Slag Pile Field
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Slag Pile Field (officially West End Park) was a baseball ground located on land owned by the Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Company (TCI) on 6th Street between 1st Avenue North and the Alabama Great Southern Railroad tracks.
The field and a few wooden bleachers were leased, in 60-day terms, to the first owners of the Birmingham Barons, who played there from the mid-1880s until the completion of Rickwood Field in 1910. The park earned its nickname for the piles of furnace slag outside the outfield fences, which served as free seating for those who didn't want to pay for seats in the bleachers.
References
- Barra, Allen (2010) Rickwood Field: A Century in America's Oldest Ballpark. New York: W. W. Norton & Company ISBN 9780393069334