The Mistake by the Lake

Cleveland Municipal Stadium in its final baseball season, Sep-1993.

With rare exceptions, the cavern was never completely filled for baseball after the 1948 World Series.

Chronological Tour: Stop 9

• Location: On Lake Erie, Cleveland, Ohio
• Opened: 1931 (1932 for baseball) as Lakefront Stadium
• Closed: 1995 (1993 for baseball) as Cleveland Stadium
• Demolished: 1996
• Home team: Cleveland Indians, American League (1932-33, 1936-93); Cleveland Indians, National Football League (1931); Cleveland Rams, American Football League (1936-37), National Football League (1938-41, 1945 (one game)); Cleveland Browns, All-America Football Conference (1946-49), National Football League (1950-95); Cleveland Stokers, North American Soccer League (1967-68)
• Capacity: 74,483 (1993)

Rating: 1 baseball

While football’s Rams and Browns were able to pack the facility on a regular basis into the 1990s, the Tribe had trouble, except on certain occasions, such as the 1948 World Series, in which the Indians hosted a baseball-record 86,288 for game 5. The park was just too expansive to readily accommodate a baseball crowd 81 times a season.

To make matters worse, one end of the stadium was exposed, leading to some interesting winds and leading players and commentators alike to refer to it as “the Mistake by the Lake”.

In 1992, the Indians and owner Dick Jacobs made arrangements for a new baseball park to be built as part of a new development off the lakefront called Gateway, which would also accommodate an arena for the city’s NBA basketball team. The complex opened in 1994. The Browns continued to play at Muncipal until they left town after the 1995 season; the stadium was demolished shortly thereafter and the new Browns are playing in a new facility on the site.