1896-1911 Detroit Tigers Bennett Park Vendor Badge

[Shoeless Moe]

Sometimes if I see an item priced too low on an extremely neat item I grab it. This comes from an estate with several other period Badges (police, fire, auto, baseball) from the Detroit area, but this was by far the cream of the crop.

However, this really needs to be in a Detroit collectors hands or someone with other period items. So offering it here.

A little history on Bennett Park:

"Mention the corner of Michigan and Trumbull to baseball fans in the Motor City, and they will immediately think of Tiger Stadium. While it is true that the Detroit Tigers played in that storied park, at that location, from 1912 to 1999, the history of professional baseball at “The Corner” actually dates back to 1896. Back then, Detroit was still largely a city of lumber barons, not automobile magnates. That was the year that the Detroit Tigers, then a minor-league outfit in Ban Johnson’s Western League, opened Bennett Park. The team had previously been known as the Wolverines, but in 1895, manager George Stallings outfitted the team in spiffy new black and yellow striped stockings. Fans and sportswriters alike started referring to the team as the Tigers. Thus, it was only fitting that the following year the team move into new digs to go along with the new nickname.

Built at a cost of $10,000 by club owner George Arthur Vanderbeck, Bennett Park was situated in Detroit’s Corktown neighborhood.

The park was named after Charlie Bennett, a former catcher for the National League Detroit Wolverines of the 1880s. He has been credited as being the first catcher to don an inside chest protector, and to crouch close behind the batter. Tragically, Bennett had lost both legs while stepping off a train in Wellsville, Kansas.

On August 30, 1905, a young player just up from Augusta in the Sally League, where he had hit .326, played in his first major-league game for the Detroit Tigers. He batted fifth in the lineup against the New York Highlanders’ Jack Chesbro, a future Hall of Famer who had won 41 games the previous year. About 1,200 people were in the stands at Bennett Park. With a record of 52-60, 15 1/2 games out of first place, the hometown team was simply playing out the string. In the first inning, the young rookie hit a double to left-center field, driving in a run. It was the first of 4,189 hits in his career, a record at the time of his retirement. His name was Ty Cobb. The Tigers still struggled that year, even with the presence of Cobb, who went on to hit .240, the only time in his career he failed to hit .300.

Bennett Park would host the 1907, 1908 and 1909 World Series, with Detroit losing all 3, to the Cubs twice and Pirates once. After their frustrating World Series losses three years in a row, the Tigers played at Bennett Park for two more seasons.

In its short but colorful history, Bennett Park played host to some very good baseball, along with three World Series. In addition to Tigers greats such as Cobb and Crawford, the list of legends who played at the park reads like a “Who’s Who in Deadball History”: Cy Young, Honus Wagner, Shoeless Joe Jackson, Eddie Collins, Tris Speaker, Ed Walsh, Smokey Joe Wood, Jack Chesbro and Nap Lajoie, to name a few. Philadelphia Athletics manager Connie Mack waved his scorecard from Bennett Park’s visitor’s bench on many an occasion. Even a young John McGraw managed a few games there when he was the visiting skipper for the Baltimore Orioles in their early American League years. By the end of the 1911 season, however, Frank Navin, by now the principal owner of the Tigers, would tear down the rickety wooden park, build a new, bigger baseball palace on the same site, and name it after himself. Navin Field eventually became Briggs Stadium, which in turn became Tiger Stadium, and the Tigers continued to play at the corner of Michigan and Trumbull until the end of the century. But it was Bennett Park that started it all."

$400 Shipped