Sixty years ago this year, the ground was breaking for a new baseball stadium. It was Bears Stadium. Located at the site of the old city dump just east of Federal Boulevard around 19 th avenue, it was where pro sports in Denver began. During the stadium's life, it was remodeled, rebuilt and renamed. Now, all that remains is a parking lot on the north side of Invesco Field @ Mile High and the ghosts of memories past. They paved over the stadium, but they could not pave those memories. Those were the glory days of baseball in Denver. Those were the days the Yankees came to town.
Denver in the 1950's still wore bobby socks, poodle skirts, cuffed blue jeans, and "DA's" and was home to many "Father Knows Best" or "Leave it to Beaver" families, but the times were changing. Hot rods and big fins were cruising Denver drive-ins blasting Elvis, while this new "infant", rock and roll, was growing up on their A.M. radios. There was the reality of war in Korea, the Iron Curtain in Europe, and a light in the sky called "Sputnik" to make people nervous about the future. For diversion, Pro Football hadn't turned the corner yet, and Baseball was king. At the time, the undisputed kings of Baseball were the New York Yankees.
The Yankees of the 1950's won five straight World Series Championships from 1949 to 1953, and, in the 10 year period beginning in 1947, they brought home the pennant seven times. They had a Hall of Fame roster featuring names like Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, Whitey Ford, Yogi Berra, and Casey Stengel to name just a few. They also had a minor league farm team named the Denver Bears.
Bob, Earl and Lee Howsam purchased the Denver Bears in the mid 1940's. Right away, they knew they needed a new stadium. Merchants Park located a South Broadway and Center Avenue barely had enough splinters left to hold its green frame together. The Howsams paid the city $33,000 for the new site, built "Bears Stadium" and created the pride of the minor leagues. Everyone wanted to see it. On August 14, 1948, they got their chance. Almost 11,000 fans paid .90 each, ($1.25 for the box seats), to watch the hometown Bears inaugurate their new stadium with a 9-5 win over the Sioux City Siouxs. In reality, those fans paid to witness the official beginning of modern pro sports in Denver, and it started out with excitement.
Being a farm team for the best team in baseball meant many big names stopped in Denver on their way to the "Big Show". Unknowns at the time with names like Marv Throneberry, Tony Kubek, Bobby Richardson, and Tommy LaSorda all played in Denver before going on to great careers. Another notable player, Don Larsen, played for the Bears in 1955. Larsen is notable because he went back up to the Yankees the next year and pitched the only perfect game in World Series history on October 26, 1956. Still, with all that going on, the big event in Denver happened whenever the Yankees came to town to play the Bears in exhibitions. They brought their entire roster of talent with them, and created quite a stir.
In the 1950's, most people still did not have TV's, they certainly had no cable, and there was no ESPN. What the fans knew of the teams they got from reading, from word-of-mouth, from the newspaper, or from the radio. Can you imagine the level of excitement that gripped the city when all of these "names" came to town? It must have been as if the whole city woke up in a dream. Who cares who won? Does anyone even remember? To see all of these immortals suited up and taking the field right in their own backyard was the event of the year. It was a special time for the Yankees and a special time for Denver, but things were about to change again.
After an NFL snub from George Halas in 1959, Bob Howsam spoke with a man named Lamar Hunt about a new, "American Football League" and a franchise for Denver. By 1960, the new league was a reality and Denver had the Broncos. On September 9, 1960, the new era began as the Broncos won the first ever AFL game beating the Boston Patriots. A few years later, on August 5, 1967, the Broncos became the first AFL team to beat an NFL team winning an exhibition game with the Detroit Lions and sending Alex Karras walking home. Times change and cities evolve. The baseball of the 50's became the football of the 60's. Denver had a new love affair with the Broncos and baseball took a back seat. A number of sports franchise now exist in Denver and all owe their existence in large part to that time began back in 1947 when the Howsams turned a dump into Bears Stadium.
The stadium is now gone. All that remains is a layer of asphalt where ghosts of the past still play. With all of the sports in Denver and all of the other entertainment choices including cable, satellite and those big screens that allow us all to watch whatever we want whenever we want, the 1950's might as well be ancient history. Yet, for anyone who lived in Denver during that era who knows where Denver sports began and remembers the excitement, it's Happy 60 th Birthday. The old timers know about the glory days of baseball in Denver and the old timers know few things can compare to when the Yankees came to town.