Exhibition Stadium--Temporary or Permanent?

[PeteU]

A quick question for anyone in the know-how.

When Exhibition Stadium first started hosting the Blue Jays in 1977, was it viewed as a permanent stadium for the forseeable future?

Or had the Toronto folks already have their sights set on a new stadium from the get-go?

[thegame4219]

A quick question for anyone in the know-how.

When Exhibition Stadium first started hosting the Blue Jays in 1977, was it viewed as a permanent stadium for the forseeable future?

Or had the Toronto folks already have their sights set on a new stadium from the get-go?
it was to be a permanent stadium but it was a colossal failure. In terms of baseball left field seats were 750+ feet away from the plate. Because of the failure that was CNE Stadium it allowed the Jays and the Argos to force the city of Toronto to build skydome in order to keep them

[zengator]

When I was a kid, I had a poster hanging by my bed showing all then-current major league ballparks. Even then, i was amazed that a MLB team could play in such a poor venue for baseball. I haven't seen many pictures of the place, but I remember the photo on the poster made it look like a high school football stadium on steriods.

Skydome was certainly a huuuuuge improvement...

[Urbanshocker13]

http://www.baseball-fever.com/images/attach/jpg.gifhttp://www.baseball-fever.com/images/attach/jpg.gifhttp://www.baseball-fever.com/images/attach/jpg.gif


It sure looked like a horrible place for a ballgame!

[Solair Wright]

I think Exhibition Stadium was temporary. It had the outfield seats so far away from the playing field and home plate, which was one criticism of the Ex. Take a look at how far away people are if their seats are overlooking center field, as described in this picture.

http://www.ballparktour.com/Exhibition112.jpg

Yikes, that's quite far for outfield seats, if you ask me. Especially if you're unlucky enough to get tickets for the center field seats.

[Calif_Eagle]

As was the case with Cleveland Municipal Stadium, Exhibition Stadium in Toronto was never designed with baseball in mind. Just looking at the pattern of the seats & field sightlines it is clearly a football stadium. It was the longtime home of the Toronto Argonauts of the CFL & hosted many Grey Cup games as well. Its clear from all the above photos that baseball there was done of either pure necessity &/or for extra seating capacity ala' the Los Angeles Coliseum's days as the home of the Dodgers. I cant imagine the original ownership group of the Blue Jays didnt have a new stadium in mind from the day they were awarded the franchise &/or first saw the baseball layout at their new home. I was an MLB (Cleveland Indians) fan back then but my memory fails me as to whether or not the suitability of the "Ex" as a baseball stadium got a lot of media play back then. I do know from reading threads over on the Forums at the CFL's official site that the "Ex" was poorly maintained, had severe structural & infrastructure problems at the end of its life as a pro sports home field. It'll take a Blue Jay fan to settle the question, but I believe the "Ex" was intended as a temporary home field only.

[Elvis]

The "center field" seats, otherwise known as the north grandstand was built in 1948--the aggressive cantilevered roof was quite daring engineering for its day.

http://www.ballparktour.com/Exhibition114.jpg

The stadium itself goes back to 1879, although it was rebuilt twice over the years.

Here's the second grandstand, built in 1907 and destroyed by fire in 1946, which led to the final version we all know (shown above), built two years later:

http://www.ballparktour.com/CNE_10.jpg

And here's the original "center field" seats, built just after the Civil War:

http://www.ballparktour.com/Exhibition113.jpg

Quite an historic stadium the Blue Jays played in actually.

[sflnyc]

Though I never attended a game in Exhibition Stadium (I was outside the facility once), saw many a Yankee-Blue Jay game on TV from there and always wondered what the view was like from the outfield with seats that were hidden behind the LF fence (and thus not sold) but that meant the “Front Row” of seats was like 10-15 rows up and you were already way behind the fence. As for the centerfield seats, the game could have only been a rumor.

I have a write-up in a book on the dome history for Toronto (I’ll have to find it and scan it) that I can attach at another time. But basically from when Jack Kent Cooke (yes, the Redskins owner) owned the minor league Maple Leaf’s in the early 1960’s there was talk of a domed stadium to attract a MLB team.

[sflnyc]

Here is a couple of scanned pages from The Sporting News "Take Me Out to the Ball Park" the first of which is text discussing the attempts to (1) attract a MLB team to Toronto, and (2) to build a domed stadium. Second image is a photo of Exhibition Stadium.