The Federal League Kansas City Packers and Chicago Chi-Feds played the first game ever at Weeghman Park on April 23, 1914, to an overflow crowd of 21,000, much fanfare, and chilly weather. “Chicago took the Federal League to its bosom yesterday,” wrote Sam Weller in the Chicago Tribune, “and claimed it as a mother would claim a long lost child.”1 The ballpark’s capacity was 18,000, but Weller estimated that 3,000 more fans were standing in the back of the grandstand or on the field. Thousands more had to be turned away, but many took residence in windows and on roofs of nearby buildings.2
“Owners [Charles] Weeghman and [William] Walker of the north side club and President [James] Gilmore of the new league were so overjoyed with the spectacle that they almost wept,” Weller wrote, “and there is little doubt that it was an epochal day in the history of the national game.”3 Weeghman realized early on that his venue wouldn’t be big enough to accommodate the massive crowd, but longtime business manager Charles Williams, who spent 25 years in the Cubs front office, had everything working beautifully, “just as if the whole thing had been rehearsed.”4
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