Magical History Tour: Of Beatles And Ballparks

A common Seamhead quest is to see a ballgame at every major league ballpark. Some attempt to do it in one season; others (myself included) take their time. And some aficionados sign up for those bus tours that promise eight ballparks in eight days; in other words, if it’s Tuesday, this must be Detroit.

That’s a good way to check of a lot of boxes but I imagine it would be exhausting – frustrating too. While one might not want to linger in Detroit, other cities invite exploration which can’t be done on a bus tour with a tight schedule.

Even more exhausting would be the itinerary of a rock band. You might have seen people wearing T-shirts that list the dates and cities of such-and-such band’s American tour, European tour, world tour or whatever. I doubt that the musicians on such tours are attempting to visit every major league ballpark in America, but if they are so inclined, such tours give them a head start. Consider the Beatles, who toured America in 1964, 1965, and 1966, and began the tradition of rock bands playing at ballparks.

In February 1964 the Beatles appeared live on Ed Sullivan’s Sunday night variety show . Teens had become aware of the British combo so the ratings that night were boffo and the appetite of American youth was whetted for a tour. Fun Fact:contrary to popular belief, the Beatles’ appearance on the Sullivan show was not their first on American TV, as they had already appeared on Jack Paar’s late-night talk show on January 3 ^rd . They were not there in person, however. Paar had filmed them on a visit to London and showed the footage on his show (today Paar is largely remembered as Johnny Carson’s predecessor).

The 1964 Beatles tour was mostly at indoor arenas. Beginning on August 19 ^th in San Francisco at the Cow Palace (where the Republicans had nominated Barry Goldwater for President a month earlier), the 31-day tour was comprised of 25 cities and 32 shows. The outdoor venues included the Hollywood Bowl (capacity 17,500) and Forest Hills Stadium (capacity 14,000) in Queens, which hosted the US National Tennis Championships (n/k/a the US Open) a few days after the Beatles’ August 28 and 29 shows.

Of all the outdoor venues where the Beatles performed in 1964, the largest was the Gator Bowl (62,000 capacity) in Jacksonville. The first (and in 1964 the only) major league ballpark they played was Municipal Stadium in Kansas City. Hard to believe, but it was Charlie Finley’s doing. September 17 was originally an off day for the Beatles but Finley made them an offer ($150,000) they couldn’t refuse, roughly three times their regular fee.

Though 35,000 tickets went on sale, only a little more than 20,000 were sold. Finley lost a lot of money on the deal, but his main motivation was public relations. His advertising slogan for the concert was “Today’s Beatles Fans Are Tomorrow’s Baseball Fans.”  Obviously, it didn’t work, as the A’s lit out for Oakland after the 1967 season.

Although the Beatles played Philadelphia, they did not play at Connie Mack Stadium. Their appearance at the Convention Center on September 2 ^nd , however, did have a bearing on a game played at Connie Mack Stadium that evening.

At the beginning of September 1964, the Houston Colt .45s (with a record of 57-75) were going nowhere, and they were going to Philadelphia, which some cynics would assert amounts to the same thing. Actually, for better or worse, Philadelphia was a happening place at that time. A late summer race riot had ripped through North Philadelphia, where Connie Mack Stadium was located, but the Phillies appeared to be on a glide path towards their first National League pennant since the 1950 Whiz Kids. The pennant was theirs to lose…and they did just that, thanks to a ten-game losing streak in late September.

The Phillies were not the talk of the town on September 1 ^st , however, because the Beatles concert was scheduled for the next day. The concert promoters were worried about getting the Beatles into the Convention Center. A ruse was devised by the Deputy Police Commissioner, one Frank Rizzo, who would later gain fame/notoriety as Police Commissioner as well as Mayor.

The plan was to sneak the Beatles into the Convention Center directly from Atlantic City, their last concert venue. A decoy motorcade traveled the 60-mile trip to Philadelphia on the White Horse Pike while the Fab Four were traversing the parallel Black Horse Pike inside a Hackney’s Seafood truck which delivered the boys to the food service entrance at the Convention Center.

