Former names | Municipal Stadium (1931–1971) John O'Donnell Stadium (1971–2007) |
---|---|
Location | 209 South Gaines Street Davenport, IA 52802 |
Coordinates | 41°31′7.21″N90°34′56.07″W / 41.5186694°N 90.5822417°W Coordinates: 41°31′7.21″N90°34′56.07″W / 41.5186694°N 90.5822417°W |
Owner | City of Davenport |
Operator | Main Street Iowa |
Capacity | ? (1931–1940s) 6,200 (1940s–1961) 8,500 (1962–1988) 5,200 (1989–2003) 4,024 (2004–present) |
Field size | Left field: 343 feet (105 m) Left center field: 383 feet Center field: 400 feet (102 m) Right center field: 370 feet Right field: 318 feet (97 m) |
Surface | Grass |
Construction | |
Broke ground | November 6, 1930 [1] |
Opened | May 26, 1931 [2] |
Renovated | 1989, 2004 |
Construction cost | $185,000 (1931) ($3.15 million in 2020 dollars [3] ) $12.5 million (2004 renovation) [2] |
Architect | Clausen, Kruse & Klein (original) [1] Populous (1989, 1999, 2004 renovations) |
General contractor | Tunnicliff Construction Company [1] |
Tenants | |
Baseball Quad Cities River Bandits (MWL/High-A Central) (1931–present) Football Assumption High School (–1987) St. Ambrose Fighting Bees (NAIA) (–1987) |
Modern Woodmen Park (known previously as John O'Donnell Stadium and Municipal Stadium) is a minor league baseball venue located in Davenport, Iowa, United States. It is home to the Quad Cities River Bandits, the High-A Central affiliate of the Kansas City Royals. Since 1987, St. Ambrose University plays all of its home baseball games there as well. Located on the banks of the Mississippi River, in the shadow of the Centennial Bridge, home run balls to right field often land in the river.
As night games became more necessary, Davenport teams were playing at the Mississippi Valley Fairgrounds, without lights. The city of Davenport realized a lighted stadium, downtown, on the riverfront, would be ideal. Proposed by the Davenport Levee Commission, Municipal Stadium opened May 26, 1931, within LeClaire Park. The ballpark was built at a cost of $185,000. The first night game was June 4, 1931. [4] [5]
Expansions in the 1940s and in 1962 brought capacity up to 6,200 and 8,500 respectively. [6] It is one of the oldest ballparks still in use in all of the minor leagues, [7] although it underwent a major renovation before the 1989 season, lowering the seating capacity to 5,200 and before the 2004 season that brought the ballpark up to modern professional baseball standards and a seating capacity of 4,024. [4] [5]
On May 27, 1971, the stadium was renamed John O'Donnell Stadium in honor of the longtime sports editor of the Davenport Times-Democrat, shortly following his death. [5] John O'Donnell Stadium was renamed Modern Woodmen Park on December 12, 2007, after Rock Island-based Modern Woodmen of America purchased the naming rights to the facility. O'Donnell's name remains on the ballpark's press box. [8]
For many years, Modern Woodmen Park played host to football games in the fall. Both Assumption High School (a private Catholic high school in Davenport) and Saint Ambrose College called the field home until 1987, when both schools began playing at Brady Street Stadium in 1988. The football bleachers and press box along left field were removed in 1989. [5]
Renovations done before the 2004 season included a nine-foot-high berm that provided a lawn seating area for fans. The berm also acted as a flood wall around the entire stadium. [9] Until that point, the facility had no protection from Mississippi River flooding, which caused the team to play home games at other parks during river floods. During the Great Flood of 1993, photos of water creeping across the playing field at the ballpark made national publications and became somewhat of a symbol of the flood.[ citation needed ] In spring 2019, the surrounding area was flooded but the ballpark remained above water. [10]
After the 2007 season, new owners Dave Heller and Bob Herrfeldt of Main Street Baseball reinvigorated both the ballpark and the franchise. They sold naming rights to Modern Woodmen in a record 20-year deal, changed the name of the franchise back to "River Bandits", and made numerous improvements to the ballpark. In 2008, the club added a hot tub deck in right field, as well as a "tiki village", featuring three tiki bars, a covered tiki lounge, and a king-sized tiki bed beyond the right field wall. [11] [12] They also excavated a gravel area along the left-field foul line and planted field corn; by mid-season the corn grows high enough so that the home-team players are introduced at the beginning of the game and come running out of the corn field, just like in the movie Field of Dreams . [13]
For 2009, Main Street Baseball continued to make improvements, adding a new 80-foot-long (24 m), 6-foot-tall (1.8 m) HD ribbon board along the right field fence and installing four new concourse-level "loge boxes" to accommodate small groups of people. [14] Prior to the 2010 season, the City of Davenport and Main Street Baseball replaced the entire field, to facilitate proper drainage and minimize rain-outs. Other changes for 2010 included a new concession stand on the Picnic Plaza level and a new group terrace next to the Tiki Village beyond the right-center field fence.
