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A version of this story originally appeared on MiLB.com in 2013
When wrecking crews began to demolish the old Sulphur Dell ballpark on April 16, 1969, it closed the chapter on an iconic landmark of baseball in Tennessee, one that had been in operation since shortly after the Civil War and featured a unique outfield that's impossible to replicate in modern times.
Professional baseball arrived in Nashville in 1885 and 1886 with the Nashville Americans, a member of the newly formed Southern League. Other Nashville teams to represent the city in the league were the Blues (1887), Tigers (1893-94) and Seraphs (1895). The Nashville Centennials (1897) were members of the Central League. The Nashville Vols were charter members of the revived Southern Association in 1901.
The original name of the park was Sulphur Springs Ball Park -- a nod to the sulphur spring that ran near the site -- later Athletic Park and finally Sulphur Dell. Sportswriter Grantland Rice renamed the park to Sulphur Dell since it was easier for rhymes in his unique form of sports storytelling.
What made Sulphur Dell particularly unique was its right-field dimensions, which make Yankee Stadium's famously short porch seem almost daunting. The right-field fence was only 262 feet away from home plate and stood just 22 1/2 feet above the playing surface. An embankment that spanned the entire outfield, almost like an elevated warning track, made it seem like outfielders were standing on a hill and was the product of a playing surface that actually sat below street level.
As Fred Russell, the sports editor of the Nashville Banner described it:
"The ledge in right field was a haven for aging, slow-footed, heavyweight left-hand swinging sluggers who were liabilities afield-in normal parks-but not especially damaging defensively here. At bat, the short right field fence gave them new life."
Though right field made for some cheap homers, this was no band box. The rest of the dimensions were 334 feet to left field and a whopping 421 feet out to center. For context, Triples Alley at Oracle Park, the right-center-field corner that was built to resemble the cavernous Polo Grounds and is where homers go to die, is 415 feet from home plate.
The Southern Association folded after the 1961 season and the ballpark was vacant in 1962. The Nashville Vols played one final season in 1963 as members of the South Atlantic League.
In 1965, for a three-week period Sulphur Dell was converted to a racetrack. It soon became the city's tow-in lot and in 1969 was finally sold and demolished. Sports writer F. M. Williams of the Tennessean wrote about the Dell's final days with a headline, "Historic Ball Park Coming Down":
"About 35 people with a million memories said goodbye to Sulphur Dell yesterday. Shortly after 2 p.m., a giant claw was raised to the grandstand roof near the right field fence and took a giant bite out of one of Nashville's best-known landmarks. Within six to eight weeks, all that remains of what once was the nation's oldest baseball park will have vanished, the victim of the city's rapidly changing skyline."
Today, the site of the old Sulphur Dell is near the home of the Nashville Sounds, First Horizon Park. The Triple-A affiliate of the Brewers pay homage to the old iconic Nashville landmark with a mural, food options like Sulphur Dell Slices of pizza, a replica of the stadium's marquee and historic markers that help its story live on.