FORT WORTH, Texas — Fort Worth's LaGrave Field baseball stadium will soon meet its fate with a wrecking ball. But first, you can take home a row of seats, or maybe a whole section.
No, seriously: Rows and rows of seats from the defunct ballpark, plus some Fort Worth Cats-branded handrails are up for auction this week through LSOAuctions. The starting bids are listed at $55, and the auctions were set to begin Tuesday morning.
The auction comes just weeks before the stadium will be demolished.
The Tarrant Regional Water District Board of Directors last week approved a contract with Lloyd D. Nabors Demolition. The company will tear down the stadium but preserve Cats memorabilia to be auctioned off, according to Darrell Beason, chief operations officer with the Water District.
Several advocates, including Jim Lane, a now-deceased longtime Water District board member, fought to preserve the stadium after the Water District took ownership of it in 2019. The Fort Worth Cats parted ways with the stadium in 2014 and the field has been vacant ever since.
However, the board voted in June to demolish the stadium after a consultant tasked with recommending economic development strategies tied to the Central City Flood Control Project recommended it be torn down.
The land the park sits on will soon become prime real estate as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers works to turn 500 acres between downtown Fort Worth and Northside into waterfront property.
While the LaGrave Field property dates back to the 1920s, the current abandoned ballpark is the third rendition of the facility on the site. The first ballpark opened in 1926 when the Fort Worth Panthers of the Texas League needed a bigger stadium to accommodate its growing fanbase.
In 1949, La Grave Field burned and flooded days apart. The Brooklyn Dodgers, which in 1946 affiliated with the Fort Worth club, paid for the stadium's reconstruction.
The second La Grave Field opened in 1950. It was the first baseball stadium in the American southwest designed for television broadcasts.
The ballpark was the temporary home of the Dallas Rangers from 1960 through 1962.
The Fort Worth Cats, newspaper writers' abbreviation for the Panthers' nickname, played their final game in 1964. La Grave Field was torn down in 1967.
Babe Ruth, Jackie Robinson, Willie Mays, Ty Cobb, Lou Gehrig and Joe DiMaggio are among the hall-of-famers who played on the field in its golden era.