Cleveland Municipal Stadium
- David Hegler
- May 2
- 5 min read
The venue was an enigma. Built in an age when the automobile was all the rage, it was vast enough to hold massive crowds for football games yet remained a bit too large for a baseball team that was rarely a contender. Still, Cleveland Municipal Stadium provided the backdrop for some of sports most memorable moments. This is its story.
The Conception
It was the Roaring '20's and America was in the thick of the automobile age. The leaders of Cleveland had been looking for a suitable site to build a stadium large enough to hold crowds much greater than League Park's 22,500 capacity could hold.
On June 30, 1930, ground broke on a remote site right on the banks of Lake Erie. The scattered car parts and tires were removed and the landfill was dug up to make room for a 78,000 seat monstrosity. Led by the dual architectural firms of Osborn Engineering and Walker and Weeks, Cleveland Municipal Stadium opened its doors just 370 days and $3 million later on July 3, 1931.
The Glory Years
The first event was a historic one for the city as Max Schmeling beat Young Stribling in Cleveland's first ever heavyweight bout. The stadium didn't have any permanent tenants in those early days, but it still attracted its fare share of temporary occupants. One of those organizations was baseball's Cleveland Indians.
The Indians first played in the cavernous new stadium on July 31, 1932, succumbing to Lefty Grove and the Philadelphia A's 1-0 in front of 76,979, just a day after attracting 6,000 at League Park. Although they played all of 1933 in Cleveland Municipal Stadium, the Indians preferred to play there only on the weekends and holidays to accommodate larger crowds until moving in permanently in 1947.
Meanwhile, Municipal Stadium played host to some of baseball's more memorable moments of the era. Bob Feller struck out a record 18 Tigers in a shocking 4-1 loss on October 2, 1938. Joe DiMaggio's historic 56-game hitting streak ended there on July 17, 1941
Meanwhile, the NFL's Rams had been picking up steam. They used to play their home games at Municipal Stadium until moving to League Park in 1942, but by 1945 they had a very good reason to move: they were in the NFL Championship Game for the first time ever.
At first, tickets flew off the shelves with 30,000 buying stubs in no time. But are the weather forecast became clearer, ticket sales ground to a halt. With a blizzard on the way, Rams business manager Bill Johns stopped at every farm that he could to collect as much hay as possible to protect the field from the frozen temperatures and ice cold winds coming off of Lake Erie. The 1,000 bales of hay that he collected could only do so much as both the rams and redskins struggled to find any offense all day long.
While the Rams found their way to a 15-14 victory for the NFL championship, things weren't going so well in the press box. The windows got so foggy that the writers were forced to go into the stands to watch the game, braving the cold the rest of the way. As the 29,000 fans watched their Rams win their first championship, few could have known that change was in the air.
A Cleveland taxi magnate named Mickey McBride had bought a team in the upstart All American Football Conference and had hired the region's hottest coach, Paul Brown. With season ticket sales being in the 200's, the Rams front office saw the writing on the wall, packed up their belongings and moved to California.
With the city's football attention all to themselves, the Browns immediately began to build a loyal following while winning the AAFC title in each year of the conference's existence. Even when they moved on to the NFL in 1950, the Browns found a way to win that championship too, ironically beating the Rams 30-28 at Municipal Stadium.
In the middle of that incredible stretch, the Indians made it to the 1948 World Series. While they would clinch the title in six games at Boston, the Indians were buoyed by incredible home performances by pitchers Gene Bearden and Steve Gromek, both of whom won after gutting through all nine innings.
The Indians returned to the Fall Classic the same year that they first hosted the All-Star Game, 1954. However, their AL record 111 wins did little to stop the Giants from sweeping them. After that year, Municipal Stadium would host the All-Star Game three more times in 1963, 1967 and lastly in a strike-shortened 1981. Earlier that year, on May 15, 1981, Cleveland's Len Barker pitched the tenth perfect game in MLB history, beating Toronto 3-0.
Meanwhile, the Browns continued to win. From 1950 through 1968, they won four league championships while hosting the title game in 1950, 1952, 1954, 1964 and 1968, winning all but the last one. In that era a host of legendary players such as Otto Graham, Ollie Matson, Lou Groza and Jim Brown impressed the massive crowds that would flock to Municipal Stadium every Sunday.
Compared with the previous decade, the 1970's was a lost decade for the Browns as they seldom made the playoffs. The lone bright spot was that Municipal Stadium was the backdrop for the very first Monday Night Football game on September 21, 1970. The Browns' subsequent 21-10 triumph over the Joe Namath-led Jets only made the evening even sweeter for Clevelanders.
By the start of the '80's, their luck would become much harder. Plays such as "Red Right 88" and soul-crushing drives such as "the Drive", continuously left the Browns oh-so-close to where they ultimately wanted to go: the Super Bowl. No matter how hard coach Marty Schottenheimer or quarterback Bernie Kosar tried, they never could get over the hump. Each loss only magnified the fact that the city hadn't experienced a championship since Jim Brown led the Browns to victory in 1964. As the years crept on bye, patience waned.
A Sad Demise
By 1994, Browns owner Art Modell had had enough. He had grown weary of keeping the stadium up to date and pleading with the city's leaders for money for a new stadium. His last straw was when Cleveland gave the Indians money to build Jacobs Field in 1994.
In the middle of the 1995 season, Modell stunned Cleveland by announcing that the Browns would leave for Baltimore at season's end. The rest of the season had a funereal flare to it with much of the city feeling betrayed. The Browns hosted their last game at Municipal Stadium on December 16, 1995.
Officials were so concerned about the antics of the Dawg Pound, the Browns' much-beloved fanbase, that they made the teams switch sides one they reached midfield. It wasn't until after the final seconds had ticked off the clock of the 26-10 win over the Bengals that the Browns sprinted over to their fanbase, embracing as many as possible. For the wrecking ball was well on its way. Today, the "new" Cleveland Browns play where the old one used to play, in a newer stadium built on the very spot where Municipal Stadium once stood.
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