The Dyckman Oval: How the Kingsbridge Athletics built a ballpark that changed baseball history

Dyckman Oval: How the Kingsbridge athletics built a ballpark that changed baseball history – A presentation by Don Rice (in person AND on Zoom)

At the dawn of the 1900s a brand new subway snaked its way north to 242nd Street, far from downtown’s crowded world. Almost overnight, North Manhattan and the NW Bronx became a haven for NYC’s weekend sports enthusiasts. Baseball diamonds sprang up, and semipro teams established home fields along the newly opened subway route. In 1917 the semipro Kingsbridge Athletics leased some land in Inwood, just a few blocks south of their home turf. They built bleachers and christened the ballpark the Dyckman Oval. Over the years Dyckman Oval hosted dozens of future Hall-of-Famers, peaking in the 1930s when the New York Cubans battled the Pittsburg Crawfords for two games of the 1935 Negro National League World Series. At the presentation we’ll talk about the teams, the players and the stories of this celebrated yet largely forgotten ballpark and see rare photos from the era.