Detroit home games. The team sued Deppert and the litgation went to the Michigan Supreme Court who ruled in his favor.
The new owners of the Chicago Cubs are having a hard time putting a great team on the field but they intend to rebuild Wrigley Field. The intend to erect a large scoreboard in left field that will block the view of the fans who now sit in bleachers on the roofs of adjoining buildings to watch the
Cubs struggle. The owners of those building intend to sue the Cubs to protect their economic interest. I wonder if this lawyers hopes that Illinois courts will follow the ruling of the Michigan Supreme Court?

I believe the first home of the DAC was up in that neck of the woods before they moved to their current location on Madison. The first DAC was on Woodward just to the north of the Whitney Mansion.

there are a couple of pix rolling around on the WSU Virtual Library that shows the DAC's first home.

hence, it sounds like a mini sports Mecca was up there on the edge of the city.

Personally I don't see how the 1880s ruling could be used as a court precedent in this scenario. No one is stopping the adjacent property owners from doing anything with their roof tops... in this instance the rooftop owners are suing the stadium over what it does to the stadium.

I'm no lawyer... but the 2 scenarios seem quite different...:confused:

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The apparent decision to allow the Chicago Cubs to block the views of some Wrigleyville Rooftops is in direct violation of the current 20-year agreement entered into by the Cubs and the Rooftop owners.

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http://www.cubbiedoc.com/2013/04/how-much-could-rooftops-sue-cubs-for.html

Well it looks like there are legal agreements between the rooftop owners and the stadium owners... that include an exchange of money. This is a whole other can 'o worms...

Might anybody be aware of any pics or articles which provide details on the complex at Recreation Park?

I've an image [[from a 1879 Detroit Newspaper and provided to me via a research inquiry) that shows a three-quarter mile horse track [[or 'driving track' so designated in the illustration) as the main feature of Recreation Park. The baseball diamond was located in the infield of the driving track.

Here's a pic of the historical marker near Harper-Grace, however there is not any mention of a horse/driving track?

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Originally Posted by wilderness

Might anybody be aware of any pics or articles which provide details on the complex at Recreation Park?

I've an image [[from a 1879 Detroit Newspaper and provided to me via a research inquiry) that shows a three-quarter mile horse track [[or 'driving track' so designated in the illustration) as the main feature of Recreation Park. The baseball diamond was located in the infield of the driving track.

Here's a pic of the historical marker near Harper-Grace, however there is not any mention of a horse/driving track?

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Here is a picture of Recreation Park showing how the baseball diamond was located inside track. Note the "half mile start" sign on the track.

Attachment 27822

Sometime later, as baseball became more popular, and the center of harness racing action moved to more suburban venues, like the "Hamtramck Track" near Van Dyke and Jefferson, the track in recreation Parks appears to have been removed [[note the Hudson's ad on the wall).

Attachment 27824

Here is a picture of the apex of Detroit's 19th century National League history, the 1887 championship pennant flying over Recreation Park

Attachment 27823

Many thanks Al. The research person has a wealth of data on the baseball subject, and although that is his primary interest, become focused upon the facilities use as a horse track. I'm the go-to-guy in the horse regard, however I've no data on Recreation Park being used as sanctioned track. [[That doesn't mean it's not possible). Hamtramck was in its prime [[possibly even slight decline) during the early years of Recreation Park, as was the later 1889 Exposition Park [[Delray). Later came the Grosse Pointe track. Due to the prominence of the three-aforementioned facilities it's highly unlikely [[IMO) that any horse racing actually took place at Recreation Park, rather it was simply a playground for a few elite. Course I'm absent any documentation to support my assumption! Wyandotte began the process of a track [[Forty Acres) in 1892 behind the present-day-high school, however due to the market crash of 1893 the project ended and was never developed further. I'm inclined to believe that the developers of Recreation Park although they'd hoped for horse racing to materialize eventually faced-the-raw-facts and abandoned their dreams.

Al, Chip and others, Al's reference to the 'Half mile start' sign is NOT something that would have been used by Standardbred [[harness racing), rather for Thoroughbreds [[today they use movable starting gates from various locations for different distance races. Standardbreds raced then and today at primarily the distance of a mile. Don't believe there ever would have been such a 'start' sign on a harness racing track. FWIW they do/did use quarter/poles just not for starting the races.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by wilderness

Might anybody be aware of any pics or articles which provide details on the complex at Recreation Park?

