Hobbyist Builds Models of Old Ballparks : And a Modern Mechanical Pitcher and Batter That Go to Bat

ST. LOUIS —  For the baseball fan who dreams of belting a homer in one of America’s grand old ballparks, Carl Schoen’s wooden models may be the answer.

Schoen has painstakingly reconstructed models of many of the old fields--such as Sportsman’s Park in St. Louis, Crosley Field in Cincinnati, the Baker Bowl and Shibe Park in Philadelphia and Lakefront Stadium, home of the Chicago Cubs in the 1880s.

Now Schoen hopes his hobby will pay off because of his latest innovation.

“I have a little mechanical game that I invented and have a patent on,” said Schoen. “I have a mechanical pitcher and batter. The mechanical part is important because it recreates the physics of baseball.

“When you hit the ball, if you’re a tenth of a second late or early, you get the pop fly. It’s all in the timing.”

Schoen, 49, built his first stadium in 1967 and since then has constructed 12 more and drawn up plans for two others.

“I like baseball,” explained Schoen, who lives about 25 miles south of St. Louis in Sulphur Springs, Mo.

Schoen sets up tournaments locally around St. Louis.

“People enjoy playing it,” he said. “I had eight on display at the First National Bank in Belleville (Ill.) and it was very, very popular. Where else could you see an 1880s ballpark?”

Among his other recreations are Robinson Stadium, where the St. Louis Cardinals played until 1920, and Redland Field, which is the same park as Crosley Field before the Reds were sold and the newly named stadium extended the upper deck to the foul poles.

Schoen also has built Boston’s Fenway Park and Braves Field. He created and sold models of Wrigley Field in Chicago and Ebbets Field, home of the Brooklyn Dodgers. Among his early creations was a model of Griffith Stadium, home of the Washington Senators.

“The Robinson Field is the best,” said Schoen. “I’ve got numbers on the scoreboards that you can’t read with a naked eye. I’ve got windows, clubhouses, flags, the fence all around, exit ways. It’s quite good.”

Most of the stadiums are 6 feet long, 4 feet wide and stand about 10 inches tall. Schoen uses balsa wood for his stadiums. One inch equals 20 feet on his scale.

He has drawn up the plans for others to build parks, including a large model of the Polo Grounds in New York, which Tim Heitman of Imperial, Mo., built.

Gordon Tindalle of Decorah, Iowa, used Schoen’s plans to construct a “fancy” Robinson Field.

“It took him a year but it’s a nice one,” Schoen said.

Such work is costly.

“When you work with wood, it’s pretty expensive,” Schoen said. “A cabinetmaker charges about $20 a hour so go from there. It sometimes takes a month to build one. Some are worth up to a couple of hundred dollars.”

Schoen used a public library to get the details for his stadiums.

“I use microfilm from old newspapers, going back to the 1880s,” Schoen said. “I’ve gone to the Library of Congress and looked at the maps section. They have insurance maps from companies. Every 20 years or so, they would make a map of buildings in a given city. “I used the maps for Robinson Field and drawings of the Louisville ballpark (Louisville Baseball Grounds) when the Louisville Colonels were in the National League in the 1890s.

“I’ve got plans for a Kansas City ballpark, called Exposition Park, when they were in the National League in the early 1890s.”

Future endeavors, Schoen said, include building Kansas City’s old Municipal Stadium.

“That’s a real interesting park,” he said. “It had a very high grandstand, much higher than old Sportsman’s Park. It was a very beautiful park.”