Riverfront Stadium

"The Home of the Big Red Machine"
"The Jungle"

The Stadium in 1980

Former names

Riverfront Stadium (1970–96)
Cinergy Field (1996–2002)

Location

201 East Pete Rose Way, Cincinnati 45202

Coordinates

39°5′48″N 84°30′30″W / 39.09667°N 84.50833°W

Owner

City of Cincinnati

Capacity

52,952 (baseball, 1970–2000)
59,754 (football)
39,000 (baseball, 2001–02)

Field size

1970–2000
Left field – 330 ft (100 m)
Left-center field – 375 ft (114 m)
Center field – 404 ft (123 m)
Right-center field – 375 ft (114 m)
Right field – 330 ft (100 m)
Backstop – 51 ft (16 m)

2001–2002
Left field – 325 ft (99 m)
Left-center field – 370 ft (110 m)
Center field – 393 ft (120 m)
Right-center field – 373 ft (114 m)
Right field – 325 ft (99 m)
Backstop – 41 ft (12 m)

Surface

The Big Red Machine

", as the Reds were often called in the 1970s.

Construction began on February 1, 1968, and was completed at a cost of less than $50 million. Riverfront's grand opening was held on June 30, 1970, an 8–2 Reds loss to the

Cleveland Indians

In September 1996, Riverfront Stadium was renamed "Cinergy Field" in a sponsorship deal with

Greater Cincinnati energy company Cinergy. In 2001, to make room for Great American Ball Park, the seating capacity at Cinergy Field was reduced to 39,000. There was a huge in-play wall in center field visible after the renovations, to serve as the batter's eye

. The stadium was demolished by implosion on December 29, 2002.

History

Riverfront was a multi-purpose, circular

St. Louis, Atlanta–Fulton County Stadium in Atlanta, Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh, Shea Stadium in New York and Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium in Washington, D.C., all opened within a few years of each other and were largely indistinguishable from one another; in particular, it was often confused with fellow Ohio River

cookie-cutter Three Rivers Stadium by sportscasters because of the two stadium's similar names and similar designs.

One feature of Riverfront that distinguished it from other cookie-cutters was that the field level seats ("blue" seats) for baseball were divided in half directly behind home plate. For conversion to a football seating configuration, the third-base side stands were wheeled around clockwise on a track to the area of left field. The first-base side remained stationary. This setup provided a more rectangular zone for the football configuration.[4] The AstroTurf panels covering the tracks could be seen in left field during Reds games.

The site Riverfront Stadium sat on originally included the 2nd Street tenement, birthplace and boyhood home of cowboy singer and actor Roy Rogers, who joked that he was born "somewhere between second base and center field."

Riverfront Stadium's scoreboard was designed by

JumboTron. The playing field was originally illuminated by 1,648 thousand-watt GTE Sylvania Metalarc lamps.^[5]

Big Red Machine

The Reds moved to Riverfront Stadium midway through the 1970 season, after spending over 86 years at the intersection of Findlay Street and Western Avenue – the last 57½ of those years at Crosley Field. Riverfront quickly earned a place in Cincinnati's century-long baseball tradition as the home of one of the best teams in baseball history. The Reds had only won three pennants in their final 39 years at Crosley Field (1939, 1940, 1961) but made the World Series in Riverfront's first year (1970) and a total of four times in the stadium's first seven years, with the Reds winning back-to-back championships in 1975 and 1976. The World Series would return in 1990, with Cincinnati winning the first two of a four-game sweep of the Oakland Athletics at Riverfront.