McCoy Stadium

McCoy Stadium is a Minor League baseball stadium in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. It is currently home to the Pawtucket Red Sox of the International League.

History

The project to build the stadium began in 1938 and was championed by then-Pawtucket Mayor Thomas P. McCoy. It was to be built on a swampy piece of land known as Hammond's Pond and, to this day, the stadium sits at the end of Pond Street. On the afternoon of November 3, 1940, Mayor McCoy laid the foundation cornerstone.

The stadium was completed in 1942, and in 1946 was officially dedicated and named in honor of Mayor McCoy. McCoy Stadium first began hosting affiliated Minor League Baseball in 1946. The Pawtucket Slaters, a Class B affiliate of the Boston Braves, was the first team to call McCoy Stadium home. The Pawtucket Slaters would play for 4 seasons in the New England League, as Braves affiliates.

Professional baseball disappeared from Pawtucket for 16 years. It finally returned in 1966 as a member of the Eastern League. McCoy Stadium still hadn't found its true team yet and hosted the Double-A affiliate of the Cleveland Indians, the Pawtucket Indians. After 2 years, the Indians moved to Waterbury, Connecticut. McCoy was again without a team.

Pawtucket Red Sox

The Pawtucket Red Sox (known colloquially as the PawSox) are the minor league baseball Triple-A affiliate of the Boston Red Sox and a member, since 1973, of the International League. The team plays its home games at McCoy Stadium in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, and is the only professional baseball team in Rhode Island. Its most recent championship win was in 2014.

On February 23, 2015, the franchise was sold by its longtime owners to a group headed by then-Boston Red Sox president and chief executive officer Larry Lucchino and Rhode Island attorney James J. Skeffington. The new owners announced their desire to relocate to a new stadium in downtown Providence, Rhode Island, by April 2017 in spite of significant opposition from fans. Almost seven months later, state officials and PawSox ownership announced that the team's preferred site along the Providence River was not suitable for the stadium project. In November 2015, the club committed to staying in Pawtucket through 2020, although its long-term future in Rhode Island remained uncertain.

Boston Red Sox

The Boston Red Sox are an American professional baseball team based in Boston, Massachusetts, that competes in Major League Baseball (MLB). They are members of the East division of the American League (AL). The Red Sox have won eight World Series championships, having appeared in 12. Founded in 1901 as one of the American League's eight charter franchises, the Red Sox' home ballpark has been Fenway Park since 1912. The "Red Sox" name was chosen by the team owner, John I. Taylor, around 1908, following the lead of previous teams that had been known as the "Boston Red Stockings", including the forerunner of the Atlanta Braves.

Boston was a dominant team in the new league, defeating the Pittsburgh Pirates in the first World Series in 1903 and winning four more championships by 1918. However, they then went into one of the longest championship droughts in baseball history, called by some the "Curse of the Bambino" after its alleged beginning with the Red Sox' sale of Babe Ruth to the rival New York Yankees two years after their world championship in 1918, an 86-year wait before the team's sixth World Championship in 2004. The team's history during that period was punctuated with some of the most memorable moments in World Series history, including Enos Slaughter's "mad dash" in 1946, the "Impossible Dream" of 1967, Carlton Fisk's home run in 1975, and Bill Buckner's error in 1986. Following their victory in the 2013 World Series, they became the first team to win three World Series trophies in the 21st century, including championships in 2004 and 2007. Red Sox history has also been marked by the team's intense rivalry with the Yankees, arguably the fiercest and most historic in North American professional sports.

Stadium

A stadium (plural stadiums or stadia) is a place or venue for (mostly) outdoor sports, concerts, or other events and consists of a field or stage either partly or completely surrounded by a tiered structure designed to allow spectators to stand or sit and view the event.

Pausanias noted that for about half a century the only event at the ancient Greek Olympic festival was the race that comprised one length of the stade at Olympia, where the word "stadium" originated.

Etymology

"Stadium" is the Latin form of the Greek word "stadion" (στάδιον), a measure of length equalling the length of 600 human feet. As feet are of variable length the exact length of a stadion depends on the exact length adopted for 1 foot at a given place and time. Although in modern terms 1 stadion = 600 ft (180 m), in a given historical context it may actually signify a length up to 15% larger or smaller.

The equivalent Roman measure, the stadium, had a similar length — about 185 m (607 ft) - but instead of being defined in feet was defined using the Roman standard passus to be a distance of 125 passūs (double-paces).

History of the St. Louis Rams

The professional American football team, now known as the Los Angeles Rams, played in St. Louis, Missouri, as the St. Louis Rams from the 1995 to the 2015 seasons. The Rams relocated from Los Angeles, California to St. Louis in 1995, which had been without a National Football League (NFL) team since the Cardinals moved to Arizona in 1988. The Rams' first home game in St. Louis was at Busch Memorial Stadium against the New Orleans Saints on September 10, 1995 before the Trans World Dome (now known as the Edward Jones Dome) was completed for their November 12 game against the Carolina Panthers. Their last game played at the Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis was against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on December 17, 2015. The Rams last game as the St. Louis Rams was January 3, 2016 against the San Francisco 49ers, where they lost in overtime 19-16.

Origins

Cardinals Move to Arizona and begin new approach

For 22 of their 28 years, the St. Louis Cardinals called Busch Memorial Stadium home after it opened in 1966, after spending their first six years in St. Louis at Sportsman's Park; they shared both stadiums with the baseball team of the same name. But the overall mediocrity of the Cardinals, combined with stadium issues, caused game attendance to dwindle, and once again the Bidwills decided to move the team. The cities they look at included Baltimore, Phoenix, New York, and Jacksonville. Nonetheless, Cardinals fans were unhappy at losing their team, and Bill Bidwill, fearing for his safety, stayed away from several of the 1987 home games. Their last home game was on December 13, 1987, in which the Cardinals won 27–24 over the New York Giants in front of 29,623 fans on a late Sunday afternoon.