INDIANS STADIUM

Baseball in Cleveland was played in the cold, cramped, mammoth Cleveland Municipal Stadium for several years. "The Mistake by the Lake," as they called it, had been the home of Cleveland baseball since it first opened in 1932, although the Indians still played some games at old League Park until 1947. Its center-field bleachers, known as "the Dawg Pound" during the NFL Cleveland Browns games, were so distant that no batter ever reached them with a home run. Cleveland Municipal Stadium had more than 74,000 seats (more than any other major league park) but few of those seats were filled when the Indians played. That all changed when Jacobs Field, which has only 43,345 seats, opened in 1994. Attendance suddenly boomed. In their first year at the new park, Cleveland averaged 39,121 fans per game. The final 28 games before a season-ending strike all sold out. Jacobs Field is a baseball stadium located in the middle of downtown Cleveland, Ohio. Jacobs Field occupies 12 acres of the 28 acre Gateway Sports & Entertainment Complex, which also includes the Arena at Gateway, home of the NBA's Cavaliers. The $362-million project ($169 million for Jacobs Field) was intended to revitalize downtown Cleveland. In 1995, Jacobs Field hosted its first World Series, where the Cleveland Indians lost to the Atlanta Braves. In 1997, Jacobs Field was the site of the Major League Baseball All-Star Game. The Indians' move to "The Jake" coincided with the coming of age of an outstanding young team, and the Indians soon became the hottest ticket in Cleveland. The ballpark set a major league record between 1995 and early 2001 by selling out 455 straight games. Demand for tickets was so great that they once sold out all 81 home games before opening day. Jacobs Field is an urban ballpark in the truest sense, both architecturally and aesthetically. Built within the physical boundaries of three main streets in downtown Cleveland (Ontario to the west, Carnegie to the south, and E. 9th Street to the east), Jacobs Field offers a fan-friendly facility featuring an intimate environment. The seats at Jacobs Field are among the most comfortable in the game with more leg room due to wider aisles. In addition, better elevation between rows means clear and unobstructed sight lines to the field. A truly unique feature at Jacobs Field is the angled seating sections. Located just beyond the dugouts in both the lower and upper decks, the seats are angled 8 to 12 degrees, offering fans who sit in these sections a view of the middle of the diamond minus the crick in the neck. Despite its modern luxuries, Jacobs Field has some of the features of classic ballparks. The field is asymmetrical, and bleachers sit atop a 19-foot left-field wall. Because the park isn’t completely enclosed, fans can look out over the buildings of downtown Cleveland. The ballpark was built with a combination of public and private support, including a 15-year Cuyahoga County sin tax, tax-exempt Gateway Bonds, and prepaid leasing on the luxury boxes. The name of the park was sold to Indians owner Richard E. Jacobs.