It was a clever idea since Hackney’s was a legendary boardwalk institution, allegedly the biggest (seating for 3,200) seafood restaurant in the world. Denizens of Philadelphia had seen the trucks before so they would not suspect anything. But Quaker City Beatlemaniacs should have known something was fishy. It was almost a year to the day since the restaurant had burned down!  So what would one of their trucks be doing in Philadelphia?  Or anywhere else?

Meanwhile, rumors abounded as to which Philadelphia hotel was housing the fab four. On September 1 ^st , crowds gathered outside all the major hotels in center city. Surely, the moptops must be housed at one of them. Nope, foiled again!  The Beatles stayed at the home of Hy Lit, a famous Philadelphia disc jockey who had organized the concert.

Unfortunately, the Houston Colts were staying in center city, as did all the visiting major league teams. A rumor passed on by a local radio personality the day before the concert hinted that the Beatles were staying at the same hotel where the Colts were lodged. Yes, even back then we had media misinformation. As a result, the short trip to Connie Mack Stadium took the Colts much longer but they managed to get there by game time. They might have wished they hadn’t, as they lost 4-3 thanks to four Phillies solo home runs (struck by Johnny Callison, Wes Covington, Frank Thomas, and Dick Allen).

The following evening (September 2 ^nd ) the Phillies-Colts game outdrew the Beatles concert (12,616 to 12,037). I’m assuming the Beatles were warmly welcomed, but if they were booed anywhere in North America, it was probably in Philadelphia.

The Beatles wrapped up their American tour at New York’s Paramount Theater on September 20 ^th . The next day the Phillies began that infamous 10-game losing streak.

Speaking of the Houston Colts, Colt Stadium, the team’s temporary home while the Astrodome was being built, was rejected as being too capacious for a concert, even though it wasn’t that much bigger than Municipal Stadium in Kansas City. What about Buffalo Stadium (14,000 capacity), the old minor league home of the Houston Buffaloes (more commonly referred to as the Buffs)?

Whoops!  That was torn down the year before. So Buffless Houston was rebuffed by the Beatles!  Instead, the September 18 ^th slot on the tour was given to Dallas. Playing second fiddle to Big D is not acceptable in the Bayou City, so one wonders why some big bucks oilman didn’t step up a la Charlie Finley.

For the record, the largest venue the Beatles played in 1964 was the Gator Bowl (62,000 capacity) in Jacksonville on September 11 ^th . Unfortunately, a recent hurricane had damaged the area and around 9,000 of the 32,000 ticketholders could not get to the stadium.

By 1965 the demand for Beatles concert tickets was even greater so large outdoor venues were more popular. The second Beatles tour started August 15 ^th at Shea Stadium, home of the Mets, and adjacent to the New York World’s Fair. The crowd of 55,600 was not only the largest attendance at any Beatles performance, it was the largest at any concert performance. Shea was also the largest venue on the 1965 tour. FUN FACT:The all-time attendance record was broken by Led Zeppelin at Tampa Stadium on May 5, 1973.

After two shows in Toronto, the Beatles flew to Atlanta where they performed at Atlanta Stadium (later known as Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium) the next day. This was the home of the Braves…sort of. The Milwaukee Braves had already arranged to move to Atlanta. They played an exhibition game against the Tigers at just-completed Atlanta Stadium on April 9 ^th on their way north to Milwaukee after breaking camp in West Palm Beach, but that was their only appearance in Atlanta in 1965.

After going through the motions in their final season in Milwaukee, the Braves made Atlanta Stadium their full-time home in 1966. When the Beatles performed there in 1965 it was the home field of the Atlanta Crackers in their final minor league season.

Other ballparks on the tour were Comiskey Park on August 20 ^th (two shows: 25,000 in the afternoon, 35,000 at night) and Metropolitan Stadium (25,000) in Bloomington, Minnesota the following night. The home park of the Twins, it would host the World Series a little more than six weeks later.

