Center Field at Griffith Stadium

I pulled up an article from MLB.com regarding the end of the center field mound, Tal's Hill, at Minute Maid Park. In the article, the writer included some historic examples of ballpark quirks. One of the examples is in D.C. at Griffith Stadium. Here is the write up:

When a fire destroyed a wooden baseball park in northern Washington, D.C., the owners of the Senators built a new steel structure in the span of half a season. But when they built what came to be known as Griffith Stadium, they were unable to convince the owners of five duplex houses to sell their property in center field. That's how one of the strangest center field walls in baseball was born, with a section of fence jutting directly back into the field at a right angle to accommodate the row of houses. The houses were so close to the field that one of them featured a yellow line of paint on its exterior as part of the stadium's ground rules. The landlords showed their entrepreneurial sides by constructing bleachers in their backyards. Griffith Stadium was demolished in 1965, but many of the homes on U Street are still standing today.

Until next time!