LOST INWOOD 

—Dyckman Oval Baseball: Inwood’s link to the Major Leagues–

TUESDAY MAY 6th, 7:30PM at THE INWOOD FARM

Greetings! It’s baseball season. And this month at LOST INWOOD we’ll hear about the amazing local ballpark that became part of Major League history.

At the dawn of the 1900s, when the IRT arrived in Inwood, the empty fields of North Manhattan became a magnet for downtown sports lovers. Ballfields sprang up as teams established diamonds along the newly opened subway route. In 1917 the Kingsbridge Athletics built a ballpark at Nagle and Academy Street and christened it “Dyckman Oval.” For downtowners its location was just perfect, just a block north of the Dyckman Street #1 station. On weekends thousands of fans would come to Inwood and the Oval for top-level semipro games.

During its storied lifetime the ballpark hosted dozens of future Hall-of-Famers, peaking in the mid 1930s when the New York Cubans battled the Pittsburg Crawfords for two games of the 1935 Negro National League World Series. Babe Ruth played there multiple times, as did local hero Lou Gehrig.

We’ll see newly discovered rare photos and talk about the teams, the players and the stories of this celebrated yet largely forgotten ballpark. Don’t miss it! Tuesday May 6th 7:30pm at THE INWOOD FARM. It’s free to the public, but reservations are highly recommended.