Haight Street Grounds

You are standing near the former site of the Haight Street Grounds, one of the earliest and most vibrant sports stadiums in San Francisco history. Despite the name, this professional baseball park was not actually on Haight Street; it occupied a large block bounded by Stanyan, Waller, Shrader, and Frederick Streets. When it opened in 1887, it served as a primary destination for weekend crowds who arrived on new cable car lines seeking entertainment at the gateway to Golden Gate Park. The stadium quickly became a hub for professional baseball, hosting high-stakes league games that drew as many as 10,000 spectators to a neighborhood that, only a few years earlier, had been little more than open dairy land and sand dunes.