I've an image [[from a 1879 Detroit Newspaper and provided to me via a research inquiry) that shows a three-quarter mile horse track [[or 'driving track' so designated in the illustration) as the main feature of Recreation Park. The baseball diamond was located in the infield of the driving track.

Here's a pic of the historical marker near Harper-Grace, however there is not any mention of a horse/driving track?

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Richard Bak, who occasionally posts here on DetroitYes, has written extensively on the history of baseball in Detroit. The answer to your question may be in one of his books.

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Originally Posted by wilderness

Al, Chip and others, Al's reference to the 'Half mile start' sign is NOT something that would have been used by Standardbred [[harness racing), rather for Thoroughbreds [[today they use movable starting gates from various locations for different distance races. Standardbreds raced then and today at primarily the distance of a mile. Don't believe there ever would have been such a 'start' sign on a harness racing track. FWIW they do/did use quarter/poles just not for starting the races.

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From the 1879 newspaper article cited by Wilderness above, the track seems to have been at least intended as a "driving" [[i.e. harness) track. Although, like Wilderness, I can find no cite for racing actually having taken place there. Perhaps it was only used for recreational buggy or sulky racing, rather than actual racing for purses? Or even straight up horse races [[like thoroughbreds), which was not yet popular as a major sport in the midwest?

But the "half mile start" sign does indicate that the track was used for some sort of racing activity.

I was going to suggest that the Recreation Park track may also have been used for bicycle racing, but that's a sport that didn't really start in the U.S. until after the track was apparently removed in the 1880s. However, there was another big popular sport of the time that the track may have been used for: pedestrianism. Yes, competitive walking, and watching people competitively walk, was one of the most popular sports in the U.S. of the 1870s & 80s.

Many thanks jim and Al

Here's a link via Google books [[Detroit 1860-1899) that shows a picture of what 'might be deemed' the grandstand for the horse track at Recreation Park
Hardly large enough seating/standing capacity for any sanctioned events of horse racing.

The following is a later date than 1881-88 inquiry that I received.
[[FWIW, I've this 1905 Annual Bound Edition of Horse Review saved and then split into two smaller PDF's. Unfortunately, these PDF's are scanned as images rather than OCR'd text converted to PDF's making them impossible to search contents for text. I have separated some of these individual page PDF's [[then OCR'd) when I was seeking specific info, however it's quite time consuming)

February 21, 1905 Horse Review [[addenda 2015; harness racing)

Michigan Short Ship Circuit
BAY City, Mich Feb 15—The Michigan Short-Ship Circuit for 1905 was organized as follows:
Romeo July 4 to 1 [[addenda; 2015-likely 11th); Recreation Park, Detroit, July 11 to 14;
Cadillac, July 18 to 21; Saginaw, Aug 15 to 18; Bay City, Aug 22 to 25; Caro, Aug 29 to Sept 1;
Port Huron, Sept 5 to 8; Pontiac [[State Fair), Sept 11 to 16;
Grand Rapids [[West Michigan Fair), Sept 19 to 22; Jackson, Sept 26 to 29.
The old officers, president, H. C. Knill, of Port Huron; secretary, O. S. Burgdorf, of Bay City,
and treasurer, Dan T. Cutting of Saginaw, were re-elected. Three hundred dollar purses will
be the minimum.

search google:
Recreation Park Detroit horse racing [[2d page)

Whether this 1905 location was different than the 1879 Rendition which was supposed to have been razed in 1894, is the same location or another [[mentioned earlier in this thread) is unknown to me.

Many thanks to Wilderness and others with respect to information about horse racing at Recreation Park. Am focussed on its use for baseball and am familiar with references in Richard Bak's excellent A Place for Summer. I am conducting research about Detroit's first professional baseball teams, the Hollinger Nine, and the Wolverines, both of which called Recreation Park home. Aside from the Detroit Public Library Burton Collection and Detroit Historical Society, DetroitYES have been a wonderful resource. Thank you all, again.