No Substitute for Crosley Field ...

View of then-Riverfront Stadium from Covington, Ky., Aug-1993.

A decent look at another cookie-cutter artificial turf park.

Chronological Tour: Stop 46

• Location: On the Ohio River, Cincinnati, Ohio
• Opened: 1970
• Closed: 2002
• Demolished: 2002
• Home team: Cincinnati Reds, National League (1970-2002); Cincinnati Bengals, National Football League (1970-99)
• Capacity: 52,953

Rating: 1 baseball

I landed at the cookie-cutter park known then as Riverfront Stadium on a Wednesday in 1993, for no other reason than to chalk it up as another ballpark seen. It happened to fit in betwen Fulton County Stadium in Atlanta and Watt Powell Park in Charleston, W.Va.

The park was forced to accommodate not only the Reds, a baseball tradition since 1876 (and whose predecessor Red Stockings were the first openly professional team in 1869), but the National Football League’s Bengals. It didn’t make for a happy combination at this park; many of the seats had awkward sight lines, and the highest seats may as well have been in Kentucky.

About the only good thing about that first game I saw was that the New York Mets, the team I grew up rooting for, had one of the highlights of a 59-103 season, beating the Reds 12-2 on, among other things, a home run by pitcher Frank Tanana. I did return to the park in 2001, during the construction of a new park; to make room, the outfield sections were demolished first and so the river was visible at that time. The park also had grass that year.

Fortunately, the new ballpark has replaced what, by the time it was demolished, was known as Cinergy Field (Cinergy is the holding company for Cincinnati Electric). While a downtown park was defeated, the new park is also along the river, and the architects have produced some actual riverfront views this time.