In 2014, the facility received another addition, as a 110-foot (34 m) Ferris wheel was constructed just beyond the left field wall. [15] In 2017, the park added a double-decker carousel purchased from Pier 39 in San Francisco. [16]
For both the 2008 and 2009 seasons, Modern Woodmen Park won the "Best Ballpark Improvement" Award from Ballparkdigest.com, the industry's leading publication. [17]
In 2013, the park was voted as the top minor-league ballpark in the United States in a USA Today and 10best.com reader poll. Modern Woodmen Park beat second place Louisville Slugger Field by around 2,000 votes. [18] [19]
In 2018, Modern Woodmen Park finished third in the "Best View in the Minors" competition, finishing behind El Paso's Southwest University Park and Altoona's Peoples Natural Gas Field. [20]
The River Bandits (then known as the Swing of the Quad Cities) defeated the Burlington Bees, 1–0, in the first game at the renovated Modern Woodmen Park on April 29, 2004. [21]
The 2006 and 2011 Midwest League All-Star Games were held at Modern Woodmen Park. Previously, the ballpark hosted Midwest League All-Star Games in 1964, 1968, 1975, 1980, 1982 and 1990, giving the facility a total of eight. [22] [23]
In summer 2007, portions of the film Sugar were shot at the park. This included 800–1,000 people a night showing up to be extras. The movie follows the path of a young man from the impoverished Dominican Republic as he chases dreams of baseball stardom in America. [24]
The stadium was the site of the "Rumble on the Riverbank" boxing match on May 10, 1991. Michael Nunn, a Davenport native, lost the IBF middleweight title to James Toney. [25]
"Mississippi River Jam II" was held on June 3, 1979, featuring AC/DC, Heart, UFO TKO and Nazareth. [26]
The facility has hosted many concerts by many artists, including: Johnny Cash, The Beach Boys, Johnny Winter, Bryan Adams, Def Leppard, REO Speedwagon, Blue Öyster Cult, Eddie Money, Edgar Winter Group and Lonestar. [27] [28] Johnny Cash played at the stadium twice, in 1974 and 1976, drawing over 10,000 each time and playing for free. [29]
On October 1, 1936, an exhibition game featuring major-league players and Negro National League All Stars included Baseball Hall of Fame players Satchel Paige, Cool Papa Bell, Rogers Hornsby and Johnny Mize. [5]
The stadium and teams were the subject of a book. Baseball historian Tim Rask wrote Baseball at Davenport's John O'Donnell Stadium, released in 2004. [30]
Davenport is a city in and the county seat of Scott County, Iowa, United States. It is located along the Mississippi River on the eastern border of the state, and is the largest of the Quad Cities, a metropolitan area with a population estimate of 382,630 and a CSA population of 474,226; it is the 90th largest CSA in the nation. Davenport was founded on May 14, 1836 by Antoine Le Claire and was named for his friend George Davenport, a former English sailor who served in the U.S. Army during the War of 1812, served as a supplier Fort Armstrong, worked as a fur trader with the American Fur Company, and was appointed a quartermaster with the rank of colonel during the Black Hawk War. According to the 2010 census, the city had a population of 99,685. The city appealed this figure, arguing that the Census Bureau missed a section of residents, and that its total population was more than 100,000. The Census Bureau estimated Davenport's 2019 population to be 101,590.
The Quad Cities is a region of cities in the U.S. states of Iowa and Illinois: Davenport and Bettendorf in southeastern Iowa, and Rock Island, Moline and East Moline in northwestern Illinois. These cities are the center of the Quad Cities metropolitan area, which as of 2013 had a population estimate of 383,781 and a Combined Statistical Area (CSA) population of 474,937, making it the 90th-largest CSA in the nation.
The Midwest League was a Minor League Baseball league, established in 1947 and based in the Midwestern United States. It was classified as a Class A league.
The Quad Cities River Bandits are a Minor League Baseball team of the High-A Central and the High-A affiliate of the Kansas City Royals. Their home games are played at Modern Woodmen Park in Davenport, Iowa, one of the Quad Cities.
The Clinton LumberKings are a collegiate summer baseball team of the Prospect League. They are located in Clinton, Iowa, and play their home games at NelsonCorp Field. From 1956 to 2020, they were members of Minor League Baseball's Midwest League. With Major League Baseball's reorganization of the minor leagues after the 2020 season, Clinton was not selected to continue in affiliated baseball.
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Veterans Memorial Stadium is a minor league baseball stadium in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. It is the home field of the Cedar Rapids Kernels of the High-A Central. It is often called New Veterans Memorial Stadium to distinguish it from the original Veterans Memorial Stadium, which existed from 1949 to 2001.
Coca-Cola Park is an 8,278-seat baseball park in Allentown, Pennsylvania, in the Lehigh Valley region of Pennsylvania. It is the home field for the Lehigh Valley IronPigs, the Triple-A level Minor League Baseball affiliate of the Philadelphia Phillies.
Modern Woodmen of America (MWA) is one of the largest fraternal benefit societies in the United States, with more than 750,000 members. Total assets reached US$15.4 billion in 2016. Though it shares the same founder, it is not affiliated financially in any way with another, similarly-styled fraternal benefit society, WoodmenLife, and despite the name "Modern" is actually older than its counterpart.
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LeClaire Park is a public park located along the Mississippi River in downtown Davenport, Iowa, United States. It is situated between two other riverfront parks: Centennial Park on the west and River Heritage Park, a new park that is being developed to the east. The 400-acre (1.6 km2) park includes monuments, a bandshell, a baseball stadium and it is one of the terminal points for the Davenport Skybridge. The Riverfront Parkway pass through the park. Other features of the park include picnic shelters, horseshoe pits and river access for fishing. Moored off the park’s levee is a riverboat casino.
The Rock Island Islanders was the primary name of the minor league baseball teams based in Rock Island, Illinois, one of the Quad Cities, between 1892 and 1937. Rock Island teams played as members of the Illinois–Iowa League (1892), Western Association (1894), Eastern Iowa League (1895), Western Association (1898–1899), Illinois–Indiana–Iowa League (1901–1911), Central Association (1914), Illinois–Indiana–Iowa League, Mississippi Valley League (1922–1933) and Western League (1934–1937).
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