Unlike 1964, the Beatles scheduled Houston for a concert. Now you might be thinking that the Astrodome, which had opened a several months earlier, was the ideal venue for them since it had a climate-controlled capacity of 54,816 (62,439 in its football configuration). Unfortunately, the venue selected was the Sam Houston Coliseum (two shows attracted a grand total of 22,000), best known for professional wrestling. Now you might assume the Astros were scheduled that night.

Nope, it was an off day, and the Astros embarked on a long road trip the next day. So the Dome was available and there was plenty of time for post-concert clean-up.  A pity that Beatles fans in Space City were denied the opportunity to see the Fab Four complemented by the animated scoreboard of the Astrodome. Perhaps Judge Roy Hofheinz, head honcho of the Houston Sports Association, the governing body of the Astros and the Dome, was not a music lover.

By 1966 large outdoor venues were the norm for the Beatles tour. The crowd of 30,000 at Cleveland’s Municipal Stadium on August 14 was less than half the facility’s capacity but it was a mob scene compared to a typical Indians crowd (11,153/game in 1966).

The next day the Beatles moved on to D.C. (later known as RFK) Stadium and performed before 32,164 fans. This would have been a small crowd for a Washington Redskins game but by the standards of the Senators (who averaged 7,249/game that season) it was enormous.

August 21 ^st must have been a grueling day, as the Beatles did two shows, a matinee at Cincinnati’s Crosley Field (to make up for a rainout the previous evening) in front of 15,000, and an evening concert with 23,000 in attendance at St. Louis’ Busch Memorial Stadium, which had only been open for business a few months.

On August 23 ^rd the Beatles returned to Shea Stadium, where they played before 44,600 fans. FUN FACT:Paul McCartney appeared at Shea Stadium in 2008 for Last Play at Shea. He was one of various artists (the others were Billy Joel, Tony Bennett, Garth Brooks, Roger Daltrey, John Mayer, John Mellencamp and Steven Tyler) who performed in front of a full house of 55,000 during the stadium’s final year.

The Beatles capped off their 1966 tour by playing in front of 45,000 at Dodger Stadium on August 28 ^th , and 25,000 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco on August 29 ^th . The fans at the latter venue saw not just the last concert on the tour but the last public appearance of the Beatles in concert.

Given the Beatles’ appearances at so many baseball parks in 1966, it is ironic that the largest venue of the 1966 tour was Philadelphia’s JFK Stadium, which was then the annual home of the Army-Navy game and had a seating capacity of 102,000. Only 60,000 seats were available for the concert, however.

During their three tours, the Beatles performed at 11 home parks of the 20 major league teams. Not bad for a quartet that probably never heard of the infield fly rule or hitting the cutoff man.

For those of you keeping score at home, the Beatles missed out on four classic ballparks (Yankee Stadium, Fenway Park, Wrigley Field, Tiger Stadium), as well as Memorial Stadium in Baltimore, County Stadium in Milwaukee, Forbes Field in Pittsburgh, Connie Mack Stadium in Philadelphia, Colt Stadium and the Astrodome in Houston, and Anaheim Stadium, which came on line in April of 1966. Of all the big-league cities the Beatles visited, no matter the venue, the only one they bypassed was Milwaukee. It was a classic case of adding insult to injury: Not only did Milwaukee lose the Braves, they never got the Beatles!

I think it’s safe to say that the Beatles led the Rock and Roll League in ballparks at the end of their 1966 tour. This, of course, leads to the question of the current leader. My guess would be the Beatles’ old British Invasion compatriots, the Rolling Stones. Like the Beatles, their first American tour was in 1964. Unlike the Beatles, they continued to tour after 1966. They kept it up through the 1970s, the 1980s, the 1990s, the 2000s, the 2010s, and the 2020s. In fact, they have a concert scheduled for later this year. Appropriately enough, the tour is sponsored by AARP.

So the Stones have more than likely performed at more major league ballparks than the Beatles (or any other band) simply because they have had more opportunities.

But that is a research topic for another day. Not sure I’m up to it, but if you’re intrigued, have at it.