Category:Breadon Field

Wikidata has entry Breadon Field (Q4959211) with data related to this item.

Breadon Field was a minor league baseball stadium, located next to MacArthur Road in Whitehall Township, Pennsylvania. It was just south of Grape Street, and north of the US 22 Thruway.

The stadium dated to November 1946 when Sam Breadon, then owner of the St Louis Cardinals approved the acquisition of 18 1/2 acres of land near MacArthur Road in Whitehall Township, north of Jordan Creek for a minor league baseball stadium. The construction contract was signed in September 1947 for the construction of a 5,000 seat, $425,000 ballpark The park opened on August 6, 1948 as a replacement for Fairview Field, later re-built as Bicentennial Park in south Allentown. It was the original home for the Allentown Cardinals, a minor league team for the St. Louis Cardinals, who had played at Fairview Field since 1944. During the 1950 season, a roof over the grandstand and a new press box, built on the roof was added. In February 1953, the Class-B Interstate League, which the Allentown Cardinals were a member of, folded and the field was closed for organized baseball. In 1954, Organized baseball returned to Allentown with a new Class-A Allentown Cardinals team in the Eastern League. The team played in Allentown for three seasons. In January 1957, the St Louis Cardinals decided to shut down operations in Allentown, and put Breadon Field up for sale. The Cardinals Class-A teams in Allentown and Sioux City, Iowa were consolidated and reformed as a single team, located in Columbus, Georgia.

In July 1957, the Syracuse Chiefs, an unaffiliated Eastern League team moved to Allentown and played their home games at Breadon Field for the 27 home game balance of the season, being known as the Allentown Chiefs. After the transfer was announced, a large number of volunteers, along with City of Allentown municipal workers cut the grass and cleaned up the stands and other areas of the ballpark before the first game. A month later, Breadon Field was sold to an Allentown group headed by Paul McGinley, Lehigh County D.A.. In 1958, the chiefs were replaced by a Boston Red Sox franchise, the Allentown Red Sox, locally known as the A-Sox.

In December 1958, Max Hess, Jr., purchased a 50-acre tract of land north of the US 22 Thruway, the present location of Lehigh Valley Mall. Along with the undeveloped farmland, it included the 18 acre the Breadon Field baseball stadium from McGinley. Hess has purchased the land and stadium with plans to build a Hess Brothers suburban store and shopping center. With the purchase, Hess renamed the stadium Max Hess Stadium. However, the Allentown Red Sox did not make a profit in Allentown. Poor attendance caused the team to move at the end of the 1960 season.

For the next several years, Hess stated that he was trying to get another team to move to Allentown, also plans languished for expanding his department store. However in September 1961, Allentown businessman Irwin D Kreindel attempted to establish Allentown as a minor league franchise for the National Leauge expansion New York Mets for the 1962 season. Hess, however, had already decided to sell the stadium and land to a developer who would build the shopping center that Hess wanted on the site, and didn't want to be put into the position of having to chase a baseball club out of the stadium in mid-season. Hess informed Kreindel that the stadium was unavailable which forced Kreindel to abandon his plans for a new team at the site. Finally in 1964, with the stadium deteriorating, Hess sold the tract to the Jarpend Company of Philadelphia for $2.2 million, and abandoned his expansion plans for the site. In the summer of 1964, without any tenant, the Breadon Field baseball stadium was torn down.

Today, the Lehigh Valley Mall is located at the site of the former Breadon Field/Max Hess Stadium.