Swayne Field Opens

On This Day | Posted by: Tedd Long | 07/03/2025

1909: Opening day at Swayne Field, Toledo's tenth home to organized baseball since 1883. Noah H. Swayne, the donor of the land, hoped to change Toledo's poor baseball image by constructing the finest ballpark the minors had ever known. Swayne Field had a double-decked concrete grandstand. Out over the left field fence was the Red Man Tobacco Factory and a pile of coal. The only person to ever hit a ball into those coal piles was Sam Jethroe.