MLB Power Rankings: Top 30 stadiums of all time

28. Crosley Field

• Year Opened: 1912
• Year Demolished: 1972
• Capacity: 29,488
• Defining Features: lights for night games, The Terrace

Always one of the smallest — in terms of capacity and dimensions — Crosley Field was the home to baseball’s first night games and permanent lights. On May 24, 1935, the REds hosted the Phillies for the first night game in MLB history. The move to night games was an attempt to help drum up attendance during the Great Depression. President Franklin D. Roosevelt flipped the switch that illuminated Crosley Field, and the rest was history.

Night games proved to be a hit, and they stuck in Cincinnati before moving onto the rest of the league. There were some notable holdouts — Chicago and Detroit — but there was no real reason to fight the arrival of evening baseball. Crosley Field and the Reds were able to parlay the night games into additional revenue and popularity, which was a big deal for a franchise that had always struggled to stay relevant..

One of the more interesting features was found in Crosley Field — a 15-degree slope in left field known simply as the Terrace. These were more common during the early days of Major League Baseball, when filed dimensions and bleacher locations were fluid. Some players hated the slope, but Frank Robinson loved it.

Crosley Field eventually fell on tough times in the 1950s with the rise of the automobile. There was no parking around the stadium, and the neighborhood it was located in had slid into dangerous territory. Attendance woes prompted the move to a new stadium, but if you have ever caught a ballgame after work on a weekday, thank the